Cataclysm

On one hand, I'm really excited about the new-and-improved Azeroth, dungeons and raids. The new races look pretty awesome, and there is talk of race-changing a-la faction changes.
On the other hand, the changing of the game mechanics (no more spellpower, attack power, etc. etc. ) seems like a pretty bad road to me. I thought the game was pretty simplistic as it was, mechanics wise. Is the dumbing-down really needed?

Well, time will tell. I for one, hope they keep the current mechanics.

No more spellpower etc? Where did you see that?

[url=http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=97548.0]Take a look here.[/url]

Spellpower, attack power, MP5, defense, block, and armor penetration are all going bye-bye, with other stats and their related benefits filling the gap (or filling the gap with new/altered talents).

They made a big change in all the combat mechanics and stats going from TBC into Wrath (+heal and +shadow damage turned into spell power)...and they'd made a similar change going into TBC. But I hope when they are done they have a system with some choice/complexity...this trend towards all classes looking the same, using the same weapons/armor with the same stats...to me it reduces a lot of the fun.

I think their comment on armor penetration as being too "mathy" is disingenuous. In T9, you can put together a set that maxes armor penetration...and that is the highest dps set. (Armor penetration is the only one of their stats that gets better the more you have of it.) It left them no room to grow, I think they didn't realize that when they first put the mechanism together.

We'll see. Wrath played differently than TBC, but was still fun. And we have a lot of time before the next expansion comes out. Hopefully there will be some other mmo's they steal ideas from (Path of the Titans reminds me of EQ's Alternate Advancement, the guild evolution is like City of Heroes/Lord of the Rings, Onyxia revamp is the EQ Fabled mob...)

The thing that worries me most is the new Guild classification/achievement system. Mmorpgs are already barely civilized in terms of promoting good "people skills". I see this as making guild-hopping and guild-poaching even uglier practices than they already are. This is a bad move on Blizzard's part, in my opinion.

Of course it may NOT be a system to promote rivalry between guilds. I may be reading too much between the lines. If that's so, my bad. Sorry. But... there are already achievements achievable only, really, through guild action (e.g. the raid boss achievements) so I'm having trouble imagining what they might do completely within the single-guild context....

I'm not going anywhere... don't worry bout that :)

Still haven't really looked at everything, but I really like the idea that they are revisiting the original zones - only question I have is - do newbs still get to experience the zones as they were before?

Deathwing is a major baddie, but I still hate Arthas much, much worse.

They've talked about phasing, so that you see the world change as you adventure through it...but they have also talked about revamping low level quest sequences. I suspect that right now their ideas are bigger than their budget. )

[quote="Lierra"]
The thing that worries me most is the new Guild classification/achievement system. Mmorpgs are already barely civilized in terms of promoting good "people skills". I see this as making guild-hopping and guild-poaching even uglier practices than they already are. This is a bad move on Blizzard's part, in my opinion.

Of course it may NOT be a system to promote rivalry between guilds. I may be reading too much between the lines. If that's so, my bad. Sorry. But... there are already achievements achievable only, really, through guild action (e.g. the raid boss achievements) so I'm having trouble imagining what they might do completely within the single-guild context....
[/quote]

hear hear

[size=11]Well I, for one, think Blizzard is doing a pretty clever deal here with the bait and switch tactics. How do you keep people interested in the game? Make it a NEW game. Totally new mechanics, totally new relation between the classes and progressions etc.

I am not sure I like it ... but it is clever none the less.

The down side is they will also lose some folks that DONT like change, those that like to get on line, play with their friends, and not worry about "OMG HOW do I make this class work NOW?".

Pesonally I am not sure I like some of the changes over the last 12 months. I liked that Pallys were needed for AoE tanking, SPs were needed for mana regen, shammies for Hero, etc, etc. Towards the end of sunwell, I am sure it wsa pretty danged scewed with some class/spec combos totally out of the money (can you say LoLRet?), but I am not sure I like the homoginization. Take tanks ... there really is very little difference between tanks now and so those difference are HUGE in comparison ... druid lack of interupts comes to mind. I used to like that fact that with a bear you knew you'd get hard to kill, good at threat gen, but few oh shit buttons, not great AoE (but better than wars : ) ). Not as versitile as a warrior tank, nor as good as a pally at AE, but you had a well defined roll. Of course, on the other paw, the homoginization is good for smaller or less flexible guilds, and druid tanking is still fun. But, well, part of me misses the 'role'. I'm just sayin'. : )

PS - with all the changes is looks like gear is gonna have that one stat "PWRZ" someone suggested ages ago (was it Aeth?)[/size]