World of Whorecraft: Battle for Asseroth

[abija]

Seeing as people have the tendency to rate addons given on what they think brought the decline... I started there at wotlk launch, Blizzard didnt give a fuck about player satisfaction then (meaning how a player rated his gm experience). The rating as there but largely nobody cared about it as long as you did good work (and didnt slack), that was a good time. After that they started to give more weight to customer satisfaction whoch meant you had to kiss the players ass and you could se that in the stuff they implemented, so I would sy wotlk was the start of the decline.

Many things they implemented (which I found unecessary) were things they did to lessen the gm workload.

That's not because of giving more weight to customer satisfaction, time spent talking to GMs costs Blizzard money. That's the reason the most common "ticket generators" were made idiot proof asap.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

TBC had huge non-linear dungeons as well, such as Karazhan. I think you're looking at Vanilla with rose tinted glasses right now. Most Vanilla dungeons were linear corridors as well. Some were short, some were filled to the brim with trash (especially the level 60 dungeons where you didn't need the XP anymore) and a few of them were real dungeon crawls of any notable worth. TBC didn't alter that formula much at all tbh, just made the leveling dungeons less trashy in general. OTOH TBC dungeons weren't banal tank-n-spank shit like everything in Vanilla was since they made the encounters more mechanical and interesting.

It's not rose-tinted glasses. Karazhan was a raid, wasn't it? Was it even a regular dungeon? In vanilla, you had a whole bunch of non-linear dungeons, besides Blackrock Depths you also had Stratholme, Blackrock Spire, Maraudon, Wailing Caverns, Uldaman, Dire Maul, etc, which were to at least some degree non-linear and complex. In TBC, most common dungeons were a corridor.

 

[Cromwell]

Seeing as people have the tendency to rate addons given on what they think brought the decline... I started there at wotlk launch, Blizzard didnt give a fuck about player satisfaction then (meaning how a player rated his gm experience). The rating as there but largely nobody cared about it as long as you did good work (and didnt slack), that was a good time. After that they started to give more weight to customer satisfaction whoch meant you had to kiss the players ass and you could se that in the stuff they implemented, so I would sy wotlk was the start of the decline.

Many things they implemented (which I found unecessary) were things they did to lessen the gm workload.

That's not because of giving more weight to customer satisfaction, time spent talking to GMs costs Blizzard money. That's the reason the most common "ticket generators" were made idiot proof asap.

Thats correct for blizzards side, but it also showed the players they have ust to whine enough about something and get it. When Istarted playing wow the offical answer when asking about lost items was "once or twice a year we can restore something" that obviously changed.

 

[Metro]

TBC -> Wrath -> Vanilla -> Cataclysm -> MoP ->>>>> WoD in my opinion.

I enjoyed TBC more than Wrath, but Wrath was most likely the better game.

This is the correct answer.

 

[you know what time it is]

Insert some edgy one liner to jump on the blizzard bashing bandwagon to look cool.

Starcraft 2 got me worried, Cataclysm came shortly after and by then I was well on my way to the butthurt town. Diablo 3 was a final nail in the coffin. Coincidentally all of this happened after the blizzard - activision merger, go figure.

 

[SionIV]

Insert some edgy one liner to jump on the blizzard bashing bandwagon to look cool.

Starcraft 2 got me worried, Cataclysm came shortly after and by then I was well on my way to the butthurt town. Diablo 3 was a final nail in the coffin. Coincidentally all of this happened after the blizzard - activision merger, go figure.

This.

The game changed drastically after they merged with Activision.

 

[Caim]

TBC had huge non-linear dungeons as well, such as Karazhan. I think you're looking at Vanilla with rose tinted glasses right now. Most Vanilla dungeons were linear corridors as well. Some were short, some were filled to the brim with trash (especially the level 60 dungeons where you didn't need the XP anymore) and a few of them were real dungeon crawls of any notable worth. TBC didn't alter that formula much at all tbh, just made the leveling dungeons less trashy in general. OTOH TBC dungeons weren't banal tank-n-spank shit like everything in Vanilla was since they made the encounters more mechanical and interesting.

