Blizzard, Please Take My Game Horizontal

The next expansion for World of Warcraft has been announced.  I’m not sure we could have really expected anything dramatically different.  They’ve hit a formula that has worked.  And even though many of us gripe every day, millions of players continue to subscribe, proving that whatever the issues, they’re still okay with the Blizzard’s vision.  However, for me personally, there’s nothing compelling about Wrath of the Lich King.

Ten more levels to grind – the best part of the game in my opinion.  A few more skills, talents and deeper spec trees, are always a fun thing to contemplate.  But beyond that, I mean it’s more of the same.  It’s liked watching Titanic – the ride is fun but the end is always the same.  In this case, some raiding or not, some PVP or not, some Arena or not, re-grind a new profession or not, etc.

Death Knight as a hero class doesn’t excite me.  I would have preferred an extension of my own class. I do understand the nightmare that this would have brought into a game where they are still struggling with class balance.  But that doesn’t stop me from wanting it and being rather unimpressed about this type of implementation.

I keep playing WOW because the road to 60, and eventually 70, was fun.  I remain however, unsatisfied with what’s always waiting for me at the end.  If I was captured by some other MMO I’d hang up my subscription but nothing else that I’ve tried provides the same adrenaline rush, player hype and mania, enviable gear & weapons and crack-like obsession.  I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the core aspects of the game aren’t going to change, and I can see why they wouldn’t alter it.  Deep changes could be game-breaking and might possibly alienate the existing player base.  If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  So instead of vertical change, I’d be happy with horizontal movement.

Here are some horizontal changes that I would have loved to see in WotLK:

• Guild Halls – We’ve heard that they will release them when its ready and I’m sure that’s the case.  But since the game is going on three years old, I’d rather have them sooner than later, at this point.  AC2 had a very simplistic version of Guild Halls that were nothing more than shared spaces that acted as a gathering place.  I’ve been in WOW guilds where there are large amounts of guild toons that I’ve never seen face-to-face.  That didn’t happen in AC2.  Regardless of the level gap, you met everyone at one point or another in the guild hall.  I’d like more functionality than that since we’ve waited so long, but just give it already.

• Player Housing – Instanced player housing is a wonderful way for players of all types to spend their some end-game time.  It can be a source of pride and a mini game pursuit.  I’d like to have housing that provides a slightly buffed rested XP, small + profession buffs that last an hour and a small chance for additional procs on crafting.  I’d love to see trophies and lore items added that can be showcased in the halls and houses.  And lastly, bring back the small world buffs as those that can be gotten from having certain combinations of lore items in your house.

• Wood Harvesting & Woodworking – In support of player housing, guild halls and carpentry, they should add a profession that harvests and processes wood.  Seems like it would be easy enough to do and it would also pave the way for staves to be created by weapon smiths.

• Carpentry - Probably not a money-maker but it could be fun and sustainable with guild halls and player housing.  They could enhance the craft-able items with storage containers such as the various sizes of boxes and trunks that are available in EverQuest.  Furniture items would be mostly for show and prestige, and since there’s no shortage of epeen in WOW, I think carpenters will make enough gold for the effort.

• Scroll Maker – A profession that is long over due has got to be the ability to make scrolls.  I love finding scrolls in the low levels for those small buffs.  I’m not sure why they peter out at the higher levels.  As a solo player, having a few armor, intellect or stamina scrolls handy is very convenient.  Paper making is probably coming along with Inscriptions so perhaps someday we will also get scrolls makers too.

• Lore Master – Ah, the profession of kings would be the lore master.  Why for kings?  Because the comps would be very expensive and difficult to obtain.  WOW has such a rich base of lore from which to pull content, I want to see more of it become tangible in game items.  The Lore Master would create items for halls and houses that would add the +damage, +stamina, +resistance, etc. that I spoke of earlier.  The buffs would come from hanging lore items in the hall or house.  A primary component of these types of items would be some epic ingredient or shard. 
  
  In addition to buffing items, I want to see books, collections and media that is viewable in game that contains parts of the WOW lore.  Books can be collected one chapter at a time and would reveal some of the lore not current seen in the game.  Not all of us played the pre-WOW games but would like to catch up on what we missed.  By simply adding more interactive books, scrolls or even image vignettes, they could present more lore in a fun way.
  
