Forum Junkies EP 20: Spoilers?

[Kazeyonoma]

On this weeks Episode we talk about the Wales comicon and possible "Spoilers" that could have been released about a release date. Could MOP launch before Sept 23rd? We also talk about what has "Ruined" the wow experience for some players. Is it Game Design? Is it the Community? Or is the game just getting to big for it's self. All that and More on your weekly Forum Webcast, Forum Junkies. All this after the jump

[BattleHawk]

Darksends Idea of forcing players to stand at the entrence to the instance they are queing for sounds terrible to me, under the current system come MoP while in the que you could do your farm dailys, other dailys, pet battles, crafting/gathering skills or quest amoung other things, you don't have to stand around in the citys, that said plenty of people will still choose to, but at least they have the option.

If darksend got his way you would have to stand around at the entrence with almost nothing to do (you could do some pet battles if you have a willing opponent nearby), queing for random instances wouldn't work with this system either along with the bonuses they give (valor etc), and with the random que gone, que times for at least the less popular instances are sure to increase.

As much as I hate to say it, the more episodes I listen to, the more convinced I am that Darksend spends most of these shows trolling.

[Ayrybyn]

Instead of getting rid of queues, why not make it to where you can't queue up for a dungeon while inside any of the major cities? I think that this idea would help to eleviate some of the problems about sitting in a city while waiting for a queue without isolating those whom may want to do other things, such as farming, while waiting for said queues.(oh and btw the name is pronounced "Air-ah-bin.")

[BattleHawk]

Instead of getting rid of queues, why not make it to where you can't queue up for a dungeon while inside any of the major cities?

That seems like a step in the right direction, but I think it would most likely just end up with the people who just want to que standing just outside the gates of the major citys.

I think that to get people who are standing in ques half the time they play out into the world, there has to be content that they want to do in the world, but some people don't find the solo content in mmo's very engaging, and making artificial reasons to go out into the world by making people jump through hoops with the group finder is going to cause more problems that it solves.

[Trahvolta]

Darksends Idea of forcing players to stand at the entrence to the instance they are queing for sounds terrible to me, under the current system come MoP while in the que you could do your farm dailys, other dailys, pet battles, crafting/gathering skills or quest amoung other things, you don't have to stand around in the citys, that said plenty of people will still choose to, but at least they have the option.

If darksend got his way you would have to stand around at the entrence with almost nothing to do (you could do some pet battles if you have a willing opponent nearby), queing for random instances wouldn't work with this system either along with the bonuses they give (valor etc), and with the random que gone, que times for at least the less popular instances are sure to increase.

As much as I hate to say it, the more episodes I listen to, the more convinced I am that Darksend spends most of these shows trolling.

The thing is, is people are sitting in org with nothing to do while waiting for a que to pop. Your list of "things to do" are things people aren't doing. Dailies aren't a big hit in the wow community. ANd you listed them twice to inflate your list "Farm dailies, other dailies",. Those both go under dailies. And sorry, but "Crafting/gathering" isn't enough of a reason to not have to travel somewhere. And darksend played when the game was at it's greatest. Just because you don't like what he has to say, doesn't mean he is trolling. Convenience doesn't always equal a better time. As we are seeing with the current state of wow. People do not go out in the world. Any way to get them to do that is a plus. Even if that means traveling to a dungeon.

[uglie]

There's no reason to go out in the world to farm because of the bots. You need a couple flowers? Go to the AH. Some ore? Again the AH.

[BattleHawk]

The thing is, is people are sitting in org with nothing to do while waiting for a que to pop. Your list of "things to do" are things people aren't doing. Dailies aren't a big hit in the wow community. ANd you listed them twice to inflate your list "Farm dailies, other dailies",. Those both go under dailies. And sorry, but "Crafting/gathering" isn't enough of a reason to not have to travel somewhere.

The list of things to do is not the point, the point is that there is stuff out in the world to do for those that want to it, while all those who are not intrested in that stuff sit in org/SW and wait. For most of these, if they had to travel to a dungon to que for it, it would be a case of, get on flying mount fly directly to entrence and wait there instead of in the city.

I find it hard to imagine someone who already sits in the city waiting for a que to pop, flying to the entrance of a dungon to que and then delaying joining the que to do some quest he happend to pass or gank some lowbie.

A side note to this is, while this scenario is one thing at lvl 90, I have leveled every class to 85, if I had to level a monk from 1 to 90 while not being able to quest while queing, I don't think I'd make it.

As for my opinion of Darksend being a troll, that is just the honest impression I get from the guy, I am not trying to pass it off as a fact or anything to that end.

