This is going to be a rant, but I want to state beforehand that this gives me no pleasure. I am not railing against something that I detest and want to see destroyed. I am railing against something which I have loved for a long time and want to see saved. But I doubt that it will be. It seems to be going down the toilet.
If Cataclysm is going to be anything like the pre-expansion event that we are seeing now, then this expansion might just be a total suck. I have spent the last few days playing through the quests in this event and they are abominable. They are truly majestic in their awfulness. Lets just talk about one of these quests, the one where you have to infiltrate the elemental cult or whatever the hell they’re called. I did this in Stormwind. To infiltrate a sinister and mysterious cult which is causing all sorts of trouble at the present time, this is what I had to do:
Leave Stormwind Palace and walk about 20 meters down the road.
Turn left into Old Town.
Walk another 20 meters until I find a dude standing on a barrel.
Click on him and ask, “Can I join your cult?”
Failing that, just put on a dress.
Now I am a member of this fully secretive cult.
So what genius thought this “story line” up? Do you remember some of the amazing quest lines that have been in WoW? What about the one that starts off in Darkshire where you have to investigate the private tutor that murdered his employers? You follow that one all over Elwynn Forest, you have evil spirits jump you in broad daylight in Stormwind, it’s a brilliant story line that fully involves you in the game. I could list dozens of epic quest lines here, and the sad thing is just how epic they could have made this quest. You could have been sent all over Azeroth trying to discover what is behind these recent events. I mean, it’s not as if we’re busy doing other shit right now.
Instead we get this almighty cop-out. This is just very lazy game design on Blizzards part. They seem more concerned with throwing around needless achievements, feats of strength, and fat loots than actually telling a story or giving us a game to play. Or they have simply discovered that it is far easier to give out these things than actually design rewarding content. Perhaps their player base has morphed to the point where the vast majority of players just want these things. Maybe I am truly the odd one out here. I have reached the point where not only I am not enjoying the game at all, I am beginning to feel like a fool for paying money for it every month.
The pre-expansion zombie event before wrath of the lich king was superior to the current elemental event in a number of ways. For a start it was a surprise; nobody had any idea what was going on. Contrast that with the separate and documented phases in the current event. Find out about them on MMO Champion or a similar site, log in, and go and get your “achievements”. I would go so far to say that without doing some research beforehand you may have difficulty knowing exactly what you have to do.
In the zombie invasion nobody knew what to do. So you banded together, attempting to stem the tide against the hordes of undead. Priests and paladins were in great demand as they could cure the affliction or hold back the tide. The upshot was that we were forced to make do with what we had, to come up with inventive ways to first survive and then stem the attack. Or you could revel in the idea of being a zombie, and undertake to infect as many other players as possible. It was engaging and enthralling, frustrating and dangerous. You were not after shiny rewards to do it. The reward was in the doing.
Contrast that with what we have now. It is press the button and get a stimulus reward. Trade chat is full of people asking what time the next invasion is going to happen. As far as world cataclysmic events go, this is about as routine as it gets. There isn’t anything mysterious here, there is no involvement, there is no story, there is no decent game play, there is nothing.
Blizzard is giving out a “feat of strength” for logging into the game at the moment. This is what we have come to. But in a way this feat of strength is strangely apt, because with the current dire state of the game, logging in is truly a feat of strength.
November 18, 2010 at 10:12 am
Too bad you missed the WGClean times. That was VICTORY. Not over a pixel monster with “amazing” storyline like this event, but over the very people who make WoW go shallow.
You are too old to find killing pixels rewarding. You must defeat real people to feel victorious. I love this game now because I find so many ways to kick M&S ass.
The work of the evil lurking in Azeroth is not the pixel elementals, it’s the terrible quests themselves. Defeat the master evil behind it! Defeat the M&S!
November 18, 2010 at 10:17 am
I was there for a few WG events over the last few weeks, and it was indeed brilliant. I finished a major contract yesterday that was taking up all my time, (this has been my first free morning in about three months), so I hope to enjoy at least this weekend with you all.
