World of Warcraft XIII: Even Aspects Get Nerfed

[Karoht]

So I bought some Megablocks the other day...
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...6449202&type=1

[Dublock]

I was reading the Reddit AMA with Blizzard and I saw this:

(Spoilered because its speculation on Lore in MoP based upon Karoht's idea. (Because I love his idea and have still been thinking about it once in a while)

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Are we going to get more Old God lore in Mists?
Obviously the Old Gods have had a major impact all over the world. They aren't directly pulling any strings in Pandaria, however, you can still feel the cold grip of their influence, many thousands of years later. If you're interested in the lore, you owe it to yourself to reach exalted with the Klaxxi faction to learn a little more about their origins.

Obviously this does not directly answer one way or another about the Sha being the emotions of the Old Gods, but does that still support it? They did not intended for the emotions to have an impact so it was not directly, but I would definitely classify that as a "cold grip of their influence" as it does dominate in the social choices that were made.

[Karoht]

I was reading the Reddit AMA with Blizzard and I saw this:

(Spoilered because its speculation on Lore in MoP based upon Karoht's idea. (Because I love his idea and have still been thinking about it once in a while)

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Obviously this does not directly answer one way or another about the Sha being the emotions of the Old Gods, but does that still support it? They did not intended for the emotions to have an impact so it was not directly, but I would definitely classify that as a "cold grip of their influence" as it does dominate in the social choices that were made.

Specifically my idea was:

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That the Old Gods emit emotions in the first place, they are the reason that any and all of the races even have emotions, Algalon didn't feel emotional until he came to Azeroth, I don't imagine stone and steel golems (The Earthen and Tol'Vir and such) felt much in the way of emotions until the Old Gods started to warp them.
The Sha are some kind of major buildup of that energy.

But, I was more dorking out last night over the fact that they confirmed that Vol'Jin (Leader of the Darkspear Tribe of Trolls) is getting his own book. And in an interview 2 weeks ago, Christie Golden expressed a very vocal interest in writing a book about Vol'Jin. So we may get a book about an extremely cool character that I've always wanted a book about, written by probably the best author their is for writting anything to do with the Warcraft series.
There was a very loud squee at my house (I'm man enough to admit it), around 2am local time. Thankfully it did not wake up my fiance, though she was equally excited when I told her this morning when I drove her to work.

So we went for breakfast and just geeked out like crazy. It was good.

[Mynxae]

Anyone else dying on low-level alts to allied DK's? Stupid bugged game...

[Traab]

Sweet, my shaman is up to 3 useful totem types. I have the wind totem, but so far its just the one that stops movement impairment from being effective on my raid group. Not really useful at 35. Its nice being able to drop multiple totems again. I honestly miss the old totem earning quest lines though. They were pretty cool. It made you feel like you EARNED your awesome skills. Same for warlock pets.

It made going to the trainer seem like a real true to your character action to take. Instead of just, "Here, for 30 silver I will tell you how to set your target on fire and keep him burning for 12 seconds." It was, "If you seek to unlock the mysteries of the more powerful demons that can be forced to serve us, you must first prove yourself worthy." The first option makes you wonder why you couldnt just buy everything at level 1 with enough gold and call it quits. The second makes it seem like you are moving up in ranks and have to pass tests to prove yourself worthy of learning more.

[Dublock]

wait, I thought you just get the new abilities now in 5.0.4 (and 5)?

I need to finish off my Rogue (level 83) this week and get rid of the extra Cata crap I still have.

[Mutant Sheep]

wait, I thought you just get the new abilities now in 5.0.4 (and 5)?

I need to finish off my Rogue (level 83) this week and get rid of the extra Cata crap I still have.

You do, thats what hes QQing about. (Also, no ones leveling right now, so that isnt commom knowledge. Personally i HATE it because the trainer does NOTHING anymore. Resets glyphs, talents, and spec(which used to just BE your talents...).And thats it. Why take The good old Blightcaller out of the Plaguelands if he doesn't even do anythiiiiiing.

[Traab]

wait, I thought you just get the new abilities now in 5.0.4 (and 5)?

I need to finish off my Rogue (level 83) this week and get rid of the extra Cata crap I still have.

You do, and I dislike it. But then, I also disliked just going to a trainer and buying new skills, as if all it takes to be a level 85 hunter is enough gold to buy the ability scrolls. I was saying that I liked it when we used to have class specific quests. Rogue poisons, shaman totems, warlock pets, paladin resurrection, hunter pets, warrior stances, all of it. I liked it when we had to do something aside from sell vendor trash to get our new and powerful abilities. I honestly would have preferred if each time we learned a new skill, we had to do something to prove ourselves worthy of it.

Take shaman and fire totems. Every time I was ready to learn the next fire totem, like say fire nova, I would go back to the fire elemental guy and he would tell me to go do something to earn it. After that, I could just talk to him for the new ranks of it, (back when we had ranks) or preferably, it would be like it was in cata and the skills just automatically got better as we leveled. Too much running back and forth over the world every time we level would get annoying fast after all.

I am not a big fan of rp really, but I do like it when my game plays out things realistically like that.

[Krazzman]

So, finally I came up with some time to post again...

I had taken the last two weeks off and just played WoW or did other stuff and... hell are Paladins imbalanced... not as imbalanced as hunters but well...

