Which is literally what no clip means lol? No clip means you can go through walls.
Thanks for stating the obvious, but one thing you seem to be ignoring is the kind of game it is, it is supposed to be an MMORPG, MMOs can run the gamut from story driven to gameplay driven, RPGs however are usually primarily story driven, almost like a book we are writing involving our characters or a movie that we are the actors in.
Good Gameplay but bad story=people will either ignore the story or lose interest unless the game is not meant/expected to have a story beyond a bare bones one. Good story but bad gameplay means people will try to get into the story but potentially quit before finishing it or lose sight of the story due to bad gameplay.
It can be the same with books and movies, the story may be good but if the execution is bad due to bad actors or a bad director, something seems off, and even the best actors and director canât make a bad story more then tolerable.
Gameplay should not trump story yet story should not trump gameplay, they need to work together to make the best possible game for everyone. If EITHER suffers in favor of the other, the devs FAILED.
Different genres of games have different story to gameplay expectations/ratios, the lowest story driven ones tend to be fighters and shooters. where RPGs tend to be on the other end of the spectrum there, but if the story focus is high, good gameplay can enhance the story while bad gameplayâŚdetracts from it.
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While Iâm broadly in favor of phasing out static flying in general, because swiming through the air is frankly bad design and should be replaced with more kinetic forms of movement, while it is in the game, it shouldnât have a separate unlock from other forms of movement.
WoW should continue to develop new types of mount movement, eventually phasing out the ancient and stiff old mount systems, but the substitutes need to be there and be appropriate for that to be the case. Currently, old flying should have the similar support when compared to skyriding.
MMO simply means âmassively multiplayer onlineâ RPG simply means ârole playing game.â RPG covers such a wide space, the only games that donât fall into it are games that specifically fall into a genre (plaformers, as ex, mario, sonic, those are still role playing games, you are playing the role of Mario or Sonic).
So while I will happily concede that having story in a game really helps carry it, when appropriate, games are never about the story, and the story always takes a back seat to actual game play.
Players typically will ignore a story if itâs bad, and engage with the game play still⌠Case in point, World of Warcraft. You have Lore Kids who read the books and follow forums and will debate the nuance of every little retconned plothole.
Most people log in, skip quest dialogue, and allow themselves to be ushered straight to the new level cap, barely being bothered enough to do any of the standard things youâd do in an RPG, such as⌠look at gear, build around desired stats, min/max, ect.
When something about the game doesnât play the way they like, they come here. If the story isnât what they like⌠maybe 10 people complain? Virtually a non issue, regardless of what they release. Could be a banger of a story in Vanilla Wow on Alliance, starting from Northshire all the way to Duskwood.
Or it could be the entire hodgepodge-lack-of-direction horde quests from the same game, where you fetch and kill your way through, and none of it matters. Thereâs a reason people tend to make a huge deal about things like âsteady flight being locked behind pathfinder is stupidâ and not âWhy are there so many plot holes in the Shadowlands story and why did Jaina get Arrested in BFA?â
Because if I am being honest, the story makes no sense and the buy in for any of it requires a level of commitment reserved for archivists and morticians. The release cadence, jump cuts between expansions, and the factual redesign of the game every two years PREVENTS the story from being more important.
We arenât participating in Wowâs story so much as itâs a theme part slide show and we can watch it when it comes to town or wait for the next one. But you are never part of the story progression, even when the game is designed to waterboard you with it.
Having early access, testing in Beta, you really are not contributing to anything meaningful here. People currently on the Beta are reporting a lot of these issues as not being present. Meaning, somehow the live version of the game having issues the beta version isnât. Somehow.
Maybe they should make a realm for testing the live game before deploying it? But Iâm glad you feel comfortable with what you saw during the beta⌠/smh. None of this is about ease or difficulty of content. None of this is about effort to unlock. None of this is about how the feature relates to the story.
All of this comes down to, boils down to, can be summed up by:
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Game was in functional, nearly finished state Monday before patch. Game was enjoyable by masses, accessible, flying worked, it was functional, without issue. Players could enjoy the expansion, all itâs content, features, and there wasnât a reason to come here and make this thread.
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Post patch, one of the least important issues has become a major sticking point for some players. You can continue to believe your mentality on Wow is somehow superior or applicable to anything being discussed here, you can continue to insist everything is fine, but as I said, you have zero skin in this game. You donât see an issue. That, by definition, means you donât need to post here.