  Collections could be fragments of legendary items that could be pieced together purely for display purposes.  Famous weapons, whole sets of armor and the alike could be crafted just to be shown off in the player spaces.

• Spell Attribute Points – Making the talent trees deeper raises too many balancing issues so what about allowing us to tweak them with attribute points?  It’s similar to how you spend your talent points now except that these let you augment talents in your primary tree.  You get a limited amount to spend – ten or so with which you can add accuracy, speed, penetration, reduced resistance to your talents.
  
  What intrigues me about such a mechanic is that it would allow players to customize their talents to suit their particular playing style without offsetting class balance.  If you PVP you might want to use your points to reduce a player’s resistance to your spells.  If you solo maybe having faster casts would be your preference, whereas someone who raids might want accuracy or penetration.  Whatever, it wouldn’t matter because none of these things are game-breaking and with only ten or so points, it’s just enough to add some flavor without knocking balance out of whack.

• Swappable Talent Specs – Storing two specs per character is way over due.  Let’s just get on with it already.  If they don’t want to go that far, then at least let me store them so that when I want to respect I don’t have to manually build the trees again.  Geez!

• Exotic Player Pets – This idea I’m stealing from AC2 and Lineage.  I want pets that all players can acquire through questing and raising, said pet.  These pets can either be damage, healing or tanking focused, but they can’t be used in BGs, Arenas or instances.
  
  I remember questing to get my Dragon Egg in AC2, running off to place it in the hatching nest and counting the days/hours until it could be hatched.  I remember the thrill of summoning it and having it fight along side me.  Just about every player at the required level had one but there was a 24-hour cool down timer to re-summon so people used them with judiciously.
  
  Imagine a healing spec priest being able to quest for, hatch and raise a damage dealing pet that can be used to help grind mobs for rep, farming and leveling.  I think Warriors would jump at getting one that could do some minor healing for them and I’m sure someone out there might want one that could tank.  Again, this can be done in a way that doesn’t upset class balance – can’t be sent in to attack other players, the + damage, healing or tanking would be small – just enough to make it worth having.  And it must have a re-summon timer long enough to make people use discretion about when to use the pet.  Once it’s dead or dismissed you have to wait for the cool-down before it can be re-summoned.
  
  Look at all the players running around with the vanity pets.  I know this type of exotic pet would be a huge hit.  I often ran from encounters in AC2 rather than allow my damn dragon die.

• NPCs and Gambling on the Boats.  I was so excited the first time I got on a boat and run around below deck.  Just adding NPCs would be an easy way to add more flavor to the game.  Get rid of the screen transition and add some good ole goblin gambling.  If I remember correctly, EQ2 boats don't transition and they don't take any longer than WOW boats to reach their destination.  Keep them short and add some NPCs or liven things up with gambling!  Yar, I want to play some poker with a Pirate, accuse him of cheating and start an on ship brawl!

• Single-Player and Duo-Player Dungeons – Blah, blah it’s MMO – sure I know this but I still think they could add some dungeons that can be dialed down for single player mode.  Why?  Because sometimes it would be fun to farm in an instance.  Sometimes it would be fun to master a scripted event that I can do by myself and when I want to do it.  It doesn’t have to drop anything more powerful or valuable than higher end mobs in the game.  It would just be fun to do something that felt like an epic encounter on my own.

• More Live Events - We already know that they possess technology to do this because they did it for AQ and the opening of the Dark Portal.  Please do this on a regular basis.  This is a world at war, bring the drama please with NPC attacks on the major cities, especially since the player base as practically stopped doing this now.  It's so much fun as a newbie seeing these big bad azz NPCs descend on the player areas.  It adds another level of excitement and encouragement to level up and join the big boys.  Seriously, doing this randomly on a regular basis can't be that hard!  I want that encounter playing out on the Outland side of the portal actually happening!  Not scripted to jack off with itself, but go after player cities.  Please, please bring the drama and war right to our door!