We tried Spine HC for the last ID's and it won't work.

We still have the problem that our Tank Druid couldn't attend (and he found an 8/8 hc run on wednesday...) and our Warrior MT couldn't attend yesterday also. 2 not sooo well-geared tanks trying to survive Spine HC... what pleasure. Luckily when MoP starts I'll be playing Ret/nothing for the first content. I might'll do a Instance-Tank-spec or Healer-Spec but doubt it... maybe doing two different Ret-speccs just I don't have to tank anymore.

Anyway last week I did some "hardcore" gaming as in beginning in the morning and going to sleep only getting off to eat/drink/etc. Brought my third DK to Max-Level and specced him Unholy and Frost... can't decide which is better, I tend to Frost but yeah I probably didn't get Unholy right while leveling.

"Fun" things while leveling in instances:

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Group of Druid (Heal), Blood DK, Ret Paladin, Priest (off-heal? no real dmg no real healing) and me as Unholy DK.
We're in that underwater instance and right before the third boss I ask for BoM. No buffs and dead boss later I win the helmet and the ret say something along the line of "****ty dk"... I confronted him with not buffing and then he started to tell me that his BoM wouldn't bring anything and that his BoK would be better. Explained that we have a druid... DK jumps in and says: "But our Horn overwrites it!"....

Later that day I end up in HoO (Origination) and the Priest heal mumbles something about he doesn't need loot he were there for the quests and was a bit rambling about it (as in he couldn't get some as he didn't quest in uldum). He stressed a bit and went a bit on our nerves and shortly before Rahj (no we couldn't go to the other 3 bosses) he tried to get directly to Grim Batol. We killed Rahj with me dying because Mr. Priest pulled Rahj while we managed the trash and forgot to heal me. Slightly annoyed I went with them to GB (instant invite in a sort of working group... why not?).

We gather those quests and start slashing and hacking those first mob groups. Our Priest died but at least I didn't notice until he asked if we killed those Troggs already. I answered yes (I was the only one answering) and said he could've said something (as in I would've waited or he could've waited to get them without leaving the instance). He then proceeded to mutter something about him being dead and everything unfair and bla. First boss died, we go further and I get it that I don't get as much healing as a normal healer would. The others are healed full... ok? I survive the Second boss and we venture on, I mostly using DS and that vigor strike that consumes Deathrunes. Managing to survive to the first guy's that call dragons. He comment's it with Ups, sry I commented that, after battlerezzed from the tank and instatly dying again (he wrote again ups, sry) with: "I'm on heal ignore now because you couldn't tell something back there?".
He says hdf (synonymous for STFU). I run back in, specc to blood loot the questitem from the third boss and survive till the end thanks to bloody selfhealing. Then said to him: "Oh now I could complete all the quests without your healing" which he answered with a simple "FU".

Back to the "Hunter-Problem" how do you experienced hunters in raiding since the patch? Our Hunter seems to have dmg-dealing problems.

As a Ret I have to say I feel that overall dmg somehow went down and my burst phase doesn't have that much oomph anymore. Could be the fact that I only have the Talented-Wrath and the Guardian but for this ID I seem to be tanking anyhow.

@Karoth:
I would bring the pally over. A DK is really really fast on 85. And those pesky low levels "suck" if you want to bring another pally up.

On a related note I don't know if I should get my Priest over to the server I'm currently playing. I mean he is all naked and there are no Trolls on alliance...
And I can't decide between Shaman or Rogue as my next twink. And if it would be Shaman if Enhancer or Ele.

[Traab]

Well I know that with the right talent, a hunter can virtually perma spam arcane shot, so that must be a help with steady dps on a single target. I have no idea on actual numbers though, so I dont know if the hunter will still be lagging behind everyone.

[The_Jackal]

Back to the "Hunter-Problem" how do you experienced hunters in raiding since the patch? Our Hunter seems to have dmg-dealing problems.

Hunter's are in a bad way right now. Everything good they have scales with attack power, which itemization isn't favoring right now, so the only really awesome thing we've got is Arcane Shot. Really, everyone's scaling is a dog's breakfast at the moment, stuff with flat damage boosts is off the hook, like Arcane Shot and Execute, and stuff that's scaled off stats is in the tank.

Well I know that with the right talent, a hunter can virtually perma spam arcane shot, so that must be a help with steady dps on a single target. I have no idea on actual numbers though, so I dont know if the hunter will still be lagging behind everyone.

That's Thrill of the Hunt. You have a 30% chance per attack to get a 20 focus discount on your next 3 arcane or multi-shots. Icy Veins has Dire Beast being the better pick, however. I'm preferring TotH, personally. This patch has done nothing to tame the button overload that the game has been suffering from.

[Zherog]

I was saying that I liked it when we used to have class specific quests. Rogue poisons...

Rogues also had a pick pocket quest that - at least back in vanilla - was real tough.

I also miss class-based quests. I understand why Blizz would want to make leveling easier, I guess. I believe Karoht in the past has mentioned an optional quest system for classes, and that sounds like a good plan to me. I'm also not big on RP within the game, but I did like class trainers and class quests.

[Krazzman]

Rogues also had a pick pocket quest that - at least back in vanilla - was real tough.