It's not rose-tinted glasses. Karazhan was a raid, wasn't it? Was it even a regular dungeon? In vanilla, you had a whole bunch of non-linear dungeons, besides Blackrock Depths you also had Stratholme, Blackrock Spire, Maraudon, Wailing Caverns, Uldaman, Dire Maul, etc, which were to at least some degree non-linear and complex. In TBC, most common dungeons were a corridor.

Quick overview of the instances in TBC and how linear they were:

Hellfire Ramparts: Corridor with a fork at the end leading to two bosses.
Blood Furnace: Corridor with a slide back to the start.
Shattered Halls: Corridor, no backtracking option.
Slave Pens: Appears to be vast and open, is actually a wide corridor.
Underbog: Corridor with water.
Steamvault: Corridor with a fork.
Mana-Tombs: Corridor with backtracking.
Auchenai Crypts: Corridor wiht no backtracking.
Sethekk Halls: Corridor with backtracking.
Shadow Labyrinth: Corridor with no backtracking.
Arcatraz: Corridor with no backtracking.
Botanica: Corridor with no backtracking.
Mechanar: Corridor with no backtracking.
Old Hillsbrad: Actually very open and large, yet requires a very specific and linear series of events to complete the dungeon.
Black Morass: Open but pointless as it is a Defend the Dude mission.
Magister's Terrace: Corridor with no backtracking.

So that's two (being generous in one case) dungeons that are not corridors. Raids on the other hand:

Black Temple: Very large and open, multiple skippable bosses.
The Eye: Short and corridor-like, but most bosses are skippable.
Gruul's Lair: More than a lair for the boss than a full-on raid. Still is quite linear.
Hyjal Summit: Linear, but very large and open.
Karazhan: Utterly massive and non-linear, with many skippable bosses.
Magtheridon's Lair: Again more of a lair than a full-on dungeon. Has only 1 boss.
Serpentshrine Cavern: Corridor, but with a pseudo-linear corridor in two directions branching off of the main corridor.
Sunwell Plateau: Corridor.

So when a raid does it better they do it a LOT better, but even then quite a few are still very corridor-like.

 

[SionIV]

TBC had huge non-linear dungeons as well, such as Karazhan. I think you're looking at Vanilla with rose tinted glasses right now. Most Vanilla dungeons were linear corridors as well. Some were short, some were filled to the brim with trash (especially the level 60 dungeons where you didn't need the XP anymore) and a few of them were real dungeon crawls of any notable worth. TBC didn't alter that formula much at all tbh, just made the leveling dungeons less trashy in general. OTOH TBC dungeons weren't banal tank-n-spank shit like everything in Vanilla was since they made the encounters more mechanical and interesting.

It's not rose-tinted glasses. Karazhan was a raid, wasn't it? Was it even a regular dungeon? In vanilla, you had a whole bunch of non-linear dungeons, besides Blackrock Depths you also had Stratholme, Blackrock Spire, Maraudon, Wailing Caverns, Uldaman, Dire Maul, etc, which were to at least some degree non-linear and complex. In TBC, most common dungeons were a corridor.

Quick overview of the instances in TBC and how linear they were:

Hellfire Ramparts: Corridor with a fork at the end leading to two bosses.
Blood Furnace: Corridor with a slide back to the start.
Shattered Halls: Corridor, no backtracking option.
Slave Pens: Appears to be vast and open, is actually a wide corridor.
Underbog: Corridor with water.
Steamvault: Corridor with a fork.
Mana-Tombs: Corridor with backtracking.
Auchenai Crypts: Corridor wiht no backtracking.
Sethekk Halls: Corridor with backtracking.
Shadow Labyrinth: Corridor with no backtracking.
Arcatraz: Corridor with no backtracking.
Botanica: Corridor with no backtracking.
Mechanar: Corridor with no backtracking.
Old Hillsbrad: Actually very open and large, yet requires a very specific and linear series of events to complete the dungeon.
Black Morass: Open but pointless as it is a Defend the Dude mission.
Magister's Terrace: Corridor with no backtracking.

