Between the classes changes, the "cater to the casual" attacks, the 10 man 25 man dilemma etc, it seem we are really fast at blaming the designers.

I will be honest I really think it is not about the designer it is business. Wow is an established franchise, there is very few chances to grow it significantly now, and as all game companies Activision/Bliz is now in the "milking" mode. Part of that mode is to reduce the development costs.

I would argue that every single design changes was just meant to reduce dev cost and not to make this or that class happy, casual or hard core, etc... etc...


The 25-10 man paradigm, is just there to reduce the number of instance to develop, less molder, less animators, less sound, smaller tunning and QA crew. Any sensible designer would prefer to get unique content, they know really well it is Boring like HELL to run the same content twice a week once in 10 once in 25. It's a resource issue.


Bring the player not the class + Itemization ? Same deal, smaller set of abilities to tune allow for smaller designer staff, coupled with the new DPS/Heal share gear, or No feral druid stuff. Less item to worry about, less model, less design etc.

Hard mode to keep Hard core Busy ? It's just a way to try to retain some player without spending 1 dime of model , animation, and with a very small design and testing overhead compared to creating a tough encounter from scratch.


All in all, I think it is unfair to blame the designer, this look to me a lot more like production cost and crew reduced to the bare minimum to milk as much money as possible while Activision/Bliz is working on new MMOs.

I'm sure the current live team and its designer do the best they can with the limited resources Blizz left on the project. Any amount of whining will do no good , all we can do is enjoy what we can of the game, while we are being milked.

Wow I've never blammed a designer. Where do I learn that spell :)

In many cases its just a bad workman blaming their tools. Substitute 'player' and 'class' where you see fit.

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Q u o t e:
Ulduar has more items than all of BC's raids put together, and that's with gear consolidation. Bring the player not the class was to allow groups more flexibility in inviting their friends and to make room for say Demonology warlocks, Balance druids, Marksman hunters and other specs that couldn't be fit into a Sunwell raid because of the inflexibility of the mandatory buff jigsaw puzzle.

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Wow.

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Q u o t e:
first!

RAWR! I HAVE ACHIEVED THE RANK OF FIRST! FEAR THE MIGHT OF THE WARRIOR! I CAN FEEL THE POWER OF GHOSTCRAWLER RUNNING THROUGH MY VAINS!

.......Actually, what's the point of getting first anyways?

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No idea. It always annoys me.

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Q u o t e:

Ulduar has more items than all of BC's raids put together, and that's with gear consolidation. Bring the player not the class was to allow groups more flexibility in inviting their friends and to make room for say Demonology warlocks, Balance druids, Marksman hunters and other specs that couldn't be fit into a Sunwell raid because of the inflexibility of the mandatory buff jigsaw puzzle.

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\

With so many items, you'd think they'd manage to luck into some decent warrior itemization. But no, everything but one axe from the 10man is 3.4 speed (the axe is 3.5), and all the plate has more stam than anyone would EVER need.

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Q u o t e:
Any amount of whining will do no good , all we can do is enjoy what we can of the game, while we are being milked.

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Jack Byrnes (from Meet the Fockers): I have nipples, Greg, could you milk me?

first thing I thought of. lol

Blizzard has failed to realize that the raid paradigm is the inherent flaw in World of Warcraft that will ultimately be its demise. Raids are a costly investment that quickly become repetitive; not investing in another longterm form of entertainment for the game aside of a very limited pvp environment is shortsighted (IE not investing in extending crafts, housing, etc).

Seconded!!

I think the raid design itself is exceptional. Not very thrilled what they've done to Hunter mechanics but that's another story.

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Q u o t e:

Jack Byrnes (from Meet the Fockers): I have nipples, Greg, could you milk me?

first thing I thought of. lol

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You can milk anything with nipples. ahahah classic.

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Q u o t e:

Yes, we know players given the choice will always want more content. If we offered 6 levels of raid content, there are still players who would clear it quickly and be looking for something new. Welcome to the challenges of MMO design. :)

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i can see what you're saying here...

but i look at the entire mmo market and have to question this statement.

eve online for example offers exactly ZERO "raid content" and the playerbase there isn't always looking for something new.

its not mmo design in and of itself that provokes this problem of players getting bored with content... its the model of mmo design that WoW is based on.

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Q u o t e:


Thats because PvE is inherently boring because its scripted and repetitive, not because MMOs are difficult to design.

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So, you're saying that all single player and co-op games are boring and repetive?

And trust me, people aren't very creative either. I've avoided arenas simply by not playing much of BC, but everyone did the exact same thing in the same circumstances in classic pvp, and the vast majority of players do the same thing over and over even in purely competetive games like Street Fighter, KoF, Garou, Tekken, etc.

People on the whole are just as predictable and scripted as an AI, it's very rare to find anything else.

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Q u o t e:
Ulduar has more items than all of BC's raids put together, and that's with gear consolidation. Bring the player not the class was to allow groups more flexibility in inviting their friends and to make room for say Demonology warlocks, Balance druids, Marksman hunters and other specs that couldn't be fit into a Sunwell raid because of the inflexibility of the mandatory buff jigsaw puzzle.

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Great, more items drop that I dont want just to piss me off.