I also miss class-based quests. I understand why Blizz would want to make leveling easier, I guess. I believe Karoht in the past has mentioned an optional quest system for classes, and that sounds like a good plan to me. I'm also not big on RP within the game, but I did like class trainers and class quests.

Yeah... friggin' Polly wanted his damned cracker... or do you mean another one? Because that one was avaible at ~level 15 whilst Polly was ~25....

[Zherog]

Nope, that's the one... I remember having to get a friend help me with it, because the mobs in the area (as I recall) were elites.

[Karoht]

@Quest Trainers
Now, Blizzard says they don't want to do class quests again, and did cite some issues with it.
But, if we want trainers to... train again, there is an easy enough solution for it.
Does anyone remember the starting zones since the cata revamp? They usually have a quest or two to teach you to use a basic ability. For druids you are taught how to use wrath and healing touch. All you have to do is use the ability x amount of times on some target dummies. It could be added for every ability in the game, but that would be a considerable amount of work. They could also add in some quests that do teach certain interactions between abilities. IE-Rejuvenation and Swiftmend

However, there is serious work being done for the new 'Proving Grounds' which sounds like it will be role specific. Think of them like the challenges in Starcraft 2 where they give you 4 zealots and 2 Sentries and you have to use the shields of the sentries to keep yourself from being overwhelmed.
I've been told that they will be like solo-challenge modes, but they are designed to test specific aspects of your role. Well, it could later be expanded into teaching you specific aspects of your class.

So for example, lets say I go into the Healer Proving Grounds. I'm instructed to keep target X alive using only my main 3 heals, all other abilities are disabled. And we go through some waves and waves of badguys and at the end I get to see some numbers which maybe tell me something useful, maybe not.
Further iteration, lets say I go into the Resto Druid Proving Grounds. I'm instructed to keep target X alive using only my main 3 heals, Lifeboom, and my Bloom Shrooms. All other abilities are disabled. And we go through some waves and waves of badguys and at the end I get to see some numbers.
Waves can also alternate. Guys who hit fast, hit slow, hit predictably, hit hard, hit weak, apply dots, apply debuffs, etc. My other abilities could be unlocked in further waves. Extra targets to heal could be added in further waves.

Role Based Proving Grounds means that there would likely only be 3 proving grounds, maybe 4 if they differentiate range and melee DPS. Specialization based Proving Grounds would be up to 34 proving grounds.
But if the two ideas could be synergized? That would make for an excellent educational tool while leveling up characters.

I was a big fan of class quests, but back when there was no phasing or anything, they were just a minor annoyance, a block between you getting an ability or not. If you had help, they were cake. If you did them alone, they were a challenge, and made you really learn how to do what you were doing but better. The Rogue dagger legendary, and Tarec'gosa's Rest were excellent examples of how cool class quests could possibly be. If they can make Proving Grounds be half as cool as that, I'm game.

[Admiral Squish]

Maybe they could make it so you can either pay for new skills, or learn them with quests.

[Karoht]

Maybe they could make it so you can either pay for new skills, or learn them with quests.

No one (by which I mean general populace of the Blizzard forums and other such generalizations) liked having to stop, return to a main city, pay for new skills, and return to their questing hub. Suggesting such is a regression to the old way, I don't know if you were around for that or not. Some people enjoyed class quests for skills, but there were inherant issues to them, which Blizzard stated is the reason they aren't likely to bring them back soon, the Rogue Legendary Dagger questline notwithstanding.

Now you get skills (and skill ranks) automatically, something people have been asking for since the game launched. Somehow I don't see them changing this any time soon, what with Mists launching next week.


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I have a theory regarding why they went the route they did with the new talent system. Tinfoil hats on, check under the spoiler tag.

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The old talent system was not downrank friendly. At all.
Let me clarify what that means. Lets say that Blizzard were working on a system to downrank a player to a certain piece of content. For example sake we will use Black Temple, a level 70 raid instance, I think the item level in there was 132?
Downranking items (and upranking them) seems to exist just fine.
Downranking a player's level can't be that difficult. It's minus some stats, and turn off certain abilities they have learned.
Downranking talents? In the old way of doing things, that would have been pretty difficult. The new talent system? They just turn off an entire tier of talents at a time. You're level 70? Great, turn off the 90 and 75 talents.

Now will they add Challenge Modes to old school raids? I highly doubt it, unless they break them up into wings really well. 15 bosses in 2 hours with current content BT plus trash? Yeah, not likely to happen. They'll either do it without a timer, or they will break each large raid into wings to make the timers a bit more reasonable.

But does the new talent system bring us one step further to a 'classic' mode via downranking? I certainly think so.

[The_Jackal]

No one (by which I mean general populace of the Blizzard forums and other such generalizations) liked having to stop, return to a main city, pay for new skills, and return to their questing hub. Suggesting such is a regression to the old way, I don't know if you were around for that or not.

The problem with that outlook is that convenience destroys immersion. The whole fabric of the game has been pruned and trimmed to the point where, once you're finished with your level grind, you haven't a single earthly reason to leave Orgrimmar (or Ironforge). The whole trend of the game is to remove fussy details, when fussy details were one of the things distinguishing the game from its more derivative competitors.

