“When it’s done”

As many years as I have been a faithful Blizzard customer, I’ve learned that quality comes with time, and you usually get what you pay for. I even bought Blackthorne, honest to God. Blizzard is a company worth fully endorsing, and I don’t see that ever changing, ever. They are well known for pushing back a title until it’s done.

But I have to question the timing of the Wrath of the Lich King release, not because of the obvious holiday season, but because of the proximity to the release of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Since when does Blizzard give a damn about holiday’s? When this company releases product, any time of year, it sells and it will continue to sell for a very long time. I won’t buy that the holiday season was the reason Wrath launched when it did, their sales are nearly guaranteed and we are all fully aware.

I’ve never set foot in a Blizzard corporate meeting, or been privy to insider information outside of simple forum replies. Even still, I get a very strong feeling that at first, Warhammer appeared to be a potential threat, or even a solid competitor to World of Warcraft. I believe that Wotlk was not as close to “complete” (can never be complete or ready) as Blizzard developers wanted, but functional enough to get product on the shelves. Being an MMO, there is a lot of leeway given towards updates, improvements, additional content, balance issues and fixes.

This game will never be complete, never be “fully ready for launch”, classes never perfect, there is always room for improvement, always. Ghostcrawler has stated this many times over.


But, is the real reason we have so many threads on severe gameplay issues the end result of a product being played well before it was ready to ship? Can we blame the Warhammer launch for terrible warlock damage? Can we blame rushing Wrath to stores for the sub-par dps rogues are putting out? Did a competitor instigate hunters playing the expansion before they could finally compete in arena’s? Can I blame Warhammer?

And if I can, then can I blame Blizzard?

(I don’t merit or deserve a blue post more than anyone else, but I think myself and others would like to hear a blue point of view on how a competitor can affect the quality of the game we all enjoy so much.)

TBC launched after Christmas and had the same issues as wrath. If anything, wrath is far more polished at launch. When TBC came out rogue pve damage was broken, warriors couldn't tank well due to rage nerfs and feral druids were absolute wrecking machines. Kara and SSC were bugged to hell.

No, Warhammer had nothing to do with any of the problems. This game is huge. Even a beta won't pick up all the faults.

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Q u o t e:
TBC launched after Christmas and had the same issues as wrath. If anything, wrath is far more polished at launch. When TBC came out rogue pve damage was broken, warriors couldn't tank well due to rage nerfs and feral druids were absolute wrecking machines. Kara and SSC were bugged to hell.

No, Warhammer had nothing to do with any of the problems. This game is huge. Even a beta won't pick up all the faults.

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I agree wholeheartedly. Also one thing you are not seeing anymore is worldwide QQ about being camped for quests and all like when TBC opened up. Questing in Hellfire that night was absolutely terrible.

As for class balancing, it will never be truly balanced. It is a mystery to me that people feel the classes can be all balanced and everything will be hunky dory. In the world of Rock, Paper, Scissors this just simply isn't the case.

When I think about balancing in WoW, it really does seem like a glorified, video game version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Someone will always beat Rock, that someone will always get beaten by Paper, and Paper will always lose to Scissors. This not to say they won't give a good fight, and there will always be exceptions but come on, let's be realistic here people.

I think with wotlk there was much more going on in this expansion, besides combat what aspects came out well?

quests were finished, well paced, story driven and compelling.

vehicles work, are in game and fairly bug free.

10 man-25 man heroic content implemented with more than just one 10 man raid to tackle at launch, and much more variety and viability in raid composition.

a new class, with a fairly well put together intro system that teaches basic concepts and adds another dimension to the tanking classes.

these are just a few new additions, in comparison to TBC that netted us flying mounts and some changes to reputation and the introduction of arena and daily quests, and one new bg Wotlk is fairly beefy as far as content goes.

all the current class issues are the same ones that have been floating around since launch, in one form or another, and will get adressed as the gaem moves forward, we had sweeping class changes as early as launch of the original game from beta format, and well into the late stages of even TBC.

MMO''s are not static, especially in regards to player classes, its a juggling act . Warhammer was probably not much of a factor in wotlk release, and plays even less of a factor in wow's current format now.

The real reason we have so many threads full of QQ is twofold:

1. People WHINE. It's their favorite damn thing to do.
2. GC posts like no dev has posted before. We can now whine to devs and they respond.

That said, there is constructive dialog to be found among this giant, billowing cloud of QQ. And that is an awesome thing.

I am quite content with all the classes I play, from a PvE angle. MInd you, I don't play them all, so I might just be lucky.

PvP... will take time. It's simply ridiculous to expect anything resembling true class balance this soon after every class gained 10 levels, new talent trees, and a new class was introduced to the game.

Calm down. It's a game. Play an alt.

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Q u o t e:

PvP... will take time. It's simply ridiculous to expect anything resembling true class balance this soon after every class gained 10 levels, new talent trees, and a new class was introduced to the game.

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Very good point

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Q u o t e:
We overhauled the classes for LK moreso than BC and introduced a new class for the first time.

Also remember that when BC launched, nobody knew what Arenas were or what they would do to PvP (or the microscope under which they place cass balance).

I also think we have just been more open this time around. Certainly we didn't address the community with this degree of candor when BC launched.

You have to realize that Blizzard is it's own worst critic. From our point of view, we can always improve every aspect of the game. When we talk about bugs or things we still want to work on, that doesn't mean we shipped the game before we were ready. It means that we hold ourselves to a very high standard, honestly a lot higher than most of the players do. If there is something that annoys you about the game, it almost certainly drives us nuts.