• Hero Classes as Extension of Base Class – Death Knight be gone.  I want a hero class that is an extension of my actual class.  I don’t want to turn into something else in order to become a hero.  Again, balance is a problem but they can think horizontal instead of vertical.  Let me have more customization and only a little more power.  Give us utility or convenience skill/talents instead of more damage/healing.  Faster mount speed, additional hearthstones, access to unique buff food, more flexibility with changing my spec, a couple more talent points, hero-only gear and other things of this nature.  Or let me unlock the ability to start my alts at 40 or possess a mentoring skill so I can group my max level toon with my friend’s lower-level alts without diminishing their XP gain.  Lots of things that can be done that won’t cause a balancing nightmare.

These are some of the things that I’d like to see in a WOW expansion.  I could live off of these activities long after I hit max level and never enter a raid instance, BG or arena.  I can be casual and have serious pursuits that don’t involve rolling alts to be abandoned at 60, 70, 80 and beyond.  Give me something to cling to when the leveling is gone.  Give me a way to progress and customize my character that doesn’t unbalance the game.  I’m sure that 70 to 80 will be fun, but I’m not sure that I’m going along for the ride again, when I already know I don’t like what awaits me at the end.

Comments

[Bildo]

*claps*

Even with just a few of those things, they'd have me back. Instead, with seeing how WoW is the new EQ1, I'm gone on to better things. I had my 2 years of WoW: The Raid Game. That's enough for a lifetime, thanks.

[Sheldrake]

I agree wholeheartedly with Bildo and with the article itself... The game needs this kind of "horizontal progression" to keep non raiders like myself happy. I only have an hour or 2 a weeknight in which to play and thats not enough to devote to raiding. As it stands right now, I canceled my subscription immediately after I got back from Blizzcon. Tigole made several comments during the panels that confirm what HE respects: hard core raiding. I dont begrudge the raiders their fun and games... just dont begrudge me for my type of game. And WOW is no longer that.

Also... they are "still looking into needed priest changes" LOL

[Grimshar]

I'm just coming up for my one year anniversary in WoW and I have never played any other MMO, I have a lvl 70 and a few low level alts running around on Alliance side. I belong to a small guild that just started Karazhan (Curator down for the first time last week), I very much doubt I'll be able to see anything bigger (maybe Gruul if we are lucky) and from what I have read about the new expansion I'm actually quite pleased. A whole new area to explore with 5 men dungeons is really what my schedule allow me to enjoy. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of your suggestions that I would love to see implemented, solo instances, player housings (if I can choose to make my home in a cave in Winterspring ;) ), new crafts and a better system for talent respecs, but I enjoy playing WoW as it is at the moment.
I don't think we know enough about the Hero class to judge wether it will be a good or a bad thing (or a "meh thing") but I welcome the fact that you wil not have to start from level 1.
Call me optimistic or naive but I'll definitely buy the expansion and hopefully enjoy the time I'll spend playing with my Guildmates.

Keep up with the great articles, they are always a pleasure to read and they always provide food for thought.

[Ric]

Nothing measures up to our first MMO experience and nothing ever will, but there are loads of things that Blizzard can do to keep this beast rolling along for some time to come for those of us who've played other MMOs in the past and for those whose first MMO is WoW. New or old, there are so many different kinds of players to please that I'm not sure they can keep us all happy all the time, but there is much they can do to keep all of us happy most of the time.

Many of your suggestions are excellent, and I'm sure there's enough just there to keep the vast majority of the player base far more than just pleased, but continuing to renew their subscriptions, flooding Blizzard with all the money they need to keep this beast well fed and thriving for a long time, and easily funding all the high-end content for the hardcore to chew through while maintaining generally healthy populations of all types and stripes of gamers.

My biggest concern is the implementation of the Death Knight. While I am an "altoholic," with a main and seven alts, it's largely due to a need to do new things or even to just do old things in new or different ways that I go that route. It's not because I want to have built and invested in one persona (or more) only to have one (or more) of them reach a certain level and then have to "extend" that over onto a new character that will lack any continuity with or for the character who carried me there, no immediate fellow player recognition of any relationship between the two characters, etc. I might want to raise a Paladin to max cap and then "extend" that character to become a Death Knight, and then also have that option with any of my other characters and future Hero Class additions. I don't want SWG's grind crap out the ass only to unlock a Jedi slot and dump the original character to play the Jedi. (Caveat: I'm not even sure if that is the way SWG eventually wound up, but that was the way it was when I said "Shit on this!" and dumped that game.) The point is, I'm hoping against all hope that Blizzard isn't really implementing the Death Knight like SWG's Jedi crapola. Maybe they're not, but if that is all there is, it's going to be very disappointing for me.