The name of the game is 'World of Warcraft', not 'Looking for Group Queue of Warcraft'. What's the point of having a world if you're never required to travel it?

[Karoht]

The problem with that outlook is that convenience destroys immersion. The whole fabric of the game has been pruned and trimmed to the point where, once you're finished with your level grind, you haven't a single earthly reason to leave Orgrimmar (or Ironforge). The whole trend of the game is to remove fussy details, when fussy details were one of the things distinguishing the game from its more derivative competitors.

The name of the game is 'World of Warcraft', not 'Looking for Group Queue of Warcraft'. What's the point of having a world if you're never required to travel it?

People complained, Blizzard listened, people complain more.
Yeah, because this cycle of non-sense isn't getting old at all.

"What's the point of having a world if you're never required to travel it?"
Blizzard: Hey guys, we're removing "Have Group Will Travel" because you complained about never having to travel the world, don't worry, we replaced it with a faster speed while on a taxi.
Forum Response: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRR How dare you take away our convenience when we complain about things being too convenient!

Ladies and gents, if you want convenience but complain about how convenience breaks immersion, then I suggest you come up with a means to satisfy both camps at the same time.
I personally look forward to the day when class quests return, if they ever do, but I am really not holding my breath.


@Theramoore Scenario
I like it. It's not really an event, but Blizzard came right out and stated that they aren't bothering with those events anymore. Delaying release of an expansion for a piece of content you can't revisit and is only around for a month and costs several months of development time is stupid. Doing a kind of content preview like this? Potentially with rewards that you won't be able to get again once the expansion goes live? It's a good middle ground. If we get cut-scenes like that at the end of all the scenarios, I really do look forward to more scenarios.
And the book (Jaina: Tides of War) so far is pretty decent so far. I'm about half way through.
This book has made me no longer dislike Gnomes. Me.

[Krazzman]

This book has made me no longer dislike Gnomes. Me.

I have to add an "IMPOSSIBRU!" here. How can you not hate them?

The Scenario was... sorta cheap... we went there (an Eleshaman, our Hunter, I as still Prot Paladin from our [finally] hc Spine kill) and found it lackluster... especially since gatecrusher or what that tank is was a bit bugged. (It disappeared and came from another place...)

Overall I found it a bit lackluster. Oh kill some of tha orcs! now kill more, now more fetch things and kill more. I hope the other Scenarios aren't that boring. Maybe this was enhanced by the bad mood we had after our first Madness HC try...we now need to find a way to deal with that blood but hey getting to the head in the third try with some guys never having seen a video of Madness HC i found it not bad.

[Traab]

I just wish they wouldnt remove events like the one where you have to free undercity from varimathras. The way I look at it is, until YOU do the event, it hasnt happened yet. (with some exceptions) But even if that isnt the case, it was still an awesome event that I really enjoyed completing every time I did it. I was SO FREAKING PISSED when I finally got an alliance character to that point, only to find you couldnt do it anymore.

[The_Jackal]

Ladies and gents, if you want convenience but complain about how convenience breaks immersion, then I suggest you come up with a means to satisfy both camps at the same time.
I personally look forward to the day when class quests return, if they ever do, but I am really not holding my breath.

Well, you're promulgating the fallacy that the same people who are complaining about inconvenience are complaining about the lack of immersion. In fact, the WoW forum user is not a monolithic demographic, and this is what controversy looks like. I've never complained about difficult, lengthy, time-consuming game features, I've sought them out. My favourite profession is blacksmithing, it took more work to max out, and had interesting quests and unique items you could get through it. I did my UBRS key quest line and enjoyed it. I rarely paid for mage-taxis, mostly because I realized that 95% of the time you'd get there quicker by jumping on a boat than by spamming trade. I did all my attunements, and actually enjoyed helping others get theirs done, because it was fun, and it was a good way to make friends and become a part of a community that has long since been left to drift in the sea of anonymity created by cross-server queueing.

This game has gotten PLENTY of convenient. They've given out guild perks which let you teleport home every 15 minutes. They've got teleports to all the quest zones in the game. You don't have to travel to dungeons or battlegrounds to queue for them, you just press a button and wait to be prompted to teleport. And while I think those also are undercutting immersion, I recognize them as legitimately obstructing people's ability to get in and out of an instance in a reasonable period of time. That kind of convenience is a net win for everyone.

What they're cutting now has nothing to do with that. They're just taking content out, for no better reason than they want the game to appeal to people who don't want to do it. You can fish now with a fishing pole, because carrying a fishing pole is just too inconvenient. As if the people who cared about convenience really worried about a bag slot or two for a fishing kit. They're taking out class quests, because apparently, they think people want to be translocated to level 90 A.S.A.P so they can start playing the game. Taken to its logical conclusion, we should just cut the leveling process and give people a level 90 character on character creation, fully equipped with a set of green gear.

The truth is, Blizzard knows the well is dry. WoW is 8 years old, and the people who are inclined to buy it and pay for it have bought it, paid for it, played it, and most are moving on. All that's left are the hardcore players, people who already have all the alts they could want, people who are already sitting on tons of virtual gold. If they believe they're going to get some renewed surge of interest from anything except new content, I think that's just wishful thinking, and I'd rather they don't waste their time and money turning the game into a caricature of of itself.