There's no reason to go out in the world to farm because of the bots. You need a couple flowers? Go to the AH. Some ore? Again the AH.

I farm up enough herbs and ore to suit my needs while queing on some alts that have mining/herbing. very rearly buy that stuff from AH.

[Darksend]

As for my opinion of Darksend being a troll, that is just the honest impression I get from the guy, I am not trying to pass it off as a fact or anything to that end.

I believe in going wayyyyyyyyy past the mark, and dialing it back in increments to find the sweet spot. For example, I hate soloing in mmos, I cut my teeth on FFXI and as such I will forever believe that as soon as you hit say level 15-20 you should not physically be able to solo a normal mob the same level as you, it is an MMO for a reason. Anyway, following this belief I posted on another forums this idea for discussion:

"once you hit level 20 killing a mob of the same level will award 100 experience to each person in the group for a group of 5, but if you kill it in a group of 4 you each get 80 experience, group of 3 you each get 60, 2 you each get 40 and solo you get 20 experience, even if it takes 20 minutes to kill the mob solo but only a minute in a group of 5."

OBVIOUSLY I know this would never work from a business standpoint but I firmly believe the genre needs to return to its social roots, and if you want to solo from 15 to max level it SHOULD! take 4-5x as long as running with a group of 5. I honestly believe this would lead to better grouping at max level and a stronger community. I actually stated, "mmos are driven by the community, and the best way to make the community stronger is to completely eliminate solo leveling from the genre but I realize concessions need to be made thus the above solution. I realize that will lead to less people playing, but maybe that is a good thing." How did this idea go over you ask? A few people agreed with me flat out, but EVERYONE! agreed with what I was trying to accomplish, and we took the concept and over the next several pages had some really interesting discussions what the proper balance should be.

Hand in hand with that belief however is he fact I think games should have NO INSTANCED CONTENT until level cap. (And for reference, I hate the fact that "solo content" has come to mean "in the world" and "group content" means "stuff that only happens in instances". I prefer the FFXI model where there were open world zones had nothing but same level mobs that required a full/near full group of appropriate level players to kill, and if FFXI had quests, I imagine all 50 quests in the zone would have been 6 man group quests, as opposed to the wow model where there are 60 quests then the zone with 55 being solo then the zone ends with 5-6 group quests then a dungeon tie-in quest followed by a dungeon run. I also think every mob you kill while leveling should take a least a minute to kill and really make you use your abilities (even solo) and not just be able to walk up to it mangle it 3 times and have it die.)

Finally I do not think I said you needed to STAY in that sanctuary zone once you entered the que, and if I gave that impression I am sorry, I never meant that to be that case, you simply had to be there to enter. I will admit to being wrong though, I had completely ignored the fact that my idea would basically eliminate the overall "you enter a que and it picks a random instance" aspect of LFG so thank you for bringing up that point, it is definitely a valid criticism I need to consider.

MMOs are driven by the community, and all my ideas are to try and get that sense of community back into wow. I am not saying they are perfect, but they are ideas, and I would rather suggest stupid, completely exagerated ideas that can be discussed and could possibly be morphed into something usable than see the final result and hate it and then have no right to complain because I did not speak up.

I farm up enough herbs and ore to suit my needs while queing on some alts that have mining/herbing. very rearly buy that stuff from AH.

And that works for you, but that does not change the fact that uglie has a legitimate point. Gold is so inflated in the current game it means almost nothing, if I tried I could go out and make a couple thousand gold in a few hours. I used to have a max level alt of every profession, fact is that is no longer needed through a combination of guild perks providing everything and the inflation of gold

[BattleHawk]

Finally I do not think I said you needed to STAY in that sanctuary zone once you entered the que, and if I gave that impression I am sorry, I never meant that to be that case, you simply had to be there to enter.

Having to stay at the entence was the impression I got and quite a bit of my argument was based on that, queing up and being able to leave while you wait sounds far more reasonable (apart from the random que, off the top of my head maybe some form of dungon que hub area(s) could work, but that sounds like it could back-fire aswell).
Thanks for clearing that up.

And that works for you, but that does not change the fact that uglie has a legitimate point. Gold is so inflated in the current game it means almost nothing, if I tried I could go out and make a couple thousand gold in a few hours. I used to have a max level alt of every profession, fact is that is no longer needed through a combination of guild perks providing everything and the inflation of gold

I can see how I might has seemed dismissive of his point, I apologize I didn't mean it that way, I know gold is getting kind of meaningless at this point (4 alchemests with truegold CDs at the start of the expansion made sure of that), but while I have my gatherers in the que, might as well put them to work.

