With Cataclysm coming to an end and Mists of Pandaria to be released in a little over a month, things have gotten pretty dull lately. My guildmates and I have been trying to keep occupied by running some older content for achievements, transmog, even just for nostalgia's sake. Ideally I'd like to get all raid/dungeon achievements for Cataclysm done, but not enough people want to go back to tier 11 and 12 to finish a few things up.
During this downtime, I've spent a lot of it reading the official WoW forums as well as the forums over at MMO Champ. What I've been reading has been a broken record of QQ from the community. Comments of "Vanilla was better than Cataclysm" and "the game is too easy now" are extremely common. Well with so many people saying these things, they must be true, right?
Vanilla WoW: The Pillar of Game Design or a Lesson in Fake Difficulty
I really don't think so. As Shanthi and I have discussed recently, vanilla WoW really only seemed to be difficult. See, things weren't very accessible. You had to go on these long attunement quests through multiple dungeons and raids and travel all over Azeroth to complete even a small part of the quest chain.
Even after completing said attunement, you needed to grind for gear in lower tier dungeons and raids before even thinking about stepping in with the big boys. This model continued to exist throughout The Burning Crusade as well. All the guilds who didn't finish content fast enough but couldn't access the new content. Hell, tons of guilds had issues finishing Tempest Keep before Sunwell Plateau was released. But people somehow think this was amazing. It was awesome that so few saw the original Naxxramas too, right?
Blizzard obviously disagrees. Raids are now easily accessible to every person who runs random dungeons. "Welfare epics" give the player the required item levels to raid the current content. But those filled with nostalgia of how "amazing" vanilla was are upset about this. From my perspective, these epic items allow people to see normal mode content and raid casually with their guildmates and friends. I don't see what's so bad about this. Looking for raid exists for those that don't have a schedule that allows them to raid consistently. Or, maybe they don't have enough people in their guild that can actually raid normals. This I feel is perfectly fine also. Heroics are the measure of raiding ability currently in WoW anyways. No one cares how quickly you killed Morchok on normal. Hell, my guild was third on the server in that regard. But normals don't matter in terms of raid progression for "elite" guilds. Not saying my guild is of the type mentioned. We're somewhere in between casual and hardcore.
In the end, it all comes down to accessibility. Vanilla and TBC weren't exactly great in that regard. Some people really enjoyed that aspect. But when the majority of players don't get to actually see any of the content, I don't really see that as a good thing.
What about boss mechanics? Surely bosses have become much easier! ...no. Look at the mechanics for bosses in say Molten Core. 1-2 basic mechanics (don't stand in fire, pay attention, etc) and you win. But why would mechanics be so simple and people would still claim it was harder?
40-man Raiding: A Logistical Nightmare
Oh, that's right. You had 39 other people to worry about when you raided. Wait, that's really it? Organization was the main factor? Ok, so from a raid leader's perspective, that was probably ridiculously difficult. Trying to get 40 people to all work together had to be a nightmare. But that's why mechanics weren't that difficult. See? It all makes sense if you actually think about it. Gearing up was a nightmare as well. I can completely understand that. Fighting with likely 10+ people to gear up. But actual gameplay was not any more difficult than it is today. In fact, I'm 99% sure it was easier.
Look at heroic Spine of Deathwing for instance. Count the number of mechanics. Tell me that's somehow easier than boss fights in vanilla and TBC. It's absolutely not. But hey, it's easier because it requires less people. This is why the 25-man versus 10-man debate is so vicious. I won't go deep into that topic for now, but I will say each has it's own strengths and weaknesses.
To me, the total number of people should not dictate how simple the mechanics are. Blizzard seems to have agreed with me there and has made 25m and 10m pretty close in terms of mechanics.
Players Suck
Another argument I've seen on the forums is that players aren't nearly as skilled as they used to be. Well, I tend to disagree. Sure, a lot of things are now easier in terms of accessibility, as I've discussed. But the thing people have to remember is that a lot more people are playing nowadays. There's easily 2-3 times as many people playing WoW presently than were playing in vanilla. So finding bad players is pretty easy just because of the sheer amount of people playing.
And I use the term "bad players" rather loosely. There's a ton of different types of players now as well, with varying amounts of time invested in the game. At present, it's rare that I find people playing their main character when I run dungeons. Most mains are completely geared at this point so people are working on their alts. Let's face it, you never play an alt quite like you play your main. You just know what ability to use and when to use it with your main. You can feel out the right time to do everything. But on an alt, you might find yourself searching for an ability or staring blankly at all the icons wondering what one does what.
Subscription Decline is Due to Blizzard's Horrible Design!
Clearly. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the expansion ending. Why pay for something you normally would play a ton but there's not a whole lot you want to do for now? How many subscriptions do you think will come with the release of Mists of Pandaria? This is a slow section of the game. Anyone who's every been around for the end of an expansion will agree. At the end of Wrath of the Lich King, Orgrimmar felt like a ghost town. But when Cataclysm dropped, Org completely blew up with players. Lagged the hell out of my computer.
Am I saying that some of the lost subs aren't due to Mists of Pandaria? No. I'm sure there's people who aren't interested in playing it. But that happens with every change. Personally, I don't like pet battles. I'm not a huge fan of the Pandaren either. So I'm not really going to participate in pet battles and I'm likely not going to make a Pandaren. Wow, that was a tough decision.
The Root of the Problem
What is the actual issue here? It seems like no matter what, people are going to continue to make these claims. People will resist change and hold on to things that they feel were amazing and the right way to do it. This is nothing different than people who hold on to archaic values in society. It's human nature. In society, if you don't evolve and roll with the changes, you're doomed to be left behind. So, is this really any different? Things are changing constantly. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with them. But at least in the instance of WoW, Blizzard tries to help you adjust to these changes. People will still be unwilling to change and lay claim that the old way was better. But was it really?
People will always find something to complain about. Blizzard knows this, they know they can't make everyone happy. But they try to make as many of their players happy as they can. Overall, I'm very satisfied with the time I've spent on this game. It's been a lot of fun learning things about it and playing with people who have become some of my closest friends. Sure, things have bothered me from time to time in terms of design and such, but Blizzard is constantly making the game evolve. As long as the raiding aspect continues to be engaging and gives me something to work towards, I'll continue to play.