So that's two (being generous in one case) dungeons that are not corridors. Raids on the other hand:

Black Temple: Very large and open, multiple skippable bosses.
The Eye: Short and corridor-like, but most bosses are skippable.
Gruul's Lair: More than a lair for the boss than a full-on raid. Still is quite linear.
Hyjal Summit: Linear, but very large and open.
Karazhan: Utterly massive and non-linear, with many skippable bosses.
Magtheridon's Lair: Again more of a lair than a full-on dungeon. Has only 1 boss.
Serpentshrine Cavern: Corridor, but with a pseudo-linear corridor in two directions branching off of the main corridor.
Sunwell Plateau: Corridor.

So when a raid does it better they do it a LOT better, but even then quite a few are still very corridor-like.

You can do this with just about every single raid and dungeon in the game. You forgot Zul'Aman which is/was one of the most open raids in the entire game.

Vanilla

Ragefire Chasm - Corridor
Deadmines - Corridor
Wailing Caverns - Open
Blackfathom Depts - Corridor
Shadowfang Keep - Corridor
Stockades - Corridor
Gnomeregan - Corridor with two paths.
Razorfen Kraul - Corridor
Maraudon - Semi Corridor, depending on which part of it you play.
Scarlet Monastery - Corridor
Uldaman - This is not an open dungeon, it's actually a corridor with only minor splits on the way there.
Dire Maul - Corridor
Scholomance - Corridor
Stratholm - Corridor
Zul'Farrak - Corridor with a split.
Blackrock Depths - Open
Sunken Temple - Pre cataclysm open, post cataclysm no more different than Gruul or Maghteridon.
Upper/Lower Spire - Corridor

Molten Core - Corridor
Onyxia - Boss area
Blackwing Lair - Corridor
AQ 20 - Corridor with two paths.
AQ 40 - Corridor

TBC is no more different than any other expansion when it comes to this, it actually has more interesting dungeons than the others.

 

[rashiakas]

Insert some edgy one liner to jump on the blizzard bashing bandwagon to look cool.

Starcraft 2 got me worried, Cataclysm came shortly after and by then I was well on my way to the butthurt town. Diablo 3 was a final nail in the coffin. Coincidentally all of this happened after the blizzard - activision merger, go figure.

Yet it is still the best mmo out there, by a large margin as well. And you can play it completely free with a modicum of effort. Now has it declined since BC? Yes and no. There sure are things that where better back then, but there is also a lot of good stuff that happened since. I am playing on a server with 16k players right now. There are raids, pvp etc. 24/7. I am in a guild with cool people, so doing stuff together is mostly fun. In my opinion the game isn't that bad, the biggest problem is the lack of new content. We cleared HFC Mythic months ago and since then it is basically log in once a week to farm Archimonde if you're not interested in a twink or pvp. But playing till then was fun. There is also a lot of wrong talk about how easy the game has become. Classes in BC where way easier to play. Content was way easier as well. Only in WOTLK raids became difficult with Ulduar and its hardmodes or 1 Hour/Week Algalon.

Fact is, the game has changed. And while I don't like everything about wow, I just think most people complaining about it have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. They just spout the same nonsense everyone else does. Muh classic. Muh exploration. Muh BC. Yeah it sure was fun creating 4 magic water a time for your entire 40 raid. It sure was fun to single buff every dick with 5 minute Paladin buffs in your 40 man raid. It sure was fun spamming 1 spell the whole evening.

WoD actually has more exploration then Classic had. There was basically nothing you could find in classic when you walked of the path. Right now there is at least treasure to be found Or a new follower for your garrison. Also people forget that you couldn't fly when WoD came out.

I know this is the codex and all, but I don't get why people just flat out lie that the game is dead when it clearly isn't.

 

[SionIV]

I'm starting to have a feeling that all of these white knights are players that haven't spent a lot of time with the game, or joined in MoP and didn't know better.

"WoD actually has more exploration then Classic had"

8 zones that were remastered from TBC, have more exploration than two fucking continents with over 15 zones each? What is up with all these fucking white knights and their logic?

"There was basically nothing you could find in classic when you walked of the path."