[Traab]

Well, you're promulgating the fallacy that the same people who are complaining about inconvenience are complaining about the lack of immersion. In fact, the WoW forum user is not a monolithic demographic, and this is what controversy looks like. I've never complained about difficult, lengthy, time-consuming game features, I've sought them out. My favourite profession is blacksmithing, it took more work to max out, and had interesting quests and unique items you could get through it. I did my UBRS key quest line and enjoyed it. I rarely paid for mage-taxis, mostly because I realized that 95% of the time you'd get there quicker by jumping on a boat than by spamming trade. I did all my attunements, and actually enjoyed helping others get theirs done, because it was fun, and it was a good way to make friends and become a part of a community that has long since been left to drift in the sea of anonymity created by cross-server queueing.

This game has gotten PLENTY of convenient. They've given out guild perks which let you teleport home every 15 minutes. They've got teleports to all the quest zones in the game. You don't have to travel to dungeons or battlegrounds to queue for them, you just press a button and wait to be prompted to teleport. And while I think those also are undercutting immersion, I recognize them as legitimately obstructing people's ability to get in and out of an instance in a reasonable period of time. That kind of convenience is a net win for everyone.

What they're cutting now has nothing to do with that. They're just taking content out, for no better reason than they want the game to appeal to people who don't want to do it. You can fish now with a fishing pole, because carrying a fishing pole is just too inconvenient. As if the people who cared about convenience really worried about a bag slot or two for a fishing kit. They're taking out class quests, because apparently, they think people want to be translocated to level 90 A.S.A.P so they can start playing the game. Taken to its logical conclusion, we should just cut the leveling process and give people a level 90 character on character creation, fully equipped with a set of green gear.

The truth is, Blizzard knows the well is dry. WoW is 8 years old, and the people who are inclined to buy it and pay for it have bought it, paid for it, played it, and most are moving on. All that's left are the hardcore players, people who already have all the alts they could want, people who are already sitting on tons of virtual gold. If they believe they're going to get some renewed surge of interest from anything except new content, I think that's just wishful thinking, and I'd rather they don't waste their time and money turning the game into a caricature of of itself.

What I honestly think they should do is, every expansion, they also go back and update a previous one like they did in cata for the old world. So take this upcoming expansion as an example. In addition to pandaria, they also advance the timeline for outland and revamp everything. Say the earthen ring and cenarion circle are working together on a massive undertaking, to recall the planets pieces back together again. In all the zones you have elementals running wild, as the newest upheaval is one too many, zones like netherstorm we have to build magical tethers to slowly pull the chunks together again, and find a way to reinfuse them with life. Things like that. With a similar boost in levelling speed as we got old world.

Then when the next expansion comes out, northrend gets revamped. The lich king is gone, but the vast swarms of undead still exist, leaderless, mindless, or are they? Former minions of the lich king, random death knights, cultists, whatever, have been seizing control over portions of the undead forces and are causing more problems, and its up to us to stop them before we have a new invasion of the undead to deal with.

Basically, by revamping old content, it will help keep burnout from happening as there wont just be 5 levels of new end game to play, but we can go to the old stuff and see how things have changed, and enjoy new story lines, redone dungeons, things like that.

[Aidan305]

Just logged in for the first time in a month to try the scenario.

I was disappointed. Not in the scenario as pre-xpack content, but in the scenario itself (Horde Side). I can't help but feel that there was so much more that could be have been done with it. It feels dull and lackluster, there's no story given to lead up to it (Wait, we were besieging Theramore? Wait, the siege was a fake all along?)

While I do appreciate that the story happens in the books, there should be no reason that it doesn't happen in the game as well. Look at the Wrathgate, and the story it told. Theramore should have been like that. Instance it in a scenario if you must, but make it interesting. This is the first scenario of many we encounter, and Blizzard should have made it feel special, so that we could look forward to seeing the amazing stuff they plan in future scenarios. But if they're like that, I may just stick to farming instead (once I make my farm).

[Traab]

I am incredibly pissed. I cant do the scenario because none of my 85s have the gear requirement for it. I know, I know, I should have it easily, I just dont tend to do a lot of dungeon runs, so most of my gear is 85 quest gear and ah stuff. The worst part is how CLOSE I am, I think most of my characters are like 10 points shy of the mark.

[Karoht]

Spoilered my reply to The_Jackal due to length, by all means feel free to reply in non-spoilered responses:

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Well, you're promulgating the fallacy that the same people who are complaining about inconvenience are complaining about the lack of immersion. In fact, the WoW forum user is not a monolithic demographic, and this is what controversy looks like.

Not really. I'm suggesting that the average forum poster will never be satisfied, probably because they themselves don't know what they want, they just want something different. Though a common vein appears to be that they want different and convenient. An even more common vein is that they want unrealistic things. See wowcrendor's video entitled "if fans ran WoW" and you get my opinion of the forum posters in a hurry.

I've never complained about difficult, lengthy, time-consuming game features, I've sought them out. My favourite profession is blacksmithing, it took more work to max out, and had interesting quests and unique items you could get through it. I did my UBRS key quest line and enjoyed it. I rarely paid for mage-taxis, mostly because I realized that 95% of the time you'd get there quicker by jumping on a boat than by spamming trade. I did all my attunements, and actually enjoyed helping others get theirs done, because it was fun, and it was a good way to make friends and become a part of a community that has long since been left to drift in the sea of anonymity created by cross-server queueing.