The rest of the stuff you speak of would simply make the whole WoW experience much deeper and broader for everyone who wishes to avail themselves of all the options presented. For those who care not to, there is no diminishing their overall experience for their not choosing them; for those who do, these things would add so much more to their experience and enjoyment of the game far beyond what's currently available. The technical challenges be damned. The tech is there in other games, and Blizzard's ROI for adding the kinds of stuff you speak of to the game would be worth every last dime.

Ten more levels is worth the price of admission alone, so I'll not hesitate to get WotLK -- and I buy four boxes for myself and family when I buy expacs. I'm just not sure I'm going to get too much more out of the deal than that, so I'm not going to expect too much more and hope to be surprised.

My message to Blizzard? Hey, you got me as a player into the foreseeable future so count on me being around... just please don't abuse my loyalty or take me completely for granted. I like your game, so now and then try to act like you give a damn about me, too.

As always, nice article full of good things to think about. Keep up the good work, and ignore my rambling grumblings. I'm an opinionated old fart, so I forget that I'm not really entitled to air them out anywhere I like. :D

[HunterMan72]

Let me start by saying, "Wow"! Your ideas only reinforce my belief that you are the queen of bloggers. You have a knack for jotting down what the rest of us are only thinking about. On top of that, the above responses are are very well thought out and interesting. The day I stumbled upon this blog was a great day indeed.

With that being said, allow me my few moments in the spotlight to sound off on a very important topic (at least to those of us that play MMO's). I have a lvl 70 and four alts. I love playing WOW, although I am at the point where I don't know what to do sometimes with my 70 hunter. You see, I am not a raider. I would love to occasionally raid and do more dungeons. But I have the same issue as Sheldrake above, my playing time is limited and setting up a raid and devoting the hours upon hours for the farming of materials and the actual raid is not realistic for me. On top of that, the guild I was in just disbanded because of the morons that were running it. I have yet to join a new guild, I am strongly considering starting my own for people like me, with limited time that just like to play the game without the pressures of a raiding guild. But that is a story for another day. Last night me and a friend of mine decided to 2-man hellire ramparts. We are both 70's (he is a warrior) and I have a pet being a hunter. We had a helluva time getting past the first few groups before giving up. I hate blizzard for doing this to the rest of us that can't raid on a regular basis. My warrior friend, whom was in love with this game and played every night since I have known him, was finally showing his frustrations last night. We both have the same problem: the inability to do anything high level without at least 3 other people. Our guild broke up, thus who do we get to go along with us? I have never been in the Underbog, Shattered Halls, Slave Pens, Tempest Keep, Karazhan, Black Temple, and many others in Outland. Nor have I ever been in Molten Core, Dire Maul, Onyxias Lair, and others in the Pre-BC days. It is hard finding a group that is willing to do these things with you, as most people at this point have already done them and have no patience with virtual "noobs" like myself and my warrior friend. Somewhere along the line, Blizzard forgot about all the little people that pay the same fees as the hardcore raiders but don't have the same amount of time to play the game. I have contemplated quitting the game, but I still enjoy it. I am running lower level instances solo and working on my alts. But the end is inevitable unless Blizz makes some end-game changes.

I love your ideas to go horizontal. The crafts you noted would be excellent additions to the profession tree, especially the woodworking craft. I am surprised that skill wasn't implemented in the very beginning, I mean look at all the trees in Azeroth (Ashenvale alone has enough wood to build a city)!

Keep up the good posts, I always look forward to reading them. I also apologize for the ranting and raving, but it is frustrating for those of us that like to solo and do groups equally but don't have the time to raid consistently. There is nothing else to turn to in the near future, as LOTRO sucks and WOW being as addictive as it is at lower levels.

Thoughts anybody?