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Aside from the obvious I keep stating for you, NONE OF THIS NEEDS TO OCCUR IN THIS, OR ANY OTHER VIDEO GAME. It is wholly unecessary to do this as a development method, and it is the cause of 99% of the pain players feel in any situation they find themselves frustrated with.
Example relevant to this thread: Monday prior to patch, if I have a mount, it works like a ground mount in areas where you canât fly, and it steady flies everywhere else. Dragons work like Dragons EVERYWHERE in game, and non dragons work like they did before.
NO ONE IS UNHAPPY. NOTHING NEEDS TO BE DONE. This part needs to be laser focused by you AND Blizzard. Tuesday, following an extended down time, not only is EVERYTHING ABOUT FLYING DIFFERENT FOR NO GOOD REASON, IT IS DESIGNED BADLY, IT HAS AN IMMEDIATE IMPACT ON PLAYERS WITH ACCESSIBILITY ISSUES, AND ONCE AGAIN, WASNâT NECESSARY, WARRANTED, OR REQUESTED.
But I am so glad you are here to hold our hands and tell us âeverything is good, trust.â Everything is good when Blizzard stops fixing unbroken clocks in a game people spend a lot of their time and money to play. This isnât a Mario game for $60, where I buy it once and play it forever.
This is a game I pay $15 a month for, + any boxed content. Thatâs a new Mario game every 4 months, even when they release absolutely zero new content. In case you werenât aware, MOST GAMES DO NO REQUIRE REPURCHASE EVERY 4 MONTHS.
At least, thatâs a terrible precedent/expectation to meet. Just in case nothing else Iâve said penetrates your brain pan, Blizzard could have just not done anything prior to last Tuesday, AND THIS ENTIRE THREAD WOULD NOT EXIST.
Literally, no one, not me, not you, not 1000 posts of player ire, would be here. Blizzard did something, and caused a problem. Now we are here talking about it.
Boiling it down again, just to be 100%
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Blizzard did something, caused problems.
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We are here, talking about it.
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If things were okey, we wouldnât be here.
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Your opinion of Beta âthe entire gameâ is largely irrelevant, because the BETA is functioning 100% and the live game, is not. Even if we ignore the flying thing, the game itself, has major bugs preventing people from even enjoying Dragonflight content.
Next youâll be like âitâs between expansion, why are you playing the game at all?â Basically, proving our points for us. We would be playing the game, as intended, instead of posting here, if Blizzard didnât do stupid things and break the game, needlessly, at this point.
You can have the highest opinion of TWW beta, you can be excited for release, and you can feel the most comfortable about the quality of that version of the game. It literally doesnât matter because Blizzard has functionally broken the game in the process of trying to update it, and thatâs exposed major issues with Blizzard development (as it often does). Your âIâll buy anything cuz I donât care if itâs trash or goldâ attitude is less than helpful. I will not be responding to you again here.
Enjoy TWW.
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That didnât happen in DAoC, an older MMO that still has peple playing it. The core story is integral to what goes on during end game even to this day.
You should lay off the hyperbole, it doesnât suit you.
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From what I have heard, FFXIV is the same way, but there the PLAYERS expect a good story, here, they donât really do soâŚ
Fair take, just allow me this one bit: for me, the story (or at least the setting) is what draws me in and keeps me interested, the gameplay is what keeps me going after the story is âdoneâ for my characters.
I also find that the story really stared taking a back seat when Blizzard started doing raids as seasons (PvP seasons? fine, M+ seasons? fine, raids as seasons? there we lose something).
Um, you bring up a game with less than 500k total players, and a daily concurrent count less than D4. I havenât played it so I wonât trash it, but there isnât any hyperbole here. One game that intentionally sticks to story, out of the thousands that donâ.
Mmook. Blizzard should def try to make this game more like Dark Age of Camelot.
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Considering how old it is, I still find that impressive.
I also miss the pvp there and my villa. The pvp there was far superior, but thatâs just IMO cus it is 100% fair all the time.
I wonât disagree. Itâs impressive for any game to stick around that long as a live service. Also shows the difference between quality first and what Blizzard does.
Itâs entirely possible, as a studio, to develop an MMO without the patch cadence, extruder slop being pressed out on a schedule. Itâs entirely possible for that game to stay online and be the game it is, for the entire time.
I am willing to bet DAOC doesnât have major reworks/updates. Iâd be willing to bet 99% of the game has remained the same this entire time. Iâm also willing to bet this is what has allowed that studio to stay open and continue development⌠priority for quality.