As for moving group based content out into the world, I normaly level by spamming dungons as much as I can with some questing in between as I prefer to play with a group. If I could level primarly by doing content in the open world that was designed for groups, that sounds like a blast if you could consistanly and easily form groups for it. It also sounds like it would be difficult to implement and tune it properly.
If group questing replaced dungons I'd rather not see the situation get to seeing trade chat spammed with "LFM (insert zone name) group quests, need 1 dps and 1 healer, we are at quest 25/60" and have very few groups managing to from this. Though it might work if players could skip some quests to join a group, or had other methods to help form groups. Just not to the extent of a cross realm que, that would defeat the purpose.

[Rawer]

I imagine all 50 quests in the zone would have been 6 man group quests, as opposed to the wow model where there are 60 quests then the zone with 55 being solo then the zone ends with 5-6 group quests then a dungeon tie-in quest followed by a dungeon run. I also think every mob you kill while leveling should take a least a minute to kill and really make you use your abilities (even solo) and not just be able to walk up to it mangle it 3 times and have it die.)

I agree. I hate the fact that Blizzard every expansion treats it as we are lvl 1-10 again and that we are all "noobs" at max level.
Unless you Ebayed your account they shouldn't have this faceroll/ entry-level/ noobie stuff we need to do at max level.

And sorry, but "Crafting/gathering" isn't enough of a reason to not have to travel somewhere.

Yes, for a game named World of Warcraft, crafting sux so much. Crafting is either useless or used to min-max, recipes are found in raids or on vendors instead of the world, lots of results of crafting are BoP, lots of professions are useless.
They need to fix crafting somehow.

[crusadernero]

The problem is, so many of the people that make videos/podcasts etc are those who have played mmos for a loooong time. Many of us classic wow players(yes I have played since launch), like to look back at how it used to be and dream about how glorious it was. Fact is, if wow was turned back to how it used to be not even close to 10M would play the game.

I have played the whole Halo series. I LOVED the first Halo game, but I cant say I enjoyed is as much when I played it again not long ago. That was wierd, because I have always thought that game was amazing and nothing wrong with it.

I would like to hear from someone who is new to WoW, and how they like the game. It's getting daunting listenting to veterans complaining about how easy "everything" is in wow and so on. Dont get me wrong, it's nice to hear from veterans, but I am 100% sure that so many of them never REALLY want to go back to classic way of wow.

[Huck]

Yes, for a game named World of Warcraft, crafting sux so much. Crafting is either useless or used to min-max, recipes are found in raids or on vendors instead of the world, lots of results of crafting are BoP, lots of professions are useless.
They need to fix crafting somehow.

I Would think the best way to make Crafting interesting is to add quest to them, not go collect xgems or something silly like that, but instead add solo content for crafting, where you have to get a wep from an NPC that is in a strong hold or something similar to that, Solo content that leads into Crafting recipe's or access to a item that makes creating items easier.

[leethaxor]

As for my opinion of Darksend being a troll, that is just the honest impression I get from the guy, I am not trying to pass it off as a fact or anything to that end.

I'll get fired again buuut QFT.

[Darksend]

I Would think the best way to make Crafting interesting is to add quest to them, not go collect xgems or something silly like that, but instead add solo content for crafting, where you have to get a wep from an NPC that is in a strong hold or something similar to that, Solo content that leads into Crafting recipe's or access to a item that makes creating items easier.

HEY NOW HUCK! but that was my idea!

For those who didn't listen, I suggested almost exactly this in the previous episode (or 2 ago now I guess). The only difference is that I said they should make it a 5 man scenario where you que specifically for the say "leatherworking scenario" and you get into a group with 5 leatherworkers. The goal of this scenario is to escort an NPC skinner to a super elite mob that drops "super heavy leather of amazingness" and when you kill him the npc will skin it and everyone in the group gets one. That becomes an optional material for every single pattern and anything made with that item gets say ... +50 to a stat of your choosing.

I'll get fired again buuut QFT.

who are you? O.o

[Zoltar]

Sorry, but I just don't see what is so terrible about people hanging in orgrimmar or stormwind. You guys are trying to make it out to be the boogey man, and it just isn't. If blizzard wants to give us things to do out in the world, then that's fine. But arbitrarily forcing people out of cities JUST to force them out is stupid.

But yea, I found this episode pretty hilarious. Everyone bags on sitting in cities and flying mounts... then they bring up the molten front/hyjal offensive, i.e. the thing in CATA that most got people out of cities into the world doing things and where flying mounts weren't allowed... and everyone hates on that too. Seriously, how hypocritical can you get? It's downright absurd.

[BLSTMASTER]

About the release date, remember SC2 was released on July 27th and was quite a success (saleswise)