Cross-server queues came after attunements.
The rest of what you say, I agree with. I was there. I didn't portal because I didn't want to bother other mages. I didn't buy a mount because I thought Druid travel form (cheetah) was fast enough. I rather enjoyed the Karazhan attunement because I thought it told a really cool story, and encouraged you to see all the 5 man content in a kind of progression order. Though I disliked attunements because of the roadblocks and other pains in the bottom it caused. But I pose the following question: What relevance does 'the hard way' have today? Think about it. The old man who talks about walking 15 miles to school, uphill both ways, in the snow, with no shoes... Okay, it's a joke and exaggeration, but what relevance does that hold today in a world with more convenient ways of solving that problem?

This game has gotten PLENTY of convenient. They've given out guild perks which let you teleport home every 15 minutes. They've got teleports to all the quest zones in the game. You don't have to travel to dungeons or battlegrounds to queue for them, you just press a button and wait to be prompted to teleport. And while I think those also are undercutting immersion, I recognize them as legitimately obstructing people's ability to get in and out of an instance in a reasonable period of time. That kind of convenience is a net win for everyone.

Indeed. When they said they were taking out "Have Group Will Travel" and not allowing us to fly right away in Pandaria, I was actually sort of pleased.

You can fish now without a fishing pole, because carrying a fishing pole is just too inconvenient. As if the people who cared about convenience really worried about a bag slot or two for a fishing kit.

Actually, the reason is for PvP servers mostly, but CRZ plays a part in it. If there are going to be more people out in the world competing for pools and the like, there is the extra chance of getting ganked. They're trying to accomidate those people, and it was honestly a change for the better. Mining picks didn't require you to equip them. Skinning knives didn't require to be equiped. Why fishing poles? It makes rather a lot of sense.

They're taking out class quests, because apparently, they think people want to be translocated to level 90 A.S.A.P so they can start playing the game. Taken to its logical conclusion, we should just cut the leveling process and give people a level 90 character on character creation, fully equipped with a set of green gear.

Actually, class quests were removed almost 2 years ago. And they were removed for some very good reasons.
1-It's a known fact that people don't read quest text. Some people had no idea that there was a Warlock mount, or the ability to get their Infernal pet, or other such examples. Is that the fault of dumb players? Completely. But, part of making a user friendly game, sad to say it, is working around short attention spans. They could very well stop trying to accomidate those people, sure. They believed that it wasn't straight foward and therefore it was poorly designed.
2-Class quests took people off of the anticipated leveling route. This took players away from questing zones, typically at odd times, and usually made them cross contested territory (if on a PvP server). Even still, what point was there for Druids to go all the way from Arathi Highlands to Darkshore to swim to the bottom of a piece of ocean and come back up, only to get their swiming form? Plenty of druids ignored that quest just because of the senseless pain in the arse it was for pretty much no benefit.
3-Some of them had next to nothing to do with player skill, and more depended on grinding (you had to gather materials for them, something Blizzard has been moving away from outside of professions), some were a gold sink (Epic Paladin Mount), some created niche markets for farmers to exploit.
4-Some had very little connection to what was going on. IE-Shamans would climb up a mountain, light a brazier, talk to and then fight a fire elemental, bang, they know how to use fire based totems?
5-Some quests required a group, which takes away from it feeling personal.
The biggest successes of the Staff and Dagger legendary questlines were that yes, you needed a group for some things, but you needed to go do things on your own too. It allowed for a more complete story to be told, and it became a test of how well you knew your class, not just how much popularity you had in your raid group.

If they believe they're going to get some renewed surge of interest from anything except new content, I think that's just wishful thinking, and I'd rather they don't waste their time and money turning the game into a caricature of of itself.

Hence why I think, if they are going to bother with class quests again, it is going to require a 'ground up' revamp. The kind of revamp that facilitates creating a whole new content type. Proving Grounds, even if they were just role-based, could be the lead-in to such a revamp. Same with level-locked content such as the way Challenge Mode Dungeons are being presented. Think about it. At level 35, you get a notice to get your butt to a trainer. Trainer presents you with a specific Proving Ground/Scenario you have to complete, and you don't get ability X until you do. Moreover, you can't over-level it or over-gear it. You could probably ignore it for a while, come back to it at your leisure, but it will still be a challenge and therefore might actually teach you something no matter what level you complete it at.
Tie such events to achievements and maybe a meta that presents a title/pet/mount/trinket.
For example, how many Druids out there would love to pack around the title of Archdruid? How many Shamans would like to have the title of Farseer? Paladins with the title High Lord? Warriors with the title of Blademaster? And to have it MEAN something?

@Challenge Modes

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I saw the times for some of them. The Brewery requires 12 minutes on gold, and supposedly it is the hardest one to complete, nevermind in 12 minutes. Oh man.
At the same point, they showed videos today of the visual proc that occurs with the challenge mode gear rewards. It doesn't have a game effect, it's purely visual.
When I saw the one for Druids and Deathknights? I had to change my pants. I want to be one of the first Druids to get that set on my server. I'm starting to wish I'd paid a bit more attention on the Beta.

