OT: Game Over for World of Warcraft

[Hellshade 110]

Well it looks like I'll have more time to devote to Over Flanders Fields.

 

Worlds of Warcraft (an on-line MMORPG) that I have been playing since it came out in November of 2004 totally sucks after their latest 4.03 patch. They "nerfed" (significantly reduced) the abilities of every class and most especially my beloved Paladin. Everyone was expecting a damage nerf to the classes before the new expansion came out (on December 7th), but they changed the gameplay mechanics of Pallys so much that now that I no longer find them fun or interesting to play. The best part about a Paladin has been the ability to solo dungeons your own level that were designed to require 4 to 5 players working together to beat. That's definately all gone now.

 

After logging in tonight, downloading the patch and playing my Pally for about 20 minutes, I'm literally depressed. All the time and effort gearing up has gone to waste. After reading the patch notes on all of the classes, none of my other "toons" look appealing either. I have several level 80 characters ("toons") all of whom are geared up with some of the better gear in the game which takes a lot of time and energy to acquire. (For any WoW fans, every one of them had at least a 5k gearscore except one who was working his way up there and had a 4.5k gearscore.) 80 Death Knight, 80 Hunter, 80 Warlock and 2 level 80 Paladins, not to mention a slew of other characters at various levels. They sucked the fun right out of the game and I already pre-paid for the expansion, damn it! There have been times I quite playing for a bit because I needed a break, but this is the first time I've ever just plain quit because the gameplay is literally no longer fun. I was really looking forward to the expansion but now I can't even think of a reason to install it once it arrives. So here's a salute to the characters I championed through every kind of trial and tribulation over the last several years. Thanks for all of the great memories. May you all rest in peace.

 

Hellshade

[BirdDogICT 3]

I feel your pain, even though my only knowledge of WOW is the South Park parody. Maybe try the new Starcraft?

 

 

[Ratatat 0]

Sorry to hear your bad news Hellshade. It's a shame they changed the game play so much. I disagree with such practices.

 

But on the bright side, like you said, more time freed up for OFF! Huzzah!

Also more time for awesome Hellshade videos too! Which is a big win for us on the forum! I'm eagerly waiting for the Hellshade & Olham mega, amazing, stupendous video!

 

 

Have a cold one on me Hellshade!

 

Cheers!

 

 

Ratatat

[Hellshade 110]

Sadly Bird, most of what was in the South Park episode wasn't a parody. It was spot on, which is what made it so damn funny.

 

I'm not a big Real Time Strategy Starcraft fan. I have been playing Left 4 Dead 2 and some Black Ops lately. Great visuals but they don't hook me like being able to develop a character or a pilot does.

 

A possible sliver of good news though. Rumors have surfaced of an Elder Scrolls V in development, which would be a directly sequel to Oblivion. That's my favorite RPG game ever. I bet that will run sweet on my new card when it finally gets here. It uses a real world physics engine (Havok) which somehow makes slamming an arrow right through somebodys forehead and watching them slump over and die infinitely more satisfying than most hack n slash RPGs. Especially with the bloodspray mods available. Let's just say you always know for sure who wins a fight in Oblivion.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/113/1136343p1.html

 

Hellshade

[carrick58 23]

Well it looks like I'll have more time to devote to Over Flanders Fields.

 

Worlds of Warcraft (an on-line MMORPG) that I have been playing since it came out in November of 2004 totally sucks after their latest 4.03 patch. They "nerfed" (significantly reduced) the abilities of every class and most especially my beloved Paladin. Everyone was expecting a damage nerf to the classes before the new expansion came out (on December 7th), but they changed the gameplay mechanics of Pallys so much that now that I no longer find them fun or interesting to play. The best part about a Paladin has been the ability to solo dungeons your own level that were designed to require 4 to 5 players working together to beat. That's definately all gone now.