Did you even play the fucking game? There were secret things EVERYWHERE. Hidden gnome cities under the water, creepy gathering of kids chanting in demonic tones. I'm 110% certain now that you either didn't play pre cataclysm, or you're a fucking idiot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUcjCO5nryc&nohtml5=False
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWa18ZnZ_vQ&nohtml5=False
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QOp2iS0dn8&nohtml5=False

 

[you know what time it is]

stuff

I was writing an elaborate response, but no. Either you are a part of the problem or simply a troll, in any case go fuck yourself.

 

[Metro]

Wrath had the best dungeon design but even then most of them were corridors. Off the top of my head I can't think of too many non-corridor dungeons except BRD and even that is a lot of corridors arranged together. TBC dungeons were disappointing in the sense that they lacked a lot in the way of aesthetics.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Gnomeregan - Corridor with two paths.

Maraudon - Semi Corridor, depending on which part of it you play.

Uldaman - This is not an open dungeon, it's actually a corridor with only minor splits on the way there.

Stratholm - Corridor

Sunken Temple - Pre cataclysm open, post cataclysm no more different than Gruul or Maghteridon.

Why would pre-post cataclysm matter if we are discussing vanilla vs TBC?

Saying stuff like corridor with two paths is kinda like saying Fallout is a linear game with a few linear options.

 

[rashiakas]

I'm starting to have a feeling that all of these white knights are players that haven't spent a lot of time with the game, or joined in MoP and didn't know better.

"WoD actually has more exploration then Classic had"

8 zones that were remastered from TBC, have more exploration than two fucking continents with over 15 zones each? What is up with all these fucking white knights and their logic?

"There was basically nothing you could find in classic when you walked of the path."

Did you even play the fucking game? There were secret things EVERYWHERE. Hidden gnome cities under the water, creepy gathering of kids chanting in demonic tones. I'm 110% certain now that you either didn't play pre cataclysm, or you're a fucking idiot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUcjCO5nryc&nohtml5=False
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWa18ZnZ_vQ&nohtml5=False
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QOp2iS0dn8&nohtml5=False

You realize that tanaan alone probably has more then 30 "secret places"? I think we both know who didn't play the fucking game.

 

[rashiakas]

stuff

I was writing an elaborate response, but no. Either you are a part of the problem or simply a troll, in any case go fuck yourself.

Yeah, nice try backing out.

 

[Seari]

I actually came back to WoW in WoD because of RL friends, after quitting at the start of Cataclysm. Questing in WoD was quite fun until I got to 100, stopped playing because fuck Raid finder and all of that shit.

 

[Israfael]

Dungeon "Design" actually includes also the bosses, trash packs and mechanics. For me, cataclysm and TBC ones were the most enjoyable and fun in that department. Of course, BRD / Strat/ Scholo were superior, but they were actually 10-man sort-of-raids, not just 'dungeons'. I enjoy Cata timewalking because i know that my spellsteal, poly and other half-forgotten abilities will be useful again. Also, looking at noobs dying to simple mechanics like general umbriss charge is always entertaining (and thanks to the old legendaries i can do more dps than two average dpsers with current gear, so their death isnt issue).

We cleared HFC Mythic months ago and since then it is basically log in once a week to farm Archimonde if you're not interested in a twink or pvp

You are in a very small minority, most people either are not finished with mythics or did not even attempt it because of 'roster size' wall or my favourite Attendance Boss.

 

[SionIV]

I'm starting to have a feeling that all of these white knights are players that haven't spent a lot of time with the game, or joined in MoP and didn't know better.

"WoD actually has more exploration then Classic had"

8 zones that were remastered from TBC, have more exploration than two fucking continents with over 15 zones each? What is up with all these fucking white knights and their logic?

"There was basically nothing you could find in classic when you walked of the path."

Did you even play the fucking game? There were secret things EVERYWHERE. Hidden gnome cities under the water, creepy gathering of kids chanting in demonic tones. I'm 110% certain now that you either didn't play pre cataclysm, or you're a fucking idiot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUcjCO5nryc&nohtml5=False
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWa18ZnZ_vQ&nohtml5=False
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QOp2iS0dn8&nohtml5=False

You realize that tanaan alone probably has more then 30 "secret places"? I think we both know who didn't play the fucking game.