Also, I'm finally done ToC dailies for mounts. I have all the mounts, all the pets, and all the rewards I care to chase. So now...
I'm farming pets to sell in the Neutral AH, or gift to people. Every 4 days I get a new pet if I just farm with Karoht. 3 if I feel like doing all the dailies that pop. I sort of wish I'd done this ages ago, those pets are good money makers. 5K each on the neutral AH.

[The Linker]

What I honestly think they should do is, every expansion, they also go back and update a previous one like they did in cata for the old world. So take this upcoming expansion as an example. In addition to pandaria, they also advance the timeline for outland and revamp everything.

You say that pretty lightly. That's an extremely massive undertaking that would take a ton of development time away from other content. Pandaria would be, like, half the size. You can't just take out Pet Battles or something because the UI and art guys working on that don't know how to make zones and story and quests. Pandaria's story and quests would have to suffer and leave us with new content on the scale of Cata's new zones.

I'd love it if Outland was advanced, too, but I'm more looking forward to seeing a great many story threads get developed and resolved and left open for future advancement in Pandaria.

[Traab]

You say that pretty lightly. That's an extremely massive undertaking that would take a ton of development time away from other content. Pandaria would be, like, half the size. You can't just take out Pet Battles or something because the UI and art guys working on that don't know how to make zones and story and quests. Pandaria's story and quests would have to suffer and leave us with new content on the scale of Cata's new zones.

I'd love it if Outland was advanced, too, but I'm more looking forward to seeing a great many story threads get developed and resolved and left open for future advancement in Pandaria.

They managed to do it for cata didnt they? They added in 5 new levels, 5 new zones, all that extra content, AND they revamped the entire old world, eastern kingdom and kalimdor. That is a LOT of zones that got reworked. Outland has like 1/5th as many zones to revamp. So it only makes sense that it would take far less effort to do than the old world changes.

[The_Jackal]

+Karoht The dreaded spoiler quote of spoilerdom:

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Not really. I'm suggesting that the average forum poster will never be satisfied, probably because they themselves don't know what they want, they just want something different. Though a common vein appears to be that they want different and convenient. An even more common vein is that they want unrealistic things. See wowcrendor's video entitled "if fans ran WoW" and you get my opinion of the forum posters in a hurry.

I think the 'you don't know what you want' is ultimately a non-productive dismissal of what is, at the end of the day, two camps of players both vying to change the game in favour of their own playstyles. There's the folks who want a deep, involved, challenging game, and there's folks who want a fast, convenient, easy-to-play game, and the one part where I agree with you is in that they'll never be fully reconciled. Yes, I've seen WoWCrendor's video, and it's satire, not a serious rebuttal of the various player factions' pleas.

Cross-server queues came after attunements.

This statement confuses me. I believe nothing I've said contradicts your statement. It's possible I committed some logic or grammatical error which was confusing, however.

The rest of what you say, I agree with. I was there. I didn't portal because I didn't want to bother other mages. I didn't buy a mount because I thought Druid travel form (cheetah) was fast enough. I rather enjoyed the Karazhan attunement because I thought it told a really cool story, and encouraged you to see all the 5 man content in a kind of progression order. Though I disliked attunements because of the roadblocks and other pains in the bottom it caused. But I pose the following question: What relevance does 'the hard way' have today?

It makes the game fun? The point at which the game becomes repetitive and dull is when you've stopped doing different things, and fall into the routine of doing the same things over and over again. The function of attunements, the function of progression is to rate-limit your progress through the game, just like raid lockouts. They've removed the attunement process, and what they've put in its place is the daily booby-prize: 100 Valor points for deigning to waste your time in the LFG pool.

Now I'm not

Think about it. The old man who talks about walking 15 miles to school, uphill both ways, in the snow, with no shoes... Okay, it's a joke and exaggeration, but what relevance does that hold today in a world with more convenient ways of solving that problem?

You're misrepresenting my position. I'm not one of the four Yorkshiremen. I kind of don't care that others have it easier than we did. I care that the detail and depth of the progression, and the rest of the world, are being stripped away in a tide of simplification. I want the detail and immersion back for everyone, myself included. Also, I'm not opposed to all convenience. In fact, a lot of it, I embrace. The revamp of consumables was desperately needed, as was the re-tuning of buffs to let people 'bring the player, not the buff'.

Indeed. When they said they were taking out "Have Group Will Travel" and not allowing us to fly right away in Pandaria, I was actually sort of pleased.

Actually, the reason is for PvP servers mostly, but CRZ plays a part in it. If there are going to be more people out in the world competing for pools and the like, there is the extra chance of getting ganked. They're trying to accomidate those people, and it was honestly a change for the better. Mining picks didn't require you to equip them. Skinning knives didn't require to be equiped. Why fishing poles? It makes rather a lot of sense.

Well, I find that notion laughable. Switching back to your weapon takes 1 global cooldown, and in any case, it's not going to make any difference in any case, it's usually the opening shot that let's the attacker ensure they're going to win on a gank, regardless of what's in your hand at the time.

