A commenter on a recent Pink Pigtail Inn post said:
The dance studio, and flying vehicles in Winterspring are the two things people bring up when they want to point out Blizzard never delivers on their promises. For me, they aren't game breaking features, and it doesn't really bother me that they got pushed back, or eliminated. Personally, I think people that feel 'let down' by blizzard are getting too emotionally invested in minor matters. If they deleted your favorite class one day, I would understand, but if they revamp your talent tree for the sake of game balance or don't release your pet feature in time, it ought not be a source of stress or forum spamming.It rubbed me the wrong way not because he's wrong -- people do panic over nitpicky things, and a dance studio isn't as game-changing as an entire class -- but I just don't like this attitude. This "It doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you" way people have of approaching the things they don't consider important.
My husband tries to maximize the potential of his characters through hard work. The gameplay itself, the challenge and potential for success, are his lures and his interest. His priorities lead him to arenas, raids, and tons of research into the technical (numerical) aspects of improvement.
I try to make my characters look as cute as possible. I care about customizing them, making them individuals in the WoW community. This leads to tons of research into what mounts/pets/clothes look best and how to get them, which in turn leads to raids, heroics, battlegrounds, and dailies as needed.
I asked my husband how upset he'd be if they nerfed something he liked about his class: "Fairly upset." I then asked how upset he was about them not implementing dance studios: "Um... Meh."
It's the exact opposite for me.
We're not the kind of people who whine and complain and throw fits about stuff we don't like, but just as I wouldn't tell my husband he doesn't have a right to be upset about a class change, he would never consider my pangs of sadness over the lack of dance studios less important than how he feels about his interests.
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Actually, it's interesting that you say this, because my wife is at once the kind of player who works like a fiend to maximize her DPS through proper talent choices, gear selections, gems, enchants, and so on... and she's an inveterate pet collector, to the point where I once found my shaman sitting in a swamp chain casting heroism so that she could tame a ghost wolf or hanging around Duskwallow for a rare spawn raptor just so she could try for a new raptor non combat pet.
ReplyDeleteI personally don't care about paladins. At all. Not even a little. They could delete the class tomorrow and I'd be happy. But I understand that other players find the class fun and rewarding and I wouldn't say "Well, it's just one class" if they got deleted because I know that would be myopic.
Similarly, I don't care about new dances. But I recognize that for others, that's a pretty big deal: a lot of my friends are RP'ers who would love to have a way to personalize their character.
This sort of debate came up in my guild last night, and I've seen it on forums leading up to the patch. We have a solid mix of players, some of us are more hardcore, some of us just play cause our friends do, some like pets, some like PvP, we run the gamut. That said one of our harder core raiders was talking about how 3.2 was the "lazy" patch, which the PvPer disagreed with vehemently. After all, he felt, PvE-ers get new content every patch, PvPers are stuck with the same content for large periods of time.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I fit in the middle, I like to maximize my DPS and perform well in PvE content, and I've dabbled in PvP before (more-so in TBC really)...I collect -rare- pets and I collect mounts (though my attempts at solo-raptor/tiger farming are on hiatus). So to me, this patch wasn't a "lazy" patch by Blizz at all, they added a lot of peripheral things to the game.
I mean, back in the day (*waves cane*) there was an entire patch who's biggest highlight was....weather effects.
Anyways, what I mean to say is that I agree, what appears unnecessary to one person could be unbelievably awesome to another.
Also: The Air vehicles were removed from Wintergrasp because they became just gank-machines and people would spend the whole time dog-fighting instead of completing objectives, so as someone who used them in beta, I'm glad they didn't make it in.
Last night I had some time to spend on the Horde side of my account, and my aim was simple; get at least two raptor pets and finish the new orphan quest chain. The rest of the guild was forming up heroic teams to start farming the new bit of currency. I bowed out because, frankly, I could care less.
ReplyDeleteMy statement to the guild? "Gear gets replaced, but mini pets are forever." :)
XD So true, Shawndra. Soooo true.
ReplyDelete"people would spend the whole time dog-fighting instead of completing objectives, "
ReplyDeleteI can see how that would be real annoying . . .
. . . if you care about completing objectives.
I think not including the Dance Studios was a fantastic design idea by Blizzard and keeps the game firmly in the realms of fantasy. In a fantasy semi-medieval world you wouldn't have dance studios in every major city so that the tough warriors of the Horde could learn to dance slightly differently. Would you have a barber shop? Sure! Different hairstyles can make you look impressive or intimidate enemies. This is World of WARcraft remember?
ReplyDeleteConcerning the aircraft in Wintergrasp, well, I believe Blizzard incredibly overstretched their potential with Wintergrasp. It has never worked properly from day one. When the mad scrum at the relic door begins it is sheer luck which team wins due to lag. I hope that by not wasting time on the aircraft that they can go away and properly work on implementing world PvP and improving their hardware. Battlegrounds are all well and good, but nothing captures the feeling of killing or being killed by a player from your own realm that you potentially come across multiple times at Wintergrasp. It inspires healthy competition and is darn fun to boot.
I think the larger point is that it's important to appreciate the interests of people who are different than you. I think different interests enhance the game, not detract from it.
ReplyDelete