Category: World of Warcraft

As MMOs Age

I’m an MMO addict. Let’s forget about Wow and ones before that. Recently I play Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy XIV and Guild Wars 2. Recently I got bored and went back to Guild Wars [1], but let’s ignore that in this comparison.

In these games I have many characters:

Each game has lots of choices for classes and races and so there are lots of combinations to try. Some I don’t find that interesting – Cat People [Khajiit] in ESO for example just aren’t that interesting to me personally. All the races in ESO are just head changes on basically the same body with or without fur. And new classes appear with new expansions. We just got Arcanist with the Necrom expansion recently.

For FFXIV, all classes [ jobs ] are available to all races and in every character. So you don’t have to make a new character to try a new job. So there aren’t so much as “Combinations” as just all the race choices. And more races and jobs with each expansion.

For Guild Wars 2, all races can play one of any of the classes [Professions] and each expansion brings along new “Specializations” for the classes.

So what happens as a game ages. All these game are more than or almost 10 years old at this point. What happens to the games over time and what does that mean for new players.

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What Wow Gets Wrong with Dragon Mounts

World of Warcraft has been accused of copying Guild Wars 2 mounts for the upcoming Dragonflight expansion. Let’s review Guild Wars 2 mounts for those who don’t know. Mounts were added to Guild Wars 2 in Path of Fire. Before that travel was limited to Teleporting to Waypoints, and Gliding. There were some other things like mushrooms and lava tubes in some limited zones.

Guild Wars 2 Mounts

There are a few mounts in Guild Wars 2 and they each have their special abilities that are increased with Masteries in the game. All mounts and mount skins are account wide in GW2, just like Wow.

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Mounts in Different Games

I recently ran across a Youtube video where someone was complaining about the long effort to get a Griffon in Guild Wars 2. Griffon is the first flying mount in GW2. I won’t link the video as I’m sure he’s moved on and is now struggling with the many times longer process to get a Skyscale mount. I starting working on getting Skyscale in November 2020 and finally got it in January 2021.

As we know, different MMOs have different requirements for the use of Mounts. Let’s review:

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Why Not Just Fly?

I’m working my way through Path of Fire to get the Griffon mount. It’s the first mount that looks like it’s flying, but it’s not.

The second “Flying Mount” introduced into GW2, Living World Season 4 is the Skyscale. This has enhanced flight mechanics, but still can’t really fly.

There must be some “religious objection” to flight. Ever since Gliders were introduced in Heart of Thorns, we could only “Glide” while all other popular games in the genre have True Flight. Well, not really…

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WOW Pre-Patch Starter

Ok. I admit, I’m just a lurker. I don’t pay for Wow any more, I just play the starter or trial or whatever they call it. Yep. Recall that I played it for years and left when in Legion they did the “Universal Level Scaling”. That ruined it for me. Anyway, I check in periodically to see how things are doing, and of course yesterday was the big “Shadowlands Pre-Patch”. So I logged in, made a new toon and ran through the tutorial. I’m not going to spoil all of it. But you can do it too for only about a two hours investment. And you’ll wanna check out the new character customization options, although after FFXIV, I find those completely underwhelming.

Some shots from my Exile’s Reach experience

You are led by the hand, literally, through the experience on Exile’s Reach. It’s a common trope, nothing original here, Blizzard:

  • The ship to far off lands
  • The catastrophe that washes you up on the beach
  • The buddy that’s going to walk you through the whole experience, step by step.

But there are a few Wow specific tropes here too:

  • The obligatory “Bomb the masses from some sort of airship”, although this airship was just a little rotor and you dangle from a rope. Come on Blizz, the Goblins and Gnomes have better little one-man airships than this.
  • The “dress up an on Ogre” quest, or dress us as anything else, to sneak into the fortress, after which everybody ignores you anyway as you walk around with no costume.
  • and the minor dungeon tutorial where the NPC acts, or says she is acting, as your tank while you kill some trash and a boss.
  • Minor spoiler – watch out for those treasure chests lying around. They keep getting bigger and bigger as you go.

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FFXIV vs WoW

There have been plenty of articles and Youtube videos comparing Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft. I’m not trying to do a comprehensive guide to the two games, but compare them on two key areas that I find interesting. I played Wow for many years. I finally left in December 2017 when Universal Level scaling was introduced. But with all the hype surrounding the upcoming Wow “Shadowlands” expansion, I’ve had some thoughts about how FFXIV and Wow compare and how I think Blizzard is messing up again with their designs.

I’ll talk about two key areas and compare the two games:

  • Gear Upgrades and New Expansions
  • Class Specs and Talents

There are some important differences between the games that World of Warcraft could learn from as they move forward to Shadowlands and beyond.