Actually, class quests were removed almost 2 years ago. And they were removed for some very good reasons.
1-It's a known fact that people don't read quest text. Some people had no idea that there was a Warlock mount, or the ability to get their Infernal pet, or other such examples. Is that the fault of dumb players? Completely. But, part of making a user friendly game, sad to say it, is working around short attention spans. They could very well stop trying to accomidate those people, sure. They believed that it wasn't straight foward and therefore it was poorly designed.

I dispute that it was a good reason. At the time the implemented the removal of class quests, WoW was already past its apex, and no change they could possibly make was going to make it not a six year old game. Now it's an 8 year old game, and again, no dumbing-down of leveling or progression is going to turn back the clock. So how are these changes anything but a waste of developer resources?

2-Class quests took people off of the anticipated leveling route. This took players away from questing zones, typically at odd times, and usually made them cross contested territory (if on a PvP server). Even still, what point was there for Druids to go all the way from Arathi Highlands to Darkshore to swim to the bottom of a piece of ocean and come back up, only to get their swiming form? Plenty of druids ignored that quest just because of the senseless pain in the arse it was for pretty much no benefit.

That seems to me to be a reason to FIX the class quests, not remove them. Now when they have quest notifications that pop up spontaneously, how hard would it be for them to just have your class quests appear before you, and let them teleport you to an instanced area from the nearest class trainer? For one thing, it would make class trainers relevant again. For another, it would grant a tiny spec of variety to people playing alts.

3-Some of them had next to nothing to do with player skill, and more depended on grinding (you had to gather materials for them, something Blizzard has been moving away from outside of professions), some were a gold sink (Epic Paladin Mount), some created niche markets for farmers to exploit.

The only reason the warlock and paladin mounts were gold sinks was that, at the time, compared to the regular player mounts, they were impossibly cheap. It was only when they changed the riding system that those quests came out of sync with the new paradigm. I know of no other class quests which were gold sinks. Fix the mount quests, make them actually relevant to the new paradigm, and you've fixed the problem. Better yet, I'd liked to have seen them make the class mounts make the transition to flyers.

4-Some had very little connection to what was going on. IE-Shamans would climb up a mountain, light a brazier, talk to and then fight a fire elemental, bang, they know how to use fire based totems?

Having never played a shaman, I'll have to take your word for it. I never had cause any of the class quests I've completed.

5-Some quests required a group, which takes away from it feeling personal.

So what? This is a multiplayer game! I never felt any less awesome for getting great rewards I got with my friends. Rather, getting those rewards are among my favourite WoW memories.

The biggest successes of the Staff and Dagger legendary questlines were that yes, you needed a group for some things, but you needed to go do things on your own too. It allowed for a more complete story to be told, and it became a test of how well you knew your class, not just how much popularity you had in your raid group.

I agree totally, and I'd like to see more focus on that kind of reward.

Hence why I think, if they are going to bother with class quests again, it is going to require a 'ground up' revamp. The kind of revamp that facilitates creating a whole new content type. Proving Grounds, even if they were just role-based, could be the lead-in to such a revamp. Same with level-locked content such as the way Challenge Mode Dungeons are being presented. Think about it. At level 35, you get a notice to get your butt to a trainer. Trainer presents you with a specific Proving Ground/Scenario you have to complete, and you don't get ability X until you do. Moreover, you can't over-level it or over-gear it. You could probably ignore it for a while, come back to it at your leisure, but it will still be a challenge and therefore might actually teach you something no matter what level you complete it at.
Tie such events to achievements and maybe a meta that presents a title/pet/mount/trinket.
For example, how many Druids out there would love to pack around the title of Archdruid? How many Shamans would like to have the title of Farseer? Paladins with the title High Lord? Warriors with the title of Blademaster? And to have it MEAN something?

Some fantastic ideas! Can I offer you Greg Street's job as lead designer at Blizzard? (Answer: no, I can't.)

[The Linker]

They managed to do it for cata didnt they? They added in 5 new levels, 5 new zones, all that extra content, AND they revamped the entire old world, eastern kingdom and kalimdor. That is a LOT of zones that got reworked. Outland has like 1/5th as many zones to revamp. So it only makes sense that it would take far less effort to do than the old world changes.

Yes, of course -- that was the entire point of Cataclysm. The whole selling point of Cataclysm was "We're revamping the old world". They devoted an expansion to it. They had to make it the main focus of the expansion because it was such an epic ordeal. And because of the intense amount of resources devoted to that, there was a great deal of played feedback saying they felt there wasn't as much to do in the endgame. I certainly don't feel like the 80-85 journey is anywhere near as epic a journey as 70-80 was. Northrend's zones' storylines interconnected, where the new Cataclysm zones were kind of different episodes. Yeah, it's all dealing with minions of Deathwing, but the effects of one zone's quests are never really felt in the next zone's, like with, say, the Drakuru plotline, and the Wrathgate. That endgame stuff had to suffer just that little bit to revamp the old world, and many people at Blizzard remarked how they were amazed they managed to even get all that done.

And it's not like each and every Old World zone was given a full makeover, with story advancements and all-new quests. Stuff like Hillsbrad and The Barrens were great, but there were a lot of zones left alone, too, like Dustwallow, or just sort of streamlined, like Hinterlands. And lest we forget, an Outland or Wrath zone is much bigger with many, many more quests than the average Old World zone. The average for an old-world zone was 40. Borean Tundra has 130.