Blizzard just ruined my day

[Spriggan]

They're changeing tradeskills in WoW and limiting how many you can have come next patch (in a few weeks).  One of my favorite things in WoW is the crafting becasue it's fun and easy as well as something to do while forming a group.  This could very well keep me from buying the game when it comes out.

[Tage]

It never ceases to amaze me how anyone can get upset with Blizzard for changing a game IN THE FREAKING BETA TEST.

[Spriggan]

Becasue the beta reflects how the game will be in retail.  Blizz rarely changes things back so we're pretty much stuck with this new system which very few like.  One of our Jobs as Beta testors is to make sure the game is enjoyable as well as bug free.

[Prometheus]

I haven't been fully in the Beta, so I don't have as good a perspective, but I was actually pleased when I saw Blizzard's announcement of the profession system. Spriggan had mentioned to me before that maximizing all of the trade skills wasn't very difficult, perhaps even easy, which I found to be somewhat dismaying. Limiting the trade skills available to a single character just seemed more realistic and a great deal cleaner.

The problem I would have with such a system is that reportedly, Engineering is much stronger than all the other Professions. If that is evened out by the inability of an engineer to provide all the components they need to develop their abilities with just two professions, it seems more reasonable.

Pairings of Alchemy/Herbalism and Mining/Blacksmithing seem natural, though, and the new system just looks right to me.

I could be missing something though.

[Spriggan]

The reason you like Promethiuos is becasue you're one that likes to spend hours playing games at a time.  I enjoy being able to play WoW for only about 2 hours and actualy get stuff done.  Yes crafting is easy to raise, and it should be that way.  Nothing turns off the casual gamer more then haveing to spend hours upon end and more gold then they'll ever see to max out a trade skill.

I'm tired of seeing Blizz make WoW more a game for those that want to play everyday for hours on end then those that want to play for shorter periods of time.

[Prometheus]

I wasn't trying to say that I thought training professions should be a lot harder than it is. Really long, hard crafting skill development annoys me too. What I've experienced on the servers seems about right. What I didn't like was the suggestion that one could train *everything* without much effort. Maybe that isn't the case. Training my mining/blacksmithing with Konaros has been harder than I thought it would be based on what you told me earlier.

[Spriggan]

Well they made mineing hard with the last major patch, and it was way to easy before.  Each node would give you a skill raise each time you used it, so on adverage you'd get 3 skill increases for each node.

But I do think that higher level people should be able to train everything, it gives us something to do while we're looking for instance groups for hours on end.

[Fellfrosch]

The lack of a sidekick function has already killed the game for me, in all probability. I don't have a whole lot of time to play these games, and I level slowly, so I can usually only play with the same people for a few days before they completely pass me by (that's why I stopped playing DAoC). Sidekicking is great because I can play with the same group, every time, no matter how far behind I fall.

[EUOL]

I agree with both of you.  Now that CoH has done it, every game should SERIOUSLY consider sidekicking.  They really need to pull that casual gamer crowd.

And, I've always argued that MMORPG's need more variety in character creation.   I consider versatility of character design one of the prime draws of a given RPG--and I've found MMORPG's to be lazy in this area more often than not.  If I'm going to spent hours and hours in the same world with the same character, then I darn well want that character to be different from everybody else's character.

[Spriggan]

side kicking wouldn't work in WoW's current form.  They'd have to do a lot of recodeing to make it work, especualy when it comes to instances (which is what people spend most their time doing), groups and PvP.  WoW is equipment based not skill based so even if you joined a group and got a temporary bumb in levels you'd be worthless since none of your equipment would be of any use nor could you wear anything that was good for that level.

Sidekicking works in CoH beacue it's a grinding based game, all you do is kill stuff.  There's no equipment, no crafting, and quests don't work the same.  In WoW you gain about 75% of your exp from completeing quests.  And they're level based.  Say you have a lvl 10 quest and you join a lvl 20 group, would it be fair for you to beable to easly walk through that quest as a lvl 20 and still get the reward? no, neither is it fair for you to beable to get lvl 20 quests and get their rewards since items from quests don't have level requirements and the EXP is more then you should be getting at lvl 10.

But sidekicking should not be in just for the reason that they're different games and if every game just copied each other what would be the point?

[Fellfrosch]

That's an interesting comment, given that my first impression of WoW is that it's just like every other MMORPG out there...except for CoH. Admittedly, WoW uses the old cliches better and more fluidly than I've ever seen, but they're still cliches and they still borrowed the majority of their game mechanics from other games. WoW is an improvement; CoH is an innovation.

You're right about the equipment thing--CoH has none, so sidekicking works really well, but I can't think of how they could do sidekicking in a game heavily based on equipment the way WoW is. That's a very good point that I hadn't thought of. You're other concern, about instanced missions and quest-based experience, isn't a problem--CoH is chock full of instanced missions and quest-based experience, and sidekicking works fine (the trick, you see, is that sidekicking changes your effective level, so if you try to complete a level 10 quest while sidekicked up to level 20, you won't get any experience at all).

[Spriggan]

Well if you understood that all leveling in WOW does is allow you to wear better equipement you'd understand.

Also Blizz is realy sick of people wanting WoW to be like CoH, so much so that the lead designer has replied to that effect.  Yes WoW is like a lot of other MMORPGs, but I think they, and others, see CoH less and RPG and more just a persistent beat them up game or pseudo-RPG.  They both have their strong points and week points.

[Fellfrosch]

Hey, I'm not arguing about their differences--I think the two games have vastly different goals, and take vastly different steps toward meeting them. I guess I had just built up WoW as too much of an earth-shattering new idea, and I was disappointed to find that it's more or less the same as DAoC (but with remarkably better atmosphere and story). I had expected them to break boundaries, but they didn't; what they did do is make an incredibly well-crafted entry in a very popular genre. I can't fault them for that.

[Spriggan]

Well Blizz hasn't done anything "earth shattering" since Daiblo 1, but they've become what you said, a company that takes existing theams and makes them better.  Especialy since all the original people don't work there anymore.

[JP Dogberry]

Diablo I wasn't Earth Shattering - it was just nethack with less originality and cereberalness and more mass appeal.