Not âoh hey, itâs been 2 years since our last cash infusion from Wow. Letâs drop an expansion so we can get cash.â Then pumps out new game, displaces old game, and players Stan for it like thatâs exactly the thing they want.
Iâm also wiling to bet that entire studio appreciates having smaller success, frees them from the pressure of having to put out mindless content.
I would pay for a ticket to watch the entire leadership of Blizzard get fired one by one, kinda of like a reverse graduation ceremony. I would rejoice knowing the fools who have spent 20 years trying to reinvent wow, no longer are in a position to try and do so.
The problem with Wow: Constant reinvention fails to understand WHY the game became popular to begin with:
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Blizzard IP.
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Incidental design.
Unfortunately, you cannot leverage your own name into success, and you canât accidentally happen upon success continuously. You factually, at some point, need to do the job you are pantomiming. You actually need to deliver on a sound game design.
When you do that, you donât need a 6mo/2yr release cadence. You donât need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars stuffing more ChoreGame.exe into this 5lb sack. â
If I have farmed Peacebloom and Silverleaf⌠I have farmed every herb in the game. Doing it more with different named herbs isnât compelling. If I have spent time leveling from 1-60, or 60-70, or any other version of leveling, I have done ALL forms of leveling this game has to offer.
At some point, continue to pick herbs/level cannot sustain the game. The game design being missed: Picking herbs needs to be an activity that engages players beyond clicking a thing on the ground and watching a progress bar.
Leveling needs to be something more than artificial gating towards an end goal. We have leveled too many times for it to remain valuable. I have leveled my herbalism far too many times for the activity to be meaningful.
Reworking Herbalism to add more grind, to add levels⌠hahaha you should have made Herbalism MORE INTERACTIVE and added game play. You ever play cooking mama? If wow profession arenât more engaging and fun than Cooking Mama or Bass Fishing Pro, Blizzard needs to take profs back to the drawing board -OR- leave them at 1-300 Vanilla profs. Nothing about any expansions profs added meaningful gameplay opportunities to the game.
Not unless you consider farming GDKP for recipes and buying them with gold âmeaningful gameplay opportunities.â
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The joke here is, they could have just done it different. With WotLK they came in with the ârevolutionaryâ Phasing Technology. They could have just left the Vanilla zones the way they where⌠and using phasing and the Bronze Dragonflight made it so you can experience all those zones in their original state and in a new state.
I am actually surprised why never added an expansion where the new zones are literally old zones where stuff happened. Like in Battle for Azeroth they could have made two small islands, one for Kul Tiras and one for the Zandalari and place the rest of the expansion in old zones that look different because the Alliance of Horde build a big camp or something there.
I donât get why everything Ion & co does has so horrendous negative sides. That Skyriding is the best example. Fast 400% flight but with a big catch attached to it. The catch is that it is annoying and inorganic to control.
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Youâre completely free to say you donât like the changes, how ever be known with every xpac there are changes to the game. The new ones are here and they are staying. Some may get adjusted but the main ones are staying. You highly over the top hyperbole things when trying to express your feelings. You also love to state your feelings of like 4 or 5 other topics or even other games as being the issue. At this point I donât know if you are serious posting in these topics or are just being a weekend trolling in them.
Yup. Those are all great ideas that require solid game design to implement. Unfortunately, Blizzard isnât interested in any of that. Anything that would require more effort on their part, probably a long shot.
The knifeâs edge they want to dance on is literally âletâs overproduce new content so we can just start fresh somewhere else, fixing this old stuff is too much work.â Thatâs how we got TBC. The design methodology is literally to displace older content rather than spending any more time/resources on it.
If we ask them to spend time/resources on old content, they do something stupid like âupdate low level dungeon to be max level, new monters, loot, bosses, sometimes new dungeon design.â
Rather than recognizing the value the old content had, preserving that, letâs redo it completely so it magically has fresh appeal! I really would love to see smart people run Blizzard like a games studio again. This corporate beat is whack.
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That is exactly what they are doing. But to be honest, the original team started this trend. When it was time to produce an Expansion, instead to add to the world of Azeroth they just literally did what you said : âletâs just start fresh somewhere elseâ and that was what TBC was⌠a fresh start.
On the bright side, between Vanilla, TBC and WotLK the gameplay system with Talents and how classes played got more and more refined. They fixed class specs that where unplayable in a prior version.
With Cataclysm they started to majorly rework quite some classes to the point they where unrecognizable to what they where in WotLK.
