I have got to thank every one of you who posted such great comments on the original post, Cataclysm 4-Month Review. One of the best things about reading posts on the site is not necessarily the posts themselves, but the comments from other players. It really gives a great perspective on how so many people view the game so differently. It definitely helps me understand you guys, so when I write my posts, I know where my readers are coming from.
I think some of the points I made in the original post came off pretty clear, and others didn’t. I am writing this post to clarify some of my comments about my view on World of Warcraft and Cataclysm.
Cataclysm 4.5-Month Review!
World of Warcraft is a great game, there is no denying that. Playing for almost 6 years says a ton about the quality of game WoW has evolved into. Goes to show Blizzard knows what they are doing.
I started out as a college kid playing WoW, where devoting time to the game was easy. No responsibilities, complete freedom of time management, and no worries other than getting myself fed and on my way to school/work on time. But now, I am married with two very small children, own a house, work full-time, started up an online revenue venture, and also function as a stay-at-home dad during the weekdays.
Needless to say, my time has become very precious to me.
I still play WoW, but only in small intervals. One or two hours a time at most. This does not leave a great deal of game time for raiding, preparation, and gold-making. My frustration with the game comes in the form of the amount of time required to participate in end-game content, which is the main WoW content once you have leveled to 85.
I just cannot spend 3, 4, or even 5 hours at a time grinding on bosses and encounters. It takes many nights to take down certain raids, if not even single bosses. It’s crazy to think I spend 12 to 15 hours a week grinding out one raid dungeon over a 2-month period, half of that unsuccessfully.
It made me realize that although content is hard, and finally a true challenge, my personal life can no longer justify the large amounts of time needed for this game.
Easier Content?
In the original post, I said what I would like to see is easier bosses and encounters, at least for just one raid dungeon. Something similar to Baradin’s Hold and VoA. Something a raid, or dare I say it, a PUG, could clear without too much difficulty in a 1-2 hour window.
I know many of you have said that you can breeze through the current raids now in this time span, no problem. but how long did it take you to get t that point? What I would like to see is something that starts off fairly simple, and doesn’t require the grind to get to the point of ease.
By all means, keep the other raids, and continue to make more difficult ones, to appease the masses…but for players like myself, it’s becoming harder and harder to justify such large quantities of time to a game, when those hours could be spent on much more practical uses.
I still love this game, and have found myself leveling several new toons…and I have had a blast doing it. Gnome Priest, Goblin Hunter, and Dwarf Mage have all kept me more than satisfied, and I will continue to play these guys care-free, until we get some new content released!
Gold making is the only thing that keeps me paying my monthly fee. Yup, I pay real money to make fake money, lol. There are many things about Cata that have left me feeling disenchanted with the game, but I don’t blame the game producers, it’s probably just a case of me having played for five years. I just plain don’t feel like doing it anymore. Gold making was a passion I discovered when I first started feeling bored towards the end of Wrath. No idea what I’m going to do with it all, I just like seeing how much I can make. It’s a mini-game within a game, know what I mean? And you know what…completely stress free. Finally, I feel like I’m playing a GAME insead of performing a second job.
As for my ret paladin…I have played ret pally as a main for four years and that won’t change. But for now, he’s been reduced to a glyph crafting bot, lol.
@Khor I have to agree with you I started out playing when i was in High School when the game came out it has been fun. Since then though I have had one child myself and work a full time job. I enjoy the game along with a few buddies I have been playing with since High School. It get’s monotonous trying to keep up with everything, gearing isn’t an issue. It just takes some patience which not many people have especially tanks and healers even though they have instant Ques, it causes others to wait for 30-40 mins.
Raiding, I haven’t gotten a chance to get into anything other than BH since cata came out. Would much rather have a Guild 10 man or a Guild 25 man then a PUG group that is gonna fail from the get go. On a note you mentioned it’s more about gear checks like back in Molten Core Days. I have to agree and yet disagree, yes you need the gear, but skill is just as important. If you don’t have the skill or “Raid Awareness” your not going to be tanking, healing or doing the dps necessary to knock out the the encounters.
This brings me back to how long Raids take, most people who have been playing for years have lives and trying to juggle them and play WoW can be hard. We can’t just let our lives be sucked into the game and abandon everything else just food for thought.
-Grana
i havent played for long time, just the last three month my friends talked me finally played wow and now they’ve abandon me because they’re busy with work, well so do i… i only played up to three hours at most everyday… this website had helped me BIG time. for me i like doing pvp, not arena just yet since i havent got a decent equipments, just random battleground atm. and yes, dailies for the gold and it growth makes me happy somehow… maybe its something like a primeval personal satisfaction?
Everything will change with patch 4.1 and 4.2 after. Raids will be easier after 4.1 cause everyone will fill up equip with 353 ilvl slots + everyone will do best enchants (cause of much cheaper maelstroms).
When 4.2 will come (July ?) everyone will forget that something was hard. They will do Firelands with propably 7+ bosses. There will be another time some more some less difficult ones but with next Tier of gear youll be able to do BoT, BWD and T4T much more easier.
Raids are not for everyone, but if you want another BH or VoA you dont know what youre calling for. Basically Magmaw & Halfus are easy enough for pugs. If you have only 2 hours for raids -> go for this 2, done
I have to say I agree. WoW has gone from my EverQuest replacement (when EQ became a grindfest just to be able to raid) to becoming the grindfest encouraging me to play more Rift.
I think the biggest loss is that Cata has nothing past lvl 85 but Dungeon Queues, Reputation Daily Grinds, and trying to get a raid going. If you have limited time and use to trade skill or quest, that is pretty much gone. In WotLK you could quest post 80 and chat with guildies that were running a raid. The community held your interest while you ran around Northrend. With Cata, you stand in Org or Stormwind waiting for a dungeon queue, or repeat the same dailies that are so limited that you complete them all in 30 min. Boredom has set in bad in my guild and it is hard to get 5 players online now to do anything.