[Jaramshaela]

Excellently written. The idea of a solo dungeon or a two-man dungeon sounds great, and would certainly take up some time while you're waiting for a tank for a 5-man run (never have to worry about waiting for a healer, being holy/disc priest, but there's a definate shortage of tanks on my server that want to do something other than heroics).

Personally, I think Blizzard needs to read their own forums and find out what we actually want, because I'm telling you, I browse the suggestions forums regularly, and there are some brilliant ideas there.

Thanks for the website, you're definately bookmarked :)

[Arawn]

Agreed, linked, commented on on my blog.

I feel really, really sorry for whomever scripted Molten Core, Naxx, etc. Every time they expand up vs. out they just squeeze people out of some very cool in-game experiences. It will be the same with Hyjal summit, Black Temple.

The person who called this EQ1 is right is dead on. The Hero class seems like hackery to shove people past 50-something levels of neglected content.

[Saylah]

@ everyone who has commented thus far, great responses! And never ever worry about how long your response is when you have something to say. I love hearing your very explicit and detailed responses. It's more like a valued conversation that shooting back one-liners, which are fine, when that's all you to say. But never hesitate to take up whatever space the comment block allows...

Over the weekend I ran into an old guild mate in IMs. She and her husband played with me in AC2, were a part of the transition to WOW on Illidan, before going their own way on Mal'ganis and evenutally, Guldan. They were avid players - hardcore in terms of hours but never really got planted very firmly in raiding because of their schedules. They both rotate in and out of working the night shift and also help to take care of ailing parents. Sometimes they have to stop playing for 30 minutes or so to take care of home-life. Unfortunately the way raiding works - required solid time blocks they only scratched the surface.

For them that was very different from their previous MMO experiences where they were always ahead of the pack and doing all the cool stuff. There was a time when they tried raiding by sharing a single character - whoever could start started and they'd switch off as necessary but that didn't work out so much. They're gone now. Both accounts canceled after trying various ways of being part of end-game raiding, including trying to run a casual raid guild on more than one occasion, which in and of itself was too time intensive. Kind of sad really, because they loved this game but they just couldn't find a way to make it work at the end game. They'll probably be back for an xpac but it's still a shame that they're gone until then.

It's starting to really hit home that the virtual personae I'm looking to have in a fantasy setting probably isn't going to happen. I think those of us that want a more engrossing experience are in the minority. I can appreciate both types of games - quick hit, lots of excitement, easy diversion from my everyday BS; this is where WOW plays. Versus something where I feel like I'm building something that will endure and has some impact on other players and the world around me; this is where EVE sits. So while I can accept and enjoy the merits of option one, I really want to find my way to option two. Unfortunately, when I look on the horizon I don't see anything coming in the near future that fits the bill. :-(

[Anthony]

My lord I hope they don't most of these things. Guild halls? Player Housing? Sorry but these are the absolute least of things you hear people asking for in this game. And I'm not meaning to pour cold water on your, but when when asks for horizontal growth, one sort of expects more important things like tieing the pre-expansion content more closely to the post-expansion content. Reinvigoration of the older content. Even adding new quest lines, etc.

The single greatest problem with the game is the invalidation of older content when newer content comes out. They need to expend more energy in keeping older content important. They do that and they will single handedly fix about 90% of the problems as I see them right now.

That is what you hear people bellowing about. Its levelling from 1-58 now. Not player housing. Not guild halls. Guild banks yes. Guild halls no.

[Anthony]

In regards to the Death Knight. While I'm sort of elated that new classes are being added to the game, I am a bit dissapointed in how they are going about it. I'm not overly fond of a separate "class" in this sense. I'd have rather like to see new abilities being opened up for our existing characters... you know.. the ones we've spent 2+ years playing with already. I already have many alts and really don't need another one.

[Saylah]

Well the only content that was invalidated with TBC was raid content. :-) And since I'm looking for things to do that aren't raiding, I dont really care so much what they do with it or about it. Sure I think it's silly that they made it all obsolete. That was very short-sighted on their part. But what I don't need is more quest lines, most of which are designed for leveling and gear. My problem is once you hit max level and you're not going to raid what is there to do that's fun?