 

After logging in tonight, downloading the patch and playing my Pally for about 20 minutes, I'm literally depressed. All the time and effort gearing up has gone to waste. After reading the patch notes on all of the classes, none of my other "toons" look appealing either. I have several level 80 characters ("toons") all of whom are geared up with some of the better gear in the game which takes a lot of time and energy to acquire. (For any WoW fans, every one of them had at least a 5k gearscore except one who was working his way up there and had a 4.5k gearscore.) 80 Death Knight, 80 Hunter, 80 Warlock and 2 level 80 Paladins, not to mention a slew of other characters at various levels. They sucked the fun right out of the game and I already pre-paid for the expansion, damn it! There have been times I quite playing for a bit because I needed a break, but this is the first time I've ever just plain quit because the gameplay is literally no longer fun. I was really looking forward to the expansion but now I can't even think of a reason to install it once it arrives. So here's a salute to the characters I championed through every kind of trial and tribulation over the last several years. Thanks for all of the great memories. May you all rest in peace.

 

Hellshade

 

My wife and 2 of my 4 Grandsons play that game ( for the last 2 yrs) and what upset them the most was the change in portals

[Bullethead 12]

The best part about a Paladin has been the ability to solo dungeons your own level that were designed to require 4 to 5 players working together to beat. That's definately all gone now.

 

Well, I'm sorry your fun's over. I was never into MMORGs very much (did some EverCrack when it was new, got over it), but I was bigtime into MMOFS games for since the early 90s. I rode several such games, warts and all, until they died, then moved on to the next. I only gave it up a few years ago when I had to get broadband for my job and the only option for me was satellite with a built-in lag of 2-3 seconds. I still miss the fun of blasted dweebs out of the sky and flying regular missions with my old squadron, so I feel your pain.

 

But OTOH, I'm also a game designer. If the game was intended to be played in a certain way, then you should always expect changes to make that happen if it wasn't already. While I've never played WoW, I know it's all about cooperation all across the game world from combat to crafts. If you have a class that can go it alone, then you'd expect significant numbers of folks to go that way, thus making a less-diverse and less-healthy game "ecosystem". Like in my old MMOFS Aces High, the damn La-7 was not only almost the fastest regular plane in the game, it also turned with the best of them, so the sky was full of them at the expense of everything else.

 

But OTGH, if a significant portion of the customers don't have the regular time and devotion necessary to play with the same group all the time, then you NEED some way to play solo and still be rewarding to them.

 

A possible sliver of good news though. Rumors have surfaced of an Elder Scrolls V in development, which would be a directly sequel to Oblivion.http://pc.ign.com/ar.../1136343p1.html

 

Now that IS good news!

 

I still play Oblivion from time to time. Half the fun of the game is making weird-looking characters. Here are a couple of my favorites:

 

Fer de Lance, son of Vegeta and a mandril

 

Speedicut, a soccer hooligan who became the head theif, the head assassin, and also Shegorrath

[MikeDixonUK 5]

From my uninformed point of view it sounds a bit like when SOE (not to be confused with the Special Operations Executive ) brought out the 'New Game Enhancements' (NGE) for Star Wars Galaxies - which changed a lot of the player proffessions and heavily reduced the dynamics of it all (i.e. previously there were a lot of professions, which you could share skill points in - i.e you could be a Rifleman who is also a Bounty Hunter - with a bit of a Medic) where as now it's all cookie cutter 'You are a Bounty Hunter!' or 'You are an Officer!' stuff, which made a lot of people quit the game.

 

Personally I didn't mind that much, I don't think it was a good idea and I didn't want it - but it wasn't enough to make me quit, the worst part though is that they made it so you could be a Jedi from the second you start the game, and could wander around with a Lightsabre saying that you were Dark Lord Supercool of Awesometown VI withou being killed horribly.

 

For me as a fanatical Imperial Stormtrooper Officer that's just not on.

[Hellshade 110]

My Oblivion characters tend to be rogue / archer types. And hot women.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

I never could understand the appeal of WOW personally...I dipped my toes in the early days, but just not my cup of tea.

Oblivion however?..well, thats another story!..lol

[Von Paulus 8]

I've played WoW, 4 years ago, for a couple of months.

When I sensed in what I was being lead to, I gave up. MMORGs are in generally very time consuming and WoW is not different. So I naturally stop playing it.