WoW is a gigantic game with a huge player base. Please don't mistake our open discussion about things we would like to improve as our feeling that Lich King is in any way a failure. We are enormously proud of it and most players I speak to are having a blast. (Most of those players aren't the ones posting on forums.)

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W00

Is that Blizzard's own worst critic line copy and pasted? It's quite catchy.

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Q u o t e:
(Most of those players aren't the ones posting on forums.)

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I chuckled.

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Q u o t e:
most players I speak to are having a blast. (Most of those players aren't the ones posting on forums.)

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I post when I'm at work, or when the servers are down for maintenance on my week off.

If I can actually play, I have zero time for forums because the fun factor drops by like over 9000.

You know one thing that was a gigantic failure, though, was the actual discs used for WotLK. I know myself and others couldn't play til hours in after we had to download it. Way to go.

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Q u o t e:
We overhauled the classes for LK moreso than BC and introduced a new class for the first time.

Also remember that when BC launched, nobody knew what Arenas were or what they would do to PvP (or the microscope under which they place cass balance).

I also think we have just been more open this time around. Certainly we didn't address the community with this degree of candor when BC launched.

You have to realize that Blizzard is it's own worst critic. From our point of view, we can always improve every aspect of the game. When we talk about bugs or things we still want to work on, that doesn't mean we shipped the game before we were ready. It means that we hold ourselves to a very high standard, honestly a lot higher than most of the players do. If there is something that annoys you about the game, it almost certainly drives us nuts.

WoW is a gigantic game with a huge player base. Please don't mistake our open discussion about things we would like to improve as our feeling that Lich King is in any way a failure. We are enormously proud of it and most players I speak to are having a blast. (Most of those players aren't the ones posting on forums.)

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wotlk was rushed. There is no contesting that. In TBC classes were pretty balanced, changes were made but entire overhauls of nearly every class and changes to every spec were not needed nor made. Arena was fairly balanced in early seasons even without resilience. I really wish I didn't have to deal with this unfinished product.

If you look at my playtime it has probably cut in half from 3.0 to wotlk because I find myself not enjoying the game even close to the extend I used to. Wintergrasp is unplayable at ANY time of the day, 3 am, 6 am. It completely lags out, randomly doesn't give marks. It's impossible to win as defense, impossible to lose as offense(vehicles can destroy walls before you can hit them due to lag). Tenacity was not scaled right(cannons with tenacity destroy my siege vehicle before they even reach the keep, lets not talk about my character that has 1/4th the hitpoints of the tank. I LIKE BEING HIT BY A CANNON FOR 8K OVER 100 YARDS AWAY, IT'S FUN).

I cannot arena with my arena partner as she is a warlock and we do not get along after playing unsuccessful arenas. I would rather not have to deal with it altogether, so that leaves out arenaing with my girlfriend.

PvE is a complete joke. Yes I've done sarth with 3 drakes(us #6) and it was a complete joke. I've done 5 min malygos(10 man) missed 25 man by 2 seconds, will have it today. There is nothing fun nor challenging in this game right now, it's just a waiting game for ulduar. If I end up getting L4D(most of my WoW playing friends have moved onto it, at least 7 of them) my play time will diminish even further. Hopefully next expansion blizzard gets their act together, if the game makes it that far.

I downloaded it on November 12. I don't think I've taken the disc out of the box yet.

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Q u o t e:


But I have to question the timing of the Wrath of the Lich King release, not because of the obvious holiday season, but because of the proximity to the release of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Since when does Blizzard give a damn about holiday’s? When this company releases product, any time of year, it sells and it will continue to sell for a very long time. I won’t buy that the holiday season was the reason Wrath launched when it did, their sales are nearly guaranteed and we are all fully aware.

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In overall dollar figures, they would not have to worry about the timing of the release simply because the game will sell incredibly well during its life. That aside, the amount of capital invested in producing this expansion is probably ten times the amount most people would even consider. So pushing this game out during a time period where a massive increase in the normal sales will drastically increase the amount of immediate return on that invested capital which in turn shortens the time they have to sit on the costs. While there are only so many sales of the xpac that they can make, the time frame in which they recoup the expenses makes a major difference.

Edit: In addition, this is the difference between a successful company and a non-successful company: financial planning.

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Q u o t e:
If I end up getting L4D(most of my WoW playing friends have moved onto it, at least 7 of them) my play time will diminish even further. Hopefully next expansion blizzard gets their act together, if the game makes it that far.

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Seeya!

WoW will be just fine if the 0.001% of jobless, play 100 hours a week hardcore players leave.

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Q u o t e:


Seeya!

WoW will be just fine if the 0.001% of jobless, play 100 hours a week hardcore players leave.

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If only the illiterate would leave.

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Q u o t e:

If only the illiterate would leave.

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Oh, I'm literate enough to have noticed that you (attempt to) PvP at 3-6 am, then sleep all day, wake up to hot pockets and server first kills.

While I have nothing against people being as hardcore as they choose, please, for the love of god, realize that it makes absolutely no sense for anyone to create the bulk of an MMO for the few thousand people who can play like you do.

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Q u o t e:


Oh, I'm literate enough to have noticed that you (attempt to) PvP at 3-6 am, then sleep all day, wake up to hot pockets and server first kills.

While I have nothing against people being as hardcore as they choose, please, for the love of god, realize that it makes absolutely no sense for anyone to create the bulk of an MMO for the few thousand people who can play like you do.

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You inferred that I was quitting. There was no mention of it which leads me to believe you have a reading disability. I guess me being up at 12 PM(I actually woke up at 6 am) is me sleeping all day and waking up to hot pockets right? Ah your jealousy is amusing. Hay guyz heez not a compweet faleyure at dis gayme hee muzz haz know lyfe