Content - quests, mobs and instances to get you to the next level is a given and is vertical movement. I'm looking for something beyond that point, which we many of us will reach within 4 to 6 weeks after the xpac releases. And those daily quests are a barf joke. I don't get why we're suppose to do them and consider it fun. It's more like a chore.

[Mike Rochannel]

Ships have a loading screen cause you switching Server Processes. Both Islands and BC have their own Processes and when you switch the Tooncontext is freed, returned to the login context and that re-logs you to the Island/BC you are switching too .. actually the Server Processes could even run on different physical machines, it just depends on the kind of load balancing ...

Mike

[HunterMan72]

I finally hit the wall last night (no, not with my car :P). In World of Warcraft, level 70 is the pinnacle of gaming. Eventually that will be level 80. Once you hit 70, you then proceed to farm for gear, whether that be through PvP, raiding, or reputation rewards is a personal choice. I have found that 70 is boring. I debated starting a crafting profession, perhaps LW since I can then make my own armor. But do I really want to invest all that time into a craft for armor that will be irrelevant in 6 months? I am very frustrated with the entire situation, as I feel that the person with a real life outside of gaming gets screwed in the end-game becauase, alas, there is no end game unless you have a ridiculous amount of time to commit to farming and raiding, rinse, repeat. However, the idea of playing another game on my pc does not really appeal to me, it would seem very hollow and lonely now that I have played online with "real" people. What to do? The realm is down for 2 days for maintenance, so I have some time to think about it. My subscription is up in September, I may not renew it. I was never able to see Molten Core, or Karazhan, or Black Temple, or Onyxia's Lair. That is too bad, not just for me, but for Blizzard as well. They will continue to alienate the solo player by forcing us to participate in groups that require tons of time to organize and farm mats for and raid in. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing with other people, but sometimes my schedule does not allow for that. Will Blizz do anything to fix this? No. Why would they? As Saylah stated in her posting, why fix it if it ain't broke? The desires of the 15 year olds with no real life responsibilities outweigh the needs of the adults with a real life. I am not allowed to enjoy much of the content because I am a grown up. This is something I need to just accept. It is a bitter pill to swallow. Now comes the Death Knight. And starting from a higher level makes anything beforehand irrevelant (i.e. Elwynn Forest, Ashenvale, Badlands, Desolace, etc.). A guild hall would be a nice addition, as would a guild bank and player housing. Nice touches to be sure. But these will not fix what is inherently wrong with WoW: an incompetent endgame. The rush to 70 (soon to be 80) has proven worthless, just as the rush to 80 will be the same. An incscription profession? Sounds kinda lame to me. I like the carpentry idea, and the scroll maker is pretty cool too. Maybe Saylah should get a job with Blizz. At least then a real gamer would be involved in the process, and maybe they would understand what we really need. I see nothing wrong with making end game content accessible for solo'ers and/or very small groups such as 2-3 people. We pay the same fees as everyone else. Why must we suffer from the raiding disease that has afflicted all of the pre-teens in the WoW universe? With all that being said, I still enjoy playing WoW and I will probably just start Leatherworking for my hunter. Then I can make my own mail armor, just in time for the level cap to increase to 80 and my "new" armor will be obsolete. Just like real life, eh? WoW is a great game with some inherent flaws. At this point I am sure these flaws will not be fixed or even addressed. It is too bad, because they probably lost a longtime subsciber because of it. Guild Wars 2 anyone?

[HunterMan72]

With the above being said, I want to make it clear that I really enjoy playing WoW and will probably keep playing it, albeit not as much as I was. I will probably renew for another 6 months, at least I will have the option of playing when I wish. There are things for me to look forward to, such as getting a cool armor set and gaining reputation with certain factions. I just wish the end game was more friendly to people like myself with limited free time. I do understand, however, that this is a MMO, and online multiplayer games are meant to include groups of people working towards a common goal. I just wish it wasn't so damn difficult to attain. On a side note, faster mount speeds would be nice. My normal flying mount is sooooo slooooooow, thank goodness it can go over stuff or it would be worthless. Great ideas Saylah!!