One of the things that annoys me more with WoW, is that a lot of PC players stop playing other games. That (probably more than piracy) created an negative impact in the PC gaming industries. I can find more reasons for that to have happened, but this one seems to be very important and sometimes to easily devaluated by the industry itself.

So Hellshade, you can look into the positive side of things. You can play more games now.

If you like heroic fantasy RPGs, then you've a few titles available:

- Dragon Age

- Drakensang: The river of time

- Two Worlds II

- Risen

- Gothic 4 (a dumb down version of anterior titles)

- Divinity 2: Flames of vengeance

- and the still very playable, although not much RPG, The Witcher.

And list could be bigger if you like SF ambiance. I'll remember you Mass Effect series and Fallout New Vegas.

So don't despair there are a lot of good titles out there to play.

Edited November 24, 2010 by Von Paulus

[Hellshade 110]

I need to finish Dragon Age (which was heavily story driven and a lot of fun) and I am very much looking forward to Two Worlds II. The original Two Worlds was a mess, but all of the previews for Two Worlds II look like they listened intently to the criticisms and really put together a winner. Oddly enough, I saw they released a patch for Two Worlds II, but the game doesn't even ship until January, I believe.

 

As for MMOs, Guild Wars 2 is looking very polished and so is Rift: Planes of Telara. I will have to give each of those a try when they are released.

 

Hellshade

[Von Paulus 8]

Oddly enough, I saw they released a patch for Two Worlds II, but the game doesn't even ship until January, I believe.

As far as I understand, the English retail shops will have only in January, but they are selling already in Zuxxedirekt in english.

And while the voice acting seems deplorable, the gameplay seems ok. But I didn't even played a hour. At least it seems to be better than Gothic 4.

Edited November 24, 2010 by Von Paulus

[Hellshade 110]

As far as I understand, the English retail shops will have only in January, but they are selling already in Zuxxedirekt in english.

And while the voice acting seems deplorable, the gameplay seems ok. But I didn't even played a hour. At least it seems to be better than Gothic 4.

 

The reviews did say the voice acting was not good at all, however I haven't seen one yet that gave it below a 90%, which generally is a good sign. The Witcher got great reviews too though, but I've never been able to bring myself to play it past the opening sequence. It's always a crap shoot, but I'm going to hope for the best since TWII will come out long before any Elder Scrolls V title will and I need a good swords and sorcery RPG fix now and then. Will Zuxxedirekt ship to the USA?

 

Hellshade

Edited November 24, 2010 by Hellshade

[Von Paulus 8]

The reviews did say the voice acting was not good at all, however I haven't seen one yet that gave it below a 90%, which generally is a good sign. The Witcher got great reviews too though, but I've never been able to bring myself to play it past the opening sequence. It's always a crap shoot, but I'm going to hope for the best since TWII will come out long before any Elder Scrolls V title will and I need a good swords and sorcery RPG fix now and then. Will Zuxxedirekt ship to the USA?

 

Hellshade

About the Witcher I've felt the same problem as you. I was almost giving up, mostly due to the camera. But I used a little modification which solved the camera problem.

After getting used to the combat style, the game came to be quite good. Good story and a quite good game. Expecting Witcher II that will be released next year.

 

For the TWII, you've also the digital version available for download.

[tranquillo 10]

Well, I like "The Settlers".

:wink2:

Edited November 24, 2010 by tranquillo

[Bullethead 12]

My Oblivion characters tend to be rogue / archer types. And hot women.

 

Excellent work with the character editor there, sir. That girl's just become my desktop picture

 

One of the things that annoys me more with WoW, is that a lot of PC players stop playing other games. That (probably more than piracy) created an negative impact in the PC gaming industries. I can find more reasons for that to have happened, but this one seems to be very important and sometimes to easily devaluated by the industry itself.

 

As a game developer, IMHO 4 main plagues hit the PC game industry. Piracy is the 5th and quite baneful these days in relative terms, but it's only picking over the bones left by the previous 4 plagues so isn't don't as much damage in absolute terms. However, given the depressed state fo the ecomony, ANY harm leaves a deep scar right now. Anyway, IMHO things went like this:

 

1. Retailer Tyranny

This is the single greatest cause and it started nearly 2 decades ago. Everything else is minor in comparison....

