WoW PvP Gear, Unchecked MUDFlation, and YOU!
Well, maybe not you, in particular. But, me. As, yes, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft again.
Read on, sister.
Now, I’ll tell you, I was fairly enthralled by the fact that I could access Season 1 Arena gear (top of the line circa last summer) through simple battleground play. Or, more accurately, AFKing in Alterac Valley while I did something more interesting/productive. Yeah, I’m that guy. What can I say, create a blatantly abusable system with great rewards based NOTHING on actual participation and you’ll get a lot of people, uh, not participating (in this case, actual participation points — that being, honour kills — are horribly bugged AND subject to diminishing returns).
That’s not to say I never participated. I did if I felt like playing. But only then, because, frankly, there was little to no reward for actually playing the game. On my battlegroup, Alliance generally wins Alterac Valley. You’ll get about 300-500 bonus honour each time that happens (usually happens in under 25 minutes if Horde doesn’t turtle). You might get an additional 50-100 honour for ACTUALLY PLAYING.
So there’s the secret. If you want that shiny new Season 1 gear, kids, just AFK in AV and read a book, work out, plant a tree, chase a dog with a puffy tail, whatever the hell you like. But don’t actually play.
And don’t actually play one of the other BGs. They require participation on an individual level to earn bonus honour. And even on bonus honour weekends, the other battlegrounds aren’t on par as far as rewarding time and effort spent. Not even in the same stratosphere. AFK in these battlegrounds for their corresponding marks - only if you need them. Then get back into AV. Quickly.
So I’ll quit wasting time here and get to the point. Yes, I obtained full Season 1 gear on my Night Elf Mohawk.
However, those mathematical geniuses among you may deduce that “Season 1″ would imply that there were subsequent future Arena Seasons. At the time of this writing, they include Season 2 and Season 3. However, one would assume that the linear increase in player power obtained by equipping this gear would be kept in check.
I quickly suspected that it was, in fact, you know, not, when I encountered a full S3 Shaman in Terokkar Forest. He quickly dispatched me not once, not twice, but thrice - leaving me somewhat butthurt and envious of the can pisser on the other side of the internets who had just lain the smack down on my super lame noobie ass. Okay, fine, whatever. Maybe that’s a product of as much power level difference as it is rock/paper/scissors class design. I decide to duel a full S3 Warrior at the first chance I get, remaining slightly butthurt. To my dismay, I fail to bring him below half health.
Then I wonder.
How would I compete against this person in Arena play or in a Battleground?
Well, I wouldn’t. That’s pretty much all there is to say there. I wouldn’t.
Okay, that’s fine. Except that’s not the only problem here.
Soon, there’ll be a Season 4. Then a Season 5. Then a Season 6, and a Season 7, so on and so forth.
Now, compared to previous PvP systems, this all equates to a more intelligently designed “Grind” that, instead of hooking people desperately for a short time and burning them out, hooks them endlessly with less work involved in the hopes of inducing less burnout. Except it’s so visible that it’s hard not to experience burnout and quit due to the sheer obvious nature that the rapid inflation of gear power is going to quickly cause an impossibility of ever having a character that’s useful for any period of time at all.
I remember people becoming discouraged because the new expansion was in development - as it means all of their hard work would soon be totally nullified. You can understand how this may be what I like to call Officially Not FunTM. But what happens when all of your work gets nullified every few months? Is this really an intelligent plan of action on the part of Blizzard?
Well, it’s not -as far as my dollars are concerned, anyway. I’m trying to live life here, not be placed on an endless treadmill for no good damn reason at-fucking-all. So, once again, I’ll be canceling my World of Warcraft account. And only wondering how frustrating this situation is from the perspective of raiders, who have slowly watched their endless hours of play be trivialized by the introduction of constant mass injections of easily attainable and very powerful PvP gear to all of the shitfucks like myself who spent three weeks AFKing in Alterac Valley for it while watching porn.
Good work Blizzard, your game is a complete and total clusterfuck. No matter how much money you have, you can still fuck up.
A good lesson in this situation is to learn that it’s ALWAYS a bad idea to start each board room meeting with “Okay fellows, how do we institute a better grind to keep these retards playing?” instead of “Okay fellows, what is best for this game”.
-Az
January 1st, 2008 at 6:05 am
I can’t really disagree with you; though WoW’s PvP system has and always will be a mindless, godforsaken grind. Just look at the first incarnation of the honor system way back when in Patch 1.4. Fucking terrible.
As for AV, well, for the meager slap on the wrist players receive for being AFK, and the honor they can net while doing so, did we really expect anything less? It’s easy, and people are fucking lazy.
