Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Things I hate about Warlords of Draenor

1) Gear Randomness
Thunderforged gear was kinda neat, and while Blizzard touted it as an incentive to do 25man raiding, it really was just an excuse to add a little longer tail in order to improve your character power via gear. It gives everyone something else to chase even after all the bosses are dead and we have picked the bodies clean for purples. Warforged gear just pushed this concept out one more tier, and it’s overstayed its welcome. I find it more frustrating than anything.
The next expansion is going to give gear a chance to be forged (higher item level), have a gem slot (neat), or roll tertiary (crap) stats on gear. Guess which one everyone is going to want? If it’s one thing that will cause drama in this game, loot will.
To me it’s just a slimy way to extend gameplay, and Activision/Blizzard knows it. If forged gear didn't exist, it wouldn't affect my decision to stay subscribed or not. Forged gear just makes me frustrated when it doesn't drop.
Adding more randomness is not fun. It’s a trap.

2) Lore Does Not Compute
So, let me get this straight.
Garrosh Hellscream escapes trial and meets a Timewalker in order to go back in time and stop the Orcs from drinking the blood of Mannoroth, and we have to go back in time/to another dimension to stop this other horde of orcs from invading our world and destroying Azeroth.
Is it just me or does it sound like a Saturday morning cartoon to anyone else?
Whatever, its lore. Mists of Pandaria was farfetched, and now they might as well go off the deep end to keep things silly.
The Burning Crusade was my favorite version of WoW, and I’m glad we get to go back to Draenor in all its’ outer space goodness. I will be glad that everyone else can enjoy it as much as I did, instead of just hellfire peninsula as a short stop before they get to Northrend. I desperately want to take some newbie into Auchindoun and shake him by the shoulders, “DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TIME I SPENT HERE WIPING AND LOVED EVERY OTHER SECOND?”

3) Garrisons
Oh yay. Another timesink. Hey guess what? If you want to raid, you are probably going to need to do something at your Garrison for a buff, or your bonus loot, or some other hoop people are going to have to jump through.
That was a little harsh.  
Something I’m really happy about is how little impact pet battles had in Mists of Pandaria, and I hope that is the pattern that garrisons follows. I get that lots of people play this game for different reasons, and raiding is pretty much the only thing I like to do WoW. I don’t mean to discount other avenues of gameplay, but garrisons seem to be targeted as a single player activity and my garrison does not influence your garrison. To me, it seems like this single player activity shouldn’t bleed through into the world and get people to play with or around others.
I play with other people when I raid. There is required interaction taking place and lots of social cohesion happening.
If my performance as a raider is augmented by what I do with my Garrison, there is no world building happening. I’m not out in the world toiling via daily quests for rep gear, valor points or lesser charms. I’m not going to be adding to the social fabric of the game. All I will be doing is polishing my pixelated home, and dumping gold into it that I could be spending on raid consumables or something more time worthy.