 

Back in The Ancient Days of Gods and Heroes (early-mid 90s), virtually everybody was on dial-up at hourly usage rates, so even downloading still shots of porn (forget videos) wasn't common (most browsers were still text-only, after all). IOW, the ONLY place you could buy a game was at a store, even if back in the DOS days an excellent game would still fit on 1-3x 5.25", 512-KILObyte floppies (anybody else old enough to remember those?). Downloading anything more than text was too slow and too expensive, and e-commerce as we know it today was still a wet dream.

 

So, the retail stores had a chokehold on the entire software industry, like robber barons with a castle overlooking an important river. And because forums like this existed back then, and also ways to search for them, folks communicated their likes and dislikes globally just as much then as we're doing here right now. This coincided with PCs finally becoming as common as toasters. Just a few years before, only affluent geeks owned computers and most folks didn't see the need to spend the price of a good used car (decent new cars were still available for less then $10k then) on something to balance their checkbook. The bottom line was, where previously computer wargames (the staple food of affluent geeks) had dominated the market, now all the new non-geek PC-owners wanted cheap thrills. And they learned they could share their views and receive peer approval. Thus, schlock like Myst (IMHO, a medium-level crossword puzzle combined with for-then-cool graphics) sold like condoms at Subic Bay, while games for those with more discriminating tastes languished relatively unsold on the shelves.

 

Retailers saw this happening, and retailing is all about shelf-space turnover. If it doesn't move, take it off the shelf. So retailers started telling game developers that they wouldn't stock their games at all unless the devs could guarantee X amount of sales, and those sales had to happen within X days of release. After that time, the retailers would either toss them in the bargain bin at ridiculously low prices, or send them back to the devs. Thus, most PC game devs went belly-up, except for a very few established franchises, which became fewer over time.

 

2. Developers Releasing Crap

In response to retailer tyranny, quite a few developers decided that the only way to stay in business was to speed up their product cycle. That is, build up pre-release hype, sell in large numbers a very green product that often didn't work at all, then not support it but go on to the next release ASAP. After all, in those days, it was still physically and fiscally impossible to download patches of the size needed to fix such crap, so why bother making them? But they hadn't reckoned with the ability of an exponentially expanding number of customers to communicate their displeasure, so the customers voted with their feet. Now the serious PC game industry not only had a small market share in comparison to the schlock, but had alienated most of their share with this tactic. As such, most makers of serious PC games went tits up. Those that didn't mostly switched to making schlock.

 

3. The Rise of the Console

Meanwhile, the next generation was growing up playing console games. These were also schlock, but this generation developed a lasting taste for it, which they've mostly carried over into what should be their years of wisdom and broader horizons. As such, they want more schlock now that they can afford PCs. Hence, the Sims and such. Even worse, having grown up with nothing but the vastly inferior console interface, these folks see nothing wrong with it, so don't demand anything better, and it's nearly impossible to convince them of the MANY superiorities of the PC as a gaming platform. The PC industry has responded by dumbing down computers, so the current generation, and their kids, will do the vast bulk of their gaming on consoles and only use their emasculated iPad-esque PCs for browsing the web and such. IOW, the future of PC gaming is already lost.

 

4. The Rise of MMORPGs

As you mention, this has sucked away a large fraction of the customer base who are still interested in buying serious PC games.

 

5. Piracy and DRMs

The very few devs still making serious PC games STILL face the retail tyranny, and that's even worse these days than it was 15 years ago. First, console games totally dominate the shelf space, so retail pressure is even worse now. Second, wargames are now a very small niche of PC gaming (when they used to be the ONLY games in town). Thus, apart from massive franchises like Unreal and things that also are on consoles (and usually released there first), you don't see PC games on shelves anywhere. The very few devs who still make them are necessarily very small, usually part-time operations with all employees having other jobs to really pay their bills. Making games is for beer money, nothing more. And because these games will NEVER be able to find shelf space, most are now only available via download. Honestly, I don't know how OBD can stand the expense of burning DVDs for us. Fortunately, these days nearly everybody has broadband so downloads of several hundred megs are no big deal.