I’m actually looking at taking people back to ICC and Ulduar just because those were fun. Going for achievements and mounts. The Cata raids just are not fun in my opinion. But we’ve lost so many players already that we may have to fold up the guild and merge into the mega guilds to be able to do anything.
@Weru Regarding Mega Guilds I feel there worthless, IMO there not much better than PUGs, Homely guilds where everyone knows everyone well to an extent even if it is just in-game. It helps in coordinating for those old achievements etc.
While I agree that it would be nice to see some more content for the more casual players, I think that WoW’s raiding environment is VASTLY improved over that of the original and even the Burning Crusade.
Making progress in Molten Core was an absolute nightmare back in the classic game, since there was so much trash and it had relatively short respawn timers in relation to the time it took to reach bosses. It took my guild back then over 4 months just to kill every boss (raiding 4 nights a week) and when we finally got everything on farm status, it usually took 8 or more hours just to clear the raid instance.
By contrast, my current guild only raids 2 days a week for a total of 6 hours and we continue to make steady progress (9/12 currently). While we’re certainly not hardcore, I do think that the current raiding structure allows us to experience more of the raiding environment than we could ever hope to see in the classic game and the first expansion.
I’m with Khor on this point, but I also understand the counter argument.
By the end of Wrath, I think I had convinced myself I was a raider. But the fact is I’m a casual player who is hardcore about certain aspects of the game (I solo everything I can, I have over 100 mounts and pets, titles, blah blah.)
The 5-man and raiding environment from Wrath to Cata was a big change. Everything takes longer. There is very little tank-and-spank, and there isn’t one milk run in the game right now. One mistake from one player can sink a 10 man raid.
Frankly, I want to out-gear content by a bit. When you don’t, it puts you too much in the hands of other players, some of who have nothing better to do than to wipe all night and goof off in vent.
Certainly, if you’ve ground out your reps and run your 5-man’s, there are a few raid bosses that are farmable. But for the casual raider like me, that’s kind of the limit of what’s do-able right now.
My guild gets two bosses in an hour and then wipes on the third for two. Lame, I know. But for now, for a fun, casual guild, I think it’s fine. We’ll be 12/12 in 4.2 and down Sinestra someday. I can live with that, since that’s the kind of commitment I want to make to the game.
But it’s not as fun. I think it will get fun again pretty soon, so I’m not worried. Right now, I’m having fun getting my guild to 55 Exalted, getting dungeon achievements for the drake, that kind of thing. I’ll get back to raiding when it’s a 3 hour full clear, not a 4 hour wipefest.
Agreed. The worst part for me is attempting to PUG content. My guild doesn’t get out much and basically consists of parents and displaced college students, so raiding is about impossible now.
Once I hit 85 (and did every quest in the new cata areas) the only thing left for me to do is clear old raids with friends, get Loremaster, do the Argent Tourney stuff I never finished, and push the limits of my Retadin through some old dungeons.
I miss Wrath, and I never thought I’d say that.
I agree completely Khor. I actually have a very similar story to your own (without the kids though!). However, as a student finishing my doctorate, it’s not possible to invest the time to raid and have an active social life.
At this point, I’ve gotten most of the gear I wanted out of heroics and now seem to be waiting for the new ZG/ZA content. I’ve come to terms with the reality that most raiding is only possible for those with ample time to invest in WoW. It is too bad, but like you, alts can keep me entertained while I wait for new content.
Would agree with Khor on many fronts but with some ideas. I too have limited time and like many have been playing this game for some time. Have had to switch guilds a few times with cata as it seems now more than ever if you don’t have an absolute tight guild with at least 15 or more core players raiding past BH just isn’t happening well. What is working well IMHO: 5 man heroics and I’d say because the management of a 5 man team is much easier AND the mechanics setup currently you can lose some members of that team and still succeed. This is what blizzard needs to leverage for the casual player that many of us who were once hardcore now have time for. Somehow rejigger the raids for multiple 5 man teams and don’t tie the success of the entire raid on the failure of one team – rather stage it in such a manner that you can PUG into a 5 man raid group at different encounters. At the final boss the assignment of roles for the teams can be done in such a way that you can lose a member without a complete wipe. The notion that near perfection is required to finish a raid is crap as is the notion that ultimate devotion in time is required.
If you want to distinguish the hardcore raid from the 5 man raid idea fine – but make it an achievement or a title or a mount but what is killing blizzard is that there is so much content that is unseen by so many due to difficulty that this eventually will backlash.
On another track – the ease in leveling IMHO in both WoTLK and CATA led directly to what we are experiencing. Leveling has become way to easy and quest chains too simplified.
The CATA is out of the bag at this point so will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Good hunting to all!
Totally agree with you Khor, as I said in the original post.
Since Cata our old guild that was raiding ICC very well and got upto the LK fight has just disintegrated. The GM and some of the officers are just not raiding or playing anymore.
Myself and 2 of the other officers asked for them to hand over the guild (lvl 16) but were turned down by the gm. Very dissapointed as we put a lot of time and effort into the guild to build it up.
We have now removed most of our toons from the guild and started a fresh guild.
We are finding it hard to get a 10 man team together but working on it.
The best thing for us is the the 4.1 patch and the new ZA / ZG instances. They are like mini raids and a lot of fun for a group in quest blues, crafted epics and rep rewards.
The fight mechanics are enjoyable and not taking us 5 hours to clear. We are wiping but enjoying ourselves at the same time.
Would love to see a 5 man version of Kara and Sunwell