[WoW player char- rosecaster realm-moon guard]

I think the WoW needs to put ither more or more rp like houses if you think that WoW does not need to put houses in then your very wrong I come from a heavy rp realm and all people there do is spend there time looking for a place/building that they can live in and have a family, to many people this might sound odd well this is what rp servers do and im not talking about rp/pvp servers thos are full of noobs. The only place that I see is sillver moon inn at night its pact full of people who want to rp its now called many things mainly a bar but still some thing like that should send a message Rp servers do, do this stufe and to them it's not odd. So if blizzard could just make more houses or ((what my freind suggested)) make a place for houses were people can even buy them and live in them and maby even have a key for them and if they own it let the customeriz it.
((sorry for spelling))
This would be a huge hit for rp servers and I know that people would pay even more mony to play the game-((altho please do not raise the mony))
- it would be the new best thing.

I come from moon guard and you should try it some time. See you there hehe ^-^

[Anthony]

Houses? Have you been in an MMO that uses player housing? SWG comes to mind. All the landscape is cluttered with houses. Everywhere you look. Course I stopped playing SWG over two years ago when they releases the game killing first combat upgrade(destruction). But I happened to revisit my old toon about three weeks ago. Just logged back on with a trial to see the old Bria server. Yup, abandoned player buildings everywhere. Even if there weren't tons of abandoned buildings everywhere though--say blizzard did a better job of policing that--you would still have thousands and thousands of houses on each server from active players. In the same places people level now.

No, I hope they never introduce player housing. My bank is my house :)

[JoBildo]

Not all player housing needs to be like SWG. EQ2's housing is top notch, and one of many reasons players keep playing the game. It's instanced, in the form of apartments and whatnot. You can decorate it from top to bottom, and it's actually quite addictive.

But then, players whose sole interest is to level and "win" might not think so.

[WoW player]

yes but most of thos houses to not meet standard alaince has good houses but as a horde only player i find it lacking for there are some realy good ones but even if there are lots most have npcs in them so people do not like that...

[WoW player]

also a matter i was told to bring up from my server -moon guard is that theres many good things about the city but in the way of houseing there is only truely 2 at most origmar sits apon 10 apartments all have an npc bottom floor, sure sillver moons got a lot of buildings but only 1-2 good houses, and i do not mean places to rp people want a house and the inn is not good enuf...

[WoW player]

Putting that a side i think all thes matters should be placed on there web site so i shal continu my rant there.

[Saylah]

As JoBildo said, EQ2 house is excellent and we already know that Blizzard is working on housing. They've said that they won't release it however, until it's right. Whatever that means. :-)

LOL at Wow Player. Feel free to rant. It's an open conversation as long we are nice respectful.

[Boo]

ummmmm....you do realize that a lot of the changes that you're asking for are in Guild Wars, so why not drop the monthly charges and play a much better game with much better developers and graphics and game play. You'll have much better story lines, instanced gaming, nobody stealing your drops, no waiting in lines for bosses to spawn, many different kinds of PvP (anything to suite your taste and mood).

[Eureka]

You brought back such a good memory when you mentioned the AC2 egg quest! It gave me a flash back to the time where I finally got my new pet. I was so very excited. I logged in the next morning and my egg pet was gone, as well as a chunk of xp. It turned out that we had a rollback, and the egg was still being incubated by mama dinosaur and I had to wait a few more hours until I could come back and collect it.

AC2 had such memorable quests. I do miss it.

[HunterMan72]

@Boo I recently tried Guild Wars and my thoughts are mixed. I will start by saying that GW is definately NOT a better game than WoW. The graphics are nice, but I actually prefer the graphics in WoW. They may seem cartoonish, but they are enjoyable enough. The major reason that WoW is better in my opinion is the freedom of movement. I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated in GW because I could not walk (run) anywhere I wanted to. For example, I was trying to go down a bank of a river to cut across said river but the pathfinding would not allow me to do this, instead I was forced to walk to the log bridge and cross the river at that point. I also came across this problem while trying to walk down steep slopes in places. This is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in a video game, nevermind that this is an online MMO that is supposedly superior to all others. I felt like I was playing a super nintendo game all over again. I also do not like the character renditions in Guild Wars. The pictures in magazines and instruction manuals look great, but when you actually play the game, your character looks awkward, especially when running. It is kind of a weird "shamble", lurching along like the process of movement is somehow painful. I got my necromancer to level 2 before calling it a night. I will probably play it some more at some point in the future, I do not want to give up on it without a little more in-game time. However, as of right now WoW is far superior in every way to Guild Wars, except perhaps PvP which I have not tried in Guild Wars and have done very little of in WoW. These are just my random thoughts, feel free to respond however you see fit (no insults please).