November 18, 2010 at 10:24 am
thats the spirit!
November 18, 2010 at 10:13 am
The zombie invasion was indeed brilliant. I got the impression they caved to qq far too easily on that one.
There was a great buzz in rounding up a bunch of mates and trying to take over a small town or a small part of Stormwind.
November 18, 2010 at 10:30 am
I liked the quest series. It gave a bit of insight in what is going to happen in Cata, and I *can* understand why they put it all so centralized. (The trip to Nagrand on the other hand, that was a joke…) The elemental invasion in the areas, increasing in numbers/spawnpoints, all very nice too.
I got dissapointed though now with the last phase. Defending the cities? Sure, great, nice concept.
But then those bosses. It’s just march in, kick down and DE the loot. No lore, no explanation, no ‘collect your grande group of friends and battle fiends who are threatening Azeroth’.
Just your regular loot pinatas. To close of the elemental invasion.
Talk about a let down….
November 18, 2010 at 11:00 am
Yup Ive been very disappointed regarding the pre launch event and if it makes you feel better the horde side is equally crap.
I am suprised however because of the level of polish, detail and amazing quests i tasted 1-20 in the beta. It seems this pre event is more of an after thought than anything ground breaking (ha).
I wouldnt be suprised to see the shattering patch drop next week due to the level of disappointment.
November 18, 2010 at 3:37 pm
I’ve also been a bit dissappointed by the events so far, but let’s look at the larger picture. The zombie event had no overt acknowledgement from blizz about what to do, did not appear in the wotlk beta, and took place the week before wotlk launched. The elemental invasion thus far has been spoiled completely from joystiq and mmo-c beta coverage. But we are still 20 days out from cata.
The betas now are larger, the coverage of them far more pervasive, and blizz’s communication philosophy did a complete 180 from BC. Knowing this, I wouldn’t pit it past them the plant red herring in the beta and continue it to the first 3 weeks of the event to lul people into complacency. These quests are nothing like what we’ve seen in the revamped zones, in fact they are as boring and scripted as the human starting area. It doesn’t make sense that they’d just drop the ball on the cata opening event after so many people had such strong feelings about the zombie invasion.
In short, there is no way the zombie event would have been as enjoyable if we knew the script beforehand. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But you have to put something in the beta, or people won’t be surprised.
At Blizzcon they said the opening event would “make the world unplayable” and to “just wait until you see it”. Neither of these describe the current state of the game, therefore this isn’t the opening event.
November 18, 2010 at 4:29 pm
“I would go so far to say that without doing some research beforehand you may have difficulty knowing exactly what you have to do.
In the zombie invasion nobody knew what to do.”
Is not knowing what’s going on good or bad? You’re not being very clear at all.
November 18, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Yes, I deliberated for some time over those two lines before leaving them in. It appears as if I am contradicting myself, but if you think about it then it’s pretty clear that I’m not. The zombie event lent itself to being all-confusing; it wouldn’t have made sense otherwise. The elemental event is scripted to the point where all this non-detail hinders an understanding of what the hell is going on. People are in trade chat asking how the boss event works. Where am I supposed to be? Where does it happen, and at what time? It’s clunky and stupid and the only way to have any idea of what is going on is to read up on it online.
November 21, 2010 at 3:23 am
They are different beasts. The zombie event was an event. It happened and whatever we did, that was that, with no clear up or down, win or lose. The elementals are meant to be a challenge that we unite against. As for the confusion, I think people are overthinking it. Attack hostile things and there you go: victory. The zombies were a sandbox while the elementals are a boss fight. Maybe you prefer the sandbox, I know I did, but that doesn’t mean that the boss fight is bad.
Just so it’s clear, I enjoyed the zombie event a lot more. But I think that’s just a matter of preference. I like that the invasion is more of a minor inconvenience to my alts than something which can almost permanently shut down a city.