Anyway, I think it’s crystal clear that PvP in WoW is merely an afterthought in Blizzard’s eyes. With 9 million subs and rising, it’s a shame they haven’t focused on it more because there is definitely some potential there.
I have to say, in a primarily PvE and gear-focused game, balance would and has proven to be a fucking nightmare. We’ll have to sit tight and see what Patch 2.4 has to offer. Having said that, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
January 1st, 2008 at 7:33 am
If it’s focused on PvE, you could have fooled me.
They’ve totally destroyed the point of raiding with all of the free PvP gear. PvP also seems to be what most people are concerned with nowadays. Which isn’t surprising - it’s the easiest, fastest way to the best gear.
Fact is, their game got confused and schizophrenic while they attempted to hook as many people as they could into a grind.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:51 am
I don’t know, I guess it’s just me that’s changed over time.
A half decently ranked arena team rakes in around 300 points a week. But a piece of s3 gear costs near 2,000 points. Like, I’m just not at a point in my life where I’m interested, at all, in planning my life around MMO achievements over the next 6-10 months.
But there are plenty of kids who think life goes on forever that ARE willing to throw away that time, so good for Blizzard… I guess.
So, basically, where s1 gear is incredibly easy to obtain, the rest requries a very lengty grind. Effectively hooking every newb and his dog on season one, then locking them into a long term grind for the better shit. Sounds like they’re selling crack to kids, but who the fuck am I to comment. Either way, I’ve definitely decided that these games are targetted at and ultimately for 14 year olds.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:40 am
As I said, it all boils down to a massive grind. ;)
I suppose you have to look at it from a business perspective. Content takes time to create, and time is money. Heck, Blizzard have even stated that creating new armor models is difficult because they have to be customized for every race and end up taking a long time to implement.
When players have reached the “end-game” (Level 70) they need something to do, otherwise they will get bored and quit. At this point, if new content isn’t ready to be released, developers need to implement some sort of filler to keep players occupied. A carrot on a stick if you will. (I’m sure we all know this already).
To me, this is exactly what the WoW PvP system currently feels like. Sure there’s crafting and raiding, but PvP is so easily accessible and that’s what gets people hooked.
It’s funny that the PvE focus of this game has been lost (because it was there for such a long time). And again, I couldn’t agree more with your thinking that this game has become schizophrenic.
Admittedly, I hadn’t played for a while, and when I logged on the other day, the trade channel was filled with people looking for arena teams and battleground premade groups. And this was on a PvE server.
January 10th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Bah, I dont’ accept the content excuse. Did you see the keying quests required for places like Tempest Keep before they removed them?
That shit was heinous and took weeks and weeks of work…
But they removed it, because it was the kind of grind that kept people from something, pissed them off, and wasnt’ any fun at all. It was a content consumption delay grind.
Besides, what percent of guilds are in Black Temple right now? Seriously, though. In fact, how many guilds will even see BT before the new expansion hits? So no, I don’t accept the content consumption excuse. Especially from Blizzard, who, let’s face facts here, can make as much fucking content as they want. It’ll just affect the bottom line, but they could release five dungeons a month and still turn a profit and we all know it.
PvP and et cetera are, and have been since the day they were designed, merciless and mindless “carrot on a stick” grinds designed to hook people into as many additional months of payment as possible. I think that’s an irresponsible way to toy with peoples lives — especially when the majority of your usebase is probably under 18.
January 10th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Heh, I guess you can thank Tigole/Furor for borrowing the (keying) idea from EQ (which was, by all accounts, much worse in EQ than what’s in WoW). Personally, I never tried the key quests for SSC/BT etc. and don’t intend to from what I’ve heard. They used to be a necessary chore, now they’re just a chore.
Blizzard have made the same fucking mistake in developing so much content for such a small percentage of the playerbase. It really boggles the mind. You would’ve thought they learned their lesson with BWL/AQ/Naxxramas. Kara was a stride in the right direction, though (but even that requires a key to get into).
I don’t doubt that Blizzard can make as much content as they want, but creating that content in a timely manner? Well, that’s a different story. From what I’ve observed, Blizzard take a long fucking time to implement anything. We’re lucky if we get a new dungeon in 4-5 months, and trivial tweaks/changes in 2-3 months.
I can’t really comment any further because I don’t know how they run internally or how many people are working on content. But surely, if they wanted to implement a new dungeon, they could have a rough prototype done in a week or two. If they can’t finish it off in a few months, it seems like their development practices need some refactoring.
Just out of curiosity, what are the content schedules like for other MMOs out there? How often would one see new content in say EQ2, LOTRO, Vanguard or EVE?