/nice (lol)

[Leiandra]

Great post. Personally, I was never much of a fan of Player housing, but I know a lot of people get into it. So that might be on the bottom of my list, but everything else... yeah, probably agree with ya.

[Saylah]

I'm waiting for GW to grow up into WOW2, err...GW2. GW is way too instanced for my taste. Yes, I own a copy and played for a time but no, it's not better. The environment is much too restrictive. The inability to veer off a simple path or jump down a hill frustrated me. And if you don't leave town with a group, you might as well be playing a solo RPG.

Even though I solo mostly in WOW, I see hundreds of people on my travels. Sometimes I help them out for a while and sometimes they help me. You can group up quickly to kill a pesky mob or finish a whole quest together - or not, when I'm in one of my moods. And I can have that freedom and versatility without going back into a city to grab people and zone out together. So while I liked some aspects of GW, I didn't like enough of them to stay.

The real question is why I don't play EQ2? :-) That game actually has most of what I'm looking for and listed in my WOW xpac wish list. I tell you, as time goes by, I seriously ask myself that question on a regular basis. When I get tired of this druid which I haven't posted about yet, I'll probably go bang around EQ2 for a time.

[HunterMan72]

One more thing that irritates me about GW: when I log off my character automatically starts in the town again when I log back on. I found this to be extremely annoying, unlike in WoW where wherever I log off is where I log back on (except inside an instance). The lack of freedom of movement is very irritating in GW, and unless that is fixed in GW2, I will be playing WoW for a long, long, time.

I have never played any of the everquest series. I had a friend that played it religiously, in fact he called it "Evercrack". At this point is it really worth someone like me trying it out? How long has EQ2 been on the market?

[sam]

Mike your comment about alienating the solo player confuses me. 75% or more of the content in wow is soloable. Most of the content is soloable . The game was at it's best when you could log in and a smorgasboard of options was there. It used to be I could log in and watch the LFG channel and if something at at lower level interested me I'd log an alt. I could pug any number of 5 mans. Groups were pugging MC and AQ and ZG. Those where the good old days.

Then BC comes out and everyone begins to solo everything 5 man groups start falling apart because people solo to 60 and suck at thier class and no one will group with them. But the solo game is healther in BC than it ever was in Vanilla wow. Vanilla wow you were screwed as a soloer. BC you can get all kinds of gear and rewards you just can't do the end game raids.

[HunterMan72]

You make very good points, Sam. As someone who never played WoW before the BC came out, I am unable to offer an opinion on any content before it's release. I enjoy soloing most of the time, but I wish it was feasible for me to see end game content without having to farm endlessly for supplies and gear just to get "the chance" at a good drop in a raid. That is assuming that I even am allowed to participate in the raid in the first place. My schedule makes it tough to really commit to anything as time consuming as raids, so I tend to solo more than what I would sometimes prefer. Because of that, I think it would be nice if Blizz implemented some end game stuff for those of us that just can't do the hardcore raiding. Just a thought.....

[Keystone]

I couldn't agree more with you on this post. The additional layer of content a player house can add is limitless. To the person that mentioned SWG as a benchmark for player housing... you should do some research on Ultima Online's housing, which is to date the best housing system an MMO has seen!

[wowHuntress]

I've been playing since release, got the BC xpac when it came out and I do not have a 70. The only reason I'll have a 70 is to farm gear and mats for my alts. My 68 druid may ding 70 by the end of the year... maybe not. I've created characters of each class and race and currently I'm creating a bunch of hunters with the goal of taming a pet from each family. As a non-raider, that's how I still have fun with this game.

Although, it would be really great to see some of the ideas listed above implemented ingame. =D