 

The problem with this business model, however, is that with no CD or DVD involved, the good old copy protection method of needing the disc in the drive is no longer possible. And such games only sell a few 10s of thousands of copies at most, barely enough financially to justify making them even for beer money. Thus, EVERY sale lost to piracy leaves a visible scar on the bottom line. As a result, we have DRMs, early forms of which were so tyrannical that they alienated much of what litlte customer base such companies still have.

 

----------------

 

I like serious PC games, and I like beer, so I'll keep making both of them probably will until my liver gives out. But don't expect anything to change on this score, and as us old-school devs die off from jake-leg, expect the world of serious PC games to go with us.

 

So Hellshade, you can look into the positive side of things. You can play more games now.

If you like heroic fantasy RPGs, then you've a few titles available:

 

Don't forget "Mount & Blade", which IMHO is at least as good as Oblivion. Not in grahics or polish, but in the nuts and bolts. Besides, not having magic or monsters makes things quite interesting.

[nbryant 8]

You Oblivion fans..... have you tried Fallout 3 or Fallout:New Vegas? Am a nut for Oblivion. Haven't ventured there in a while. With Elder Scrolls V in development it may be time to revisit it. Still, the Fallout series is pretty good also.

[Javito1986 14]

As far as modern games though, all the ones mentioned so far are great (though I'm not much of of a fan of Bethesda and Oblivion/Fallout 3... Fallout New Vegas is a different story but it's made by the original Fallout devs!). This year I've played Mass Effect 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, Uncharted 2, and Final Fantasy XIII. Of those, MGS4 is the best, closely followed by ME2.

 

 

Here's some old games you fellows should try. This is my shelf over at Good Old Games. Mentally add Planescape Torment, The Longest Journey, and Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 to the list and you've got yourself enough non-flight sim gaming bliss to last you through next Thanksgiving.

Edited November 25, 2010 by Javito1986

[almccoyjr 7]

Well it looks like I'll have more time to devote to Over Flanders Fields.

 

So here's a salute to the characters I championed through every kind of trial and tribulation over the last several years. Thanks for all of the great memories. May you all rest in peace.

I know exactly what you're feeling. When David Lance Arneson passed away, so did my feelings for the like.

 

So it's "Hear, Hear" for all the good memories.

 

plug_nickel

[Von Paulus 8]

I like serious PC games, and I like beer, so I'll keep making both of them probably will until my liver gives out. But don't expect anything to change on this score, and as us old-school devs die off from jake-leg, expect the world of serious PC games to go with us.

I'm not a religious person, but may God bless you Bullet and grant a long life.

I'm prepared to be last of the Mohicans as far as it concerns PC gaming. The truth is that I'm buying more indie games than ever and that's not only because I feel that they are the real ones who carries the flag of real PC gaming, but because it's their products which are offering me the best gaming experience, nowadays.

I couldn't agree more with you, Bullet. You sir, have hit the spot. Those 5 points are exactly what I think.

And things are getting worse each year. Dragon Age II, will most probably be a dumb down version of the first. And that is happening with almost all franchises. Year after year we see these things happening. Computer gaming is being replaced by poor video gaming. The console tyranny is breaking down the creativity of developers. Consoles poor command controls and wrong game postures (couching) are driving the developers to produce more easy and streamlined games. All that pleases the new industry barons that only see video/computer games as commodities.

 

Edit: Javito that's a nice collection.

Edited November 25, 2010 by Von Paulus

[Bullethead 12]

You Oblivion fans..... have you tried Fallout 3 or Fallout:New Vegas? Am a nut for Oblivion. Haven't ventured there in a while. With Elder Scrolls V in development it may be time to revisit it. Still, the Fallout series is pretty good also.