November 19, 2010 at 1:46 am
Perhaps the problem is that you’re not a new player anymore and some of the magic is fading for you.
November 19, 2010 at 4:07 am
I love your blog Adam, and am a faithful reader because I enjoy your sardonic writing style.
However, a question’s been nagging me that this post convinced me to finally ask: It seems as though you don’t enjoy anything about the game anymore, so why do you continue to not only play, but faithfully update a blog about World of Warcraft?
November 19, 2010 at 9:16 am
Hey Kriegle,
It’s a fair question. I think within a week or so after Caraclysm I will know if I’ll keep playing or not.
November 20, 2010 at 2:28 am
I liked the event. the quests made me giggle, especially the one with Army of Darkness reference.
ease of joining the cult is explained easily. they need warm bodies to distract the masses, while they work on the real stuff. even revealing Chogall behind some of the events tells you nothing about Deathwing, does it? so in terms of the game lore, they are still keeping you in a dark, while using you to further their goals, of course they will make it easy for you to get in.
while we are all running around distracted, fighting off elementals and our very own brainwashed people, Deathwing is putting finishing touches on his armor and stuff.
all the coverage for the event is definitely something that made it shine less for a lot of people and honestly, I’m glad that I haven’t been following along the announcements and instead participating in the event as it happens.
P.S. Trip to Nagrand, I believe was for sole purpose of introducing you to Aggra and explaining why Thrall is no longer a warchief. Too bad people don’t reed rp its usually well worth the time (like Saurfang verbally destroying Garrosh in Borean Tundra for instance)
maybe if they made it into a cut screen as you turn in the quest?
November 21, 2010 at 11:28 am
Forgive me if I point out that if I want to giggle I’ll go and watch a rerun of Gilligan’s Island.
If joining the cult is that easy, why doesn’t the Stormwind guard do it then and stop wasting my time?
November 22, 2010 at 4:22 am
/shrug. most things in WoW make me giggle, its not exactly a super serious role playing game. so when something new turns out to be yet another funny reference, its all good to me.
stormwind guard, well ,they are all busy trying to stand around looking severe and tough, pretending to guard the city from the cultist invaders and running around ineffectually when you summon up an elemental. so its up to us, the countless under-payed heroes who don’t need to be insured and will not file workman’s comp in case something goes wrong
November 23, 2010 at 7:23 am
I think there is one thing you have forgotten. All these events before Cataclysm drops are throw away events. Every quest created now is not going to be there when the expansion finally arrives. Do you really expect Blizzard to go all out creating complex, epic quest lines that after the next two weeks will be gone forever? Your example of a Darkshire questline lasted for 6 years! To be honest, I’d rather Blizzard didn’t spend oodles of dev time on awesome quest lines that will exist for only a few weeks and rather make sure that the expansion DOES have epic questlines to last the next 6 years … don’t you?
November 23, 2010 at 8:29 am
Fair enough, that’s a good point. I suppose that shows that the sandbox method that was used for the zombie invasion was much superior.
November 23, 2010 at 11:57 pm
Every time someone mentions the Zombie event, I get all nostalgic. I turned into a Zombie and attempted to make a pilgrimage all the way to the Zombie homeland of Strat. I made it to where the path splits towards Quel’thalas and Terrordale before dying finally.
This event is entirely lacking in everything. I got my rifts achievement the day I reactivated my account before the invasion started and afterwards I ran the bosses once for the experience and the fire boss until my pally had the neck piece. After that I ground out reputation for tabards, as it was more entertaining than the crapfest they gave us. I get the feeling the same was true for a lot of people because after a few days, we started failing to defend Stormwind without fail due to low turnout.
November 24, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Ease in infiltrating the cult is nothing, if compared to the sensation when you are looking for a dangerous, hidden cultist who is stealthed somewhere in Stormwind doing is evil things… and when you finally find and target him you hear in your headphones the Standard Human Greeting: “Good day to you!”, “What can I do for you?” or other crap.
THIS, imho, is really majestic in his awfulness.