The Evolution of WoW
(posted as a comment on Tobold's blog)
To me, WoW went through *fundamental* changes when TBC was released. The general trend has been towards more reward of skill. For example, vanilla WoW raiding was gathering 25 skilled raiders and 15 no-skill raiders for mid-level (Tier 2) content. I healed through AQ20/BWL/Ony as a clueless feral druid in greens. :-) As another example, the old honor rank system was purely time-based: how many hours/day can you spend in AV? The new arena system has flaws but is infinitely better than the Marshal/Warlord grind.
The trend towards skill will continue in WotLK. By making raid-wide and more homogenous class buffs, player skill will become more important than class. (No more need to stack shamans.) And PvP gear will move away from "welfare epics" to a combination of honor points, arena points, and arena rating.
Casual players get "10 more levels", a new class and tradeskill, and pretty pictures along the way. Serious players get changes to the game mechanics and reward system. By emphasizing and rewarding skill, WoW is moving towards an e-sport model, which is a lot easier to do in a themepark environment rather than a sandbox.
To me, WoW went through *fundamental* changes when TBC was released. The general trend has been towards more reward of skill. For example, vanilla WoW raiding was gathering 25 skilled raiders and 15 no-skill raiders for mid-level (Tier 2) content. I healed through AQ20/BWL/Ony as a clueless feral druid in greens. :-) As another example, the old honor rank system was purely time-based: how many hours/day can you spend in AV? The new arena system has flaws but is infinitely better than the Marshal/Warlord grind.
The trend towards skill will continue in WotLK. By making raid-wide and more homogenous class buffs, player skill will become more important than class. (No more need to stack shamans.) And PvP gear will move away from "welfare epics" to a combination of honor points, arena points, and arena rating.
Casual players get "10 more levels", a new class and tradeskill, and pretty pictures along the way. Serious players get changes to the game mechanics and reward system. By emphasizing and rewarding skill, WoW is moving towards an e-sport model, which is a lot easier to do in a themepark environment rather than a sandbox.
posted by changed at 2:55 PM
1 Comments:
ah . . . do you know this is the first time i saw this blog?
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