You're an idiot. Those aren't secret nor are they interesting, it's just some stupid shit that they threw in and named 'treasures' to give people something to do for all 10 minutes.

Gnomeregan - Corridor with two paths.

Maraudon - Semi Corridor, depending on which part of it you play.

Uldaman - This is not an open dungeon, it's actually a corridor with only minor splits on the way there.

Stratholm - Corridor

Sunken Temple - Pre cataclysm open, post cataclysm no more different than Gruul or Maghteridon.

Why would pre-post cataclysm matter if we are discussing vanilla vs TBC?

Saying stuff like corridor with two paths is kinda like saying Fallout is a linear game with a few linear options.

You're calling Undebog a Corridor, when it's exactly the same as those you have linked.

Take and look at the Uldaman picture that you linked. It's a corridor dungeon where you get to chose if you want to go right or left. Just because you're walking 10 feet to the left to kill a boss, does not make it any less corridor. Uldaman has an illusion of being a big dungeon, it's actually not.

If you read what I said about Maraudon, I said that it depends on which path you take, and 2/3 are fuckin corridors and linear as hell, which you can see on the map.

Stratholm is as linear as you can get. The undead side is just a gauntlet where you can decide if you want to skip half the dungeon or not, Scarlet is a linear progression from the start, where you can go to the right for a small area if you want to (Festival Lane). It's two dungeons that are linear, not one dungeon.

Gnomeregan got changed a lot, and it's not as open as it used to be.

Most if not all of these dungeons, once you play them several times, you notice that they are linear. Just because you have a small path that take you to the left, does not change the fact that 90% of the dungeon, you follow the same linear corridor. There is no difference between Slave Pens / Steamvault /Underbog and those you have mentioned.

WoD has the least content out of all expansions, and unless you're into mythic, there is NOTHING to do. When you have idiots that praise the treasure hunting as 'exploration' and 'secrets', you know that the expansion is fucked.

 

[rashiakas]

Infantile Insult

So you never actually played WoD. At least not Tanaan. Why don't you go inform yourself before you post about something you have no clue about.

 

[SionIV]

Infantile Insult

So you never actually played WoD. At least not Tanaan. Why don't you go inform yourself before you post about something you have no clue about.

From what I've read, I'm sure that I've played this game more than you have.

"There was basically nothing you could find in classic when you walked of the path." - Rashiakas

"WoD actually has more exploration then Classic had" - Rashiakas

You lost any and all credibility after writing that.

 

[felipepepe]

Imma write a rant on this for Gamasutra, it's too juicy of a subject to ignore.

Here it is - why the Quest Compass is evil and has corrupted our youth: http://gamasutra.com/blogs/FelipePe...e_Quest_Compass__its_dreadful_convenience.php

Took some stuff from this thread, thanks for the info guys

 

[Ninjerk]

I think the struck-out blurb about WoW being better in the past is going to do a massive disservice to your article by providing an easy red herring for morons--not that they need it, but you're going to lose some moderates when the morons editorialize the article for them.

EDIT: Also, "moreover" is a single word. It's possible that usage is correct as well--thanks, English.

EDIT2: Now that I'm thinking about it more, it's a TRAGEDY that Serpent in the Staglands isn't mentioned here.

 

[felipepepe]

Haven't played SitS yet, why you say that?

 

[Ninjerk]

Everything you can do in the game is by suggestion. There is a journal that you can write in, but no quest compass, tracker, or even log, if I'm not mistaken.

Deuce Traveler has been playing it recently, and roshan probably figured more out about the game than I did.

 

[roshan]

Not that I know anything about WOW, but yeah, SITS is a masterpiece in open world design, like Fallout without the McGuffin. Everything is investigative, based on clues, you're never told explicitly "go there!" or "find x!".

As for non linear dungeons... bloody hell, Pool of Radiance ROMD deserves a mention. Those catacombs were absolutely gargantuan, filled with secrets, interlinked in all sorts of ways. Had the game been completed properly it could have been a masterpiece.