Just look at the big bad we are supposed to kill each expansion. Every expansion basically took a character from Warcraft 3âs story and send us to bash it. The low hanging fruits first, Illidan and Arthas. Then they had to get more creative with Deathwing, Garrosh, Argus and NâZoth.
You can see the later the expansion, the deeper they had to pull stuff out of their hat.
Shadowlands is bad, mainly because the whole thing is one big retcon, nowhere in all of WoWâs lore did you see anything of detail about what is going on in Shadowlands.
Dragonflight is⌠in my eyes⌠in a similar state. The whole expansion feels like a means to give the Nightelves a new home, with forgettable characters left and right.
How about making stable flight baseline and you unlock skyriding? Bet youâd change your tune.
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Nope, Iâd just do the quests and have it unlocked by the second day.
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Thatâs not going to happen, though, because they want skyriding to be the default. Hence why itâs the default.
That is a solid argument. Truthfully gating TBC normal flying shows a clear bias. This is why we can not forget or forgive what they tried do over a Memorial Day weekend during WoD.
We must stay vigilant and on guard at all times. When patchfinder ends is when the holy flying wars are at a close.
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Try to follow me for a second:
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Developing content for TWW.
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Automatically migrating DF to base as a matter of policy.
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Attention not being paid to old aspects of the game (no hindsight=no foresight)
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Skyriding now available baseline (not even a questing requirement like for DF, removing simple game play cuz viewed as âbarrier,â actually the reason for Wowâs decline)
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Because no attention paid to old game, because old game design had pathfinder, renamed flight system (but not reworked, like at all, minimal effort for DAYS at blizzard) doesnât make any sense within the paradigm of new system.
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No one is the wiser at Blizzard.
This is why you hire ONLY people who play your game, to work on your game. When you have people who donât play wow at all, who arenât really involved in any creation for the game, who run committees and meetings and do the Boss stuff instead of leading their projects, This Is How Your Game Looks After 20 Years.
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They made BFA and systemlands the base after it was not current expansion but new players are not showing up in droves. This is because forcing new players to do BFA and systemlands without the rental system was a disaster and PF was still in place for those new players. PF in TWW is very punishing for new players trying to engage in the content.
Forcing DR as the default also is not working because it confuses the player even more when they want to have the option to use TBC normal flying. TBC normal flying is the standard in other MMORPGs like Everquest 2, Lineage 2, Aion, City of Heroes, etc. Only Guild Wars comes close to DR.
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From what I understand, soon as the dev team began working on Azeroth, a second, different team was tasked with TBC. If that is true, the separate development nature of the two teams would explain the disconnects between the two game versions, also explains the sudden departures of high level talents from the team over the years.
When your work is not respected, you leave your company. If I spend time developing a game, only to find out another team has been working on its replacement, my next move is probably going to be resignation.
I canât stomach this after 20 years, as a player. Canât imagine seeing the milk get made and being able to stick it out long term. Was honestly surprised to see Metzen.
Then I remembered how easily people can be bought.
And I know there is potential for some people at Blizzard to be reading this right now, thinking to themselves without wanting to risk their jobs, probably wanting to set the record straight.
Iâm gonna level with those people rn: I have spent a careerâs worth of time playing this game. The entire time has been a struggle to continue having the same game experiences that qualify as âmeaningfulâ to me.
When I spend X hours getting to end game, Y hours gearing up, then Z hours repeating that process each time Blizzard releases a product, and the end game continues to be devoid of the meaingful gameplay experiences I was having PRIOR to endgame, and can CONTINUE to have if I DONâT play endgame, you have to stop developing your endgame this way.
My philosophy? End game starts level 1. Or you are creating multiple different games within your game. Thatâs going to become fundamentally broken game design at some point, guaranteed.
If you need leveling in your game to drive player activity, thatâs a strong indicator you need to make your player activity more meaningful, enticing players to want to do it, regardless of the numbers beside it or the loot outcome.
If you need to suddenly switch game play activities because ânow endgame,â thatâs a strong indicator you need to cut out the first part of the game. The part that isnât considered âend game.â
Games that do progression right, donât tend to have levels, sudden activity changes, or âend game.â The entire game is usually the end game, when things are done correctly. Also: end game is called that because thereâs a level cap and anything you do at that cap is considered âthe end game.â
Thatâs not âthe place where the game begins to happen.â If thatâs the case in any game, youâre wasting your time playing/making it.
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