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Rise of the Player

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I think we will look back on 2019 as the Year of the Rise of the Player.

  • There were several things that happened in the world of video games this year. In no particular order, and without links since they are easy to google:
  • The Failed announcement of Diablo: Immortals as a mobile game at Blizzcon. The jeerz from the crowd was loud and emphatic.
  • The failure of the Anthem release and the player outcry that followed.
  • The continuing slip of World of Warcraft from the top of the stack of games folks want to play.
  • The announcement of ArcheAge Unchained as a separate but equal pay once to play release in response to the overwhelming panning of ArcheAge as “Pay to Win”.

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  • The universal dislike for Loot Boxes, both by the players and by governments around the world who have called these out for what they are, gambling which is made available to minors. While some countries do not classify these as technically “Gambling” due to a technicality in the wording of the laws, most folks see the hidden, and very small odds, real monetary costs, and designed in addictive nature of these schemes as predatory on the players who have large amounts to purchase the games or pay subscriptions for the games.

Youtube, Twitch, Reddit, Twitter and other venues are full of reactions by commentator / players who voice their repeated loud analysis of these and other issues in the gaming industry.

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News from an Alternate Universe

<Crackle… crackle…>

Attention! Attention! A message is arriving from an Alternate Universe.

<Crackle… crackle…>
This is an announcement from Blizzard on the Azerite Radio Network.

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As we know, Azerite was discovered in Silithus some time ago. But there has been <crackle…. crackle> a new discovery by the Gnomes and Goblins about how to use this magical substance. Azerite can now be used to travel throughout the Worlds of Warcraft.

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Warcraft Makes War on Portals

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Recently Wow developers announced removal of many portals in the game and there was an uproar.

While World of Warcraft v8.1.5 adds a lot of new content, it also is removing things from the game. In this case, many of the portals that get players around Azeroth in a timely fashion are being taken out to keep “the world having a meaningful size”. However, this design decision has sparked a massive backlash with the community, with several threads topping the 5,000 response mark. A new dev post acknowledges the outcry but essentially says, “Sorry, not sorry. We’re sticking to it.”

[…]

Wow Travel Has Always Been Slower than in Other Games

All the other games I play have always had portals. Wow has been alone is not providing universally fast ways to get around the world. If you aren’t a mage, or don’t have a mage in your party, then it’s always been a trek to get to a ship, airship or portal to where you want to go. Of course you can fly long distances, but those flights take “Real Time”, whether you use your own mount or take a flight they move at the same speed. Ship / Airship travel is a pair of short cut scenes and a portal across the world. At least they got that right. But unlike other games, there is no setting for SKIP THE TRAVEL CUTSCENE I have seen hundreds of times. And I still have to stand around waiting on a Wow [Air]Ship rather than it being ready to go when I am. No waiting in FFXIV on any ship and the cut scenes are optional.

It has long been a convention in most MMOs that to teleport to somewhere you must have been there before. Guild Wars 2 is a good example of this convention. Asura Gates, which are like Wow Portals take you anywhere, and will work the first time you use them. But the Waypoints must have been visited on foot before you can teleport to them. But in GW2 once  you visit a place, you can instantly travel across the world to any waypoint, for a small fee.

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Blizzard Trolls Private Server Users

 

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I received a DMCA Copyright Violation Notice from my ISP and when I called my ISP, they reported a date and time and the program “World of Warcraft -name of private server”. I have removed the name of the private server that I was trying to use.

It turns out that the Client that I was trying to use was an old copy of the Legion 7.3.5 client that had not yet been modified to not reach out to Blizzard resources. So this client was trying to update it self to the latest client. But Blizzard had changed the resources to update the latest client, but is watching these old resources for accesses and then reporting those accesses back to ISPs with DMCA Copyright Violation notices. This of course has a chilling effect in my use of World of Warcraft private server since I could lose my internet access.

Ok. So apparently Blizzard cannot take down the private servers themselves – maybe because they are off-shore, or for some other reason Legally Out of  Bounds to Blizzard.

So now Blizzard has gone after the users of WoW Private Servers.

Well since I am not playing WoW as provided by Blizzard, not because I refuse to pay, but because I don’t like the new features. I restarted my subscription back in the early days of Legion – middle 2017 – but left when the PTR [Private Test Realm] showed the direction that Blizzard was going with Level Scaling. I refuse to play because of Level Scaling, as I’ve pointed out several times before. Private servers have choices of other releases, such as Warlords of Draenor, Mists of Pandaria or Wrath of the Lich King.

Vanilla or Classic is not interesting for me. It’s too primitive. I wish Blizzard and the users well with Vanilla, but Warlords or Mists are the patches that I would choose, or I’ll play something else.

So I’m back to FFXIV.

Happy Gaming. Take Care.
:ww