 

Ah yes. I love Fallout 3, although for some reason my characters always end up wearing Regulator dusters for armor . Seriously, that takes long, hard word to achieve. I get better stuff more easily, but I give it to my homey Jericho because I like the style of the duster, the fedora, and the shades. No matter how I start out or what plans I have, things always end up this way, just before I nuke Megaton :whistle: . My only complaint with FO3 is that you can't join the coolest factions, the Raiders and The Enclave.

 

Haven't tried FOLV. It's on my Xmas list

 

I'm not a religious person, but may God bless you Bullet and grant a long life.

 

I hope not much longer. This time of year, the cold damp air makes all my maltreated joints remember all the sins of my misspent youth. I need to get back to my real job guarding the Lake of Boiling Blood down in Hell. See, I'm just here on a "work release" thing

 

 

The truth is that I'm buying more indie games than ever and that's not only because I feel that they are the real ones who carries the flag of real PC gaming, but because it's their products which are offering me the best gaming experience, nowadays.

 

Us indies are all that's left of a great tradition, which few folks these days even know is a tradition at all. Those of them who notice us at all think we're a new breed of subversives trying to disturb the tranquility of their Xbox world, rather than the last holdouts of the old guard.

 

Which makes me bring up a couple of my favorite games. I've already mentioned Mount & Blade, which is a Turkish product. It's VERY much worth it if you're into swords. Plus, you can make characters every bit as weird as those in Oblivion

 

There's also the X Universe by Egosoft, a German product from what I can tell. This is an incredibly complex space opera game that combines 1st person action with strategic stuff where you can command whole fleets. Which you build yourself from the ground up, at bases you also build yourself.

 

I'd post some screenies from both but they're on my other computer.

[Von Paulus 8]

There's also the X Universe by Egosoft, a German product from what I can tell. This is an incredibly complex space opera game that combines 1st person action with strategic stuff where you can command whole fleets. Which you build yourself from the ground up, at bases you also build yourself.

There's also an indie game called Evochron (tle last is Evochron Mercenary), in the line of X. I've been playing it lately. It's quite good. Along the years the game is getting better. I see there a lot of potentialities. What is amazing, is written in Dark Basic and it's only a one man job. That reminds me a lot like things were in the beginning. When I read it was made in dark basic, I become suspicious. But when I've begin to play, well... I don't care in which language it's written, the game is good. If you like X universe give it a try with the demo.

 

I know Mount & Blade, and so far I only read great things about it. Maybe one day.

[Javito1986 14]

I've been teaching myself programming with C# and animation with Blender this fall so this topic hits close to home. They opened a program in Media Arts & Game Design at my university just this fall, I'm thinking seriously of making a detour through there and getting a minor (or hell, maybe even a major) in game design before I ship out of the uni. Right now I have a major in Spanish completed and am finishing a major in Public Policy & Administration. I LOVE programming games and creating my own animations for them, and I'd very much enjoy spending time with like minded individuals learning C++ and 3ds Max and Maya. C++ is a bit too hardcore for me to try and learn without any previous programming experience, which is why I'm learning C# with XNA first. I really love it, might just be my calling in life.

[Parky 8]

As for MMOs, Guild Wars 2 is looking very polished

 

 

Guild Wars.....hmmm. Yeah, I remember that. I spent several weeks developing a Warrior/Monk who could solo the underground and collect ectoplasm drops by the bucketload. Of course the developers felt the need to release a patch that "nerfed" my build completely (the bastards)........*sniff*.

 

I feel your pain....speaking of which.....have you equipped the M60 yet in Black OPS? Great stress reliever.....

 

 

Cheers,

 

Parky

[Hasse Wind 46]

I hope not much longer. This time of year, the cold damp air makes all my maltreated joints remember all the sins of my misspent youth. I need to get back to my real job guarding the Lake of Boiling Blood down in Hell. See, I'm just here on a "work release" thing

 

Just how cold is it there? Here it's -20°C and a freezing wind blows from the northeast from the Arctic Ocean, making it even colder. But with proper clothing, it isn't that bad.

 

Anyway, I agree about the indie games. OFF is a great example of a wonderful product that wouldn't exist without indie developers. No big publishers would dare to produce something like OFF. Speaking of indies, any news about your naval games?