13/06/2011

What if WOTLK had never happened?

Klepsacovic expressed some interesting thoughts about Cataclysm last week. In particular he suggested that a lot of the expansion's apparent failings are not so much things that can objectively be classified as problems, but rather that Wrath of the Lich King has changed our views of the game in such a way that we now dislike features that we would have loved only a couple of years ago. Or, as he so distinctly puts it himself in his last sentence: "If WoW had Cataclysm, minus LK, it would be in a much stronger position."

This immediately sent my mind reeling. What if Cataclysm had been the expansion after Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King never happened? I'm not saying that I actually wish that this was the case, but it's an interesting thought experiment. WOTLK introduced so many new mechanics to the game that it's actually quite hard to imagine WoW without them now. But what if?

This kind of speculation is always going to be vague, simply because many of Cataclysm's features are directly based on changes that were previously made in WOTLK. Take raid size for example. If WOTLK hadn't made every raid available in both a ten- and a twenty-five-man version, then Cataclysm's raids would also still only be either one or the other (and going by their overall feel, I'm inclined to say that they were all designed primarily for the larger format). Guilds that were limited to ten-mans in Burning Crusade would have felt left out by this expansion then.

However, I'm pretty sure that nobody would be complaining about Cataclysm raids being too difficult if they had come out straight after Burning Crusade, considering that BC had ended with Sunwell, one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult raid ever at the time. After that, Blackwing Descent & co. would have seemed like good "intro" raids for the new expansion. In fact, hardcore raiders probably would have complained about the content being too easy, especially since BC's attunement requirements are gone and not slowing anyone down anymore, and in this alternate universe there'd be no hard modes either (since that's another WOTLK invention). Since people like to complain regardless, they'd probably have criticised BWD and BoT for their comparatively bland interiors and lack of music.

Likewise, heroic five-mans occasionally wiping people would never have been an issue in a world where most players still remembered spending hours in heroic Shadow Labyrinth, and without a dungeon finder having trained people to expect quick runs involving little personal responsibility. We also wouldn't have started facerolling things quite so quickly if Blizzard had stuck to the old ilevel progression. Did you know that heroic five-mans didn't used to have their own tier back in BC? You basically went in there for badges, crafting materials and the chance of getting an epic from the last boss - which was only good due to being an epic, its actual ilevel was lower than that of a blue drop from normal mode!

With no random dungeon finder there'd still be daily quests for the dungeons, and people would probably feel the lack of max-level normal mode instances even more painfully than they do now. Oh look, the daily is Lost City of the Tol'vir again, what a surprise. Nobody would do the heroic daily if it was Stonecore or Grim Batol, while Vortex Pinnacle would become the new Slave Pens. I just can't decide whether Halls of Origination would be popular or hated - if you actually still had to put work into assembling a group for the daily, then getting badges for seven boss kills would present a pretty sweet reward, but people might still be put off by the length.

You wouldn't be able to accumulate reputation just by wearing the right tabard while instancing, so getting to exalted with all the various factions would actually be slightly more difficult than it is now. Dungeons would only give reputation for an appropriate faction, so Throne of the Tides could give Earthen Ring rep for example, but a place like Halls of Origination doesn't really feel connected to any particular faction and would give nothing. People would probably ask why Blizzard didn't create more alternative ways to get reputation. (Item hand-ins, anyone?)

The old world revamp would probably have been welcomed with less enthusiasm because while vanilla content already started to feel somewhat old in Burning Crusade, I don't think people would have been okay with seeing it replaced with something else just yet. The change in questing style would have felt even more dramatic and off-putting for some people, considering that there was no phasing at all back in BC, and levelling was still a little bit slower back then as well.

Archaeology would still feel incredibly grindy, but people might've been slightly less annoyed with it right after Burning Crusade, seeing how that had some very grindy aspects to it as well that would've still been fresh in people's memories.

So would that have been a better game? In some ways yes, in some ways no. I do agree with Kleps that it's all relative. If you felt that WOTLK was the pinnacle of WoW's development, then it makes sense that the ways in which the developers deviated from that path in Cataclysm won't be appealing to you. However, if (like me) you felt that WoW was at its best during the Burning Crusade era, then I think it's important to be a bit more selective with criticism of the current expansion. You don't have to like all of Cataclysm's features either, but it makes more sense to compare them directly to Burning Crusade than to whinge about things that were already set in motion during Wrath.

16 comments:

  1. During TBC there was only one kind of batches and, at first, they were only available in heroics and didn't drop in raids. Even after they've changed that heroics always were the primary source of them, (neglecting post 2.4 Kharazan). Badge gear was for people running heroics, raids had their drops.

    If you didn't raid you had a lot to do (many different heroics, leveling alts the "hard way") and you got rewarded by badge items. Which was YOUR reward, not the raiders last tier.

    Now, all those player that didn't raid but played heroics during TBC did get to raid in WotLK, regardless if they wanted to or not. It was easy enough and rewarding enough and there was nothing else to do.

    What are those players supposed to do in Cataclysm? Play the much fewer and more boring heroics to get less VP/time then raider? Cataclysm didn't go back to TBC. Cataclysm changed the endgame into a closed club.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I suspect that fewer people would play Paladins, given that the Paladin specs and rotations were completely revamped in Wrath. Having read what BC Era Pallies had to go through, I would have taken a huge pass on the class entirely. The Retadin was the DPS laughingstock of BC, and I doubt that would have changed too much in a BC -> Cata expansion.

    One thing to consider is the impact of vehicles on BGs. That was a Wrath invention, and love it or hate it, that's here to stay.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Kring: I generally don't disagree with what you're saying, but like others have done you're bringing up a lot of issues that were introduced by WOTLK and then blaming them on Cataclysm. Why do we have multiple types of badges/points? WOTLK. Why do people feel that everyone should be able to raid even though the game was fine for years without this attitude? WOTLK. In BC raiding was comparatively exclusive as well, especially due to the attunements and all that. The only thing that Cataclysm really did different was that it didn't provide enough non-raid content for people to tackle at endgame, and that's one thing I definitely agree is a problem.

    @Redbeard: To be fair I assumed that talents would have been revamped in one way or another, considering that there've been major talent revamps both for WOTLK and for Cataclysm. We did have a raiding retadin back in BC incidentally, and I don't remember him doing particularly badly, but then we weren't exactly the hardest of the hardcore or anything.

    And actually I don't like vehicles much. They are okay for a quest here or a gimmick fight there, but in battlegrounds I don't like them because I'm a healer and they can't be healed, so all I can do in Strand of the Ancients for example is put some piddly dots on them and sigh as the noob dpsers that I'm healing chase random people instead of attacking the sieges...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree. WoW would be in a better state if TBC would have been followed by "another TBC" instead of WotLK. But Cataclysm is not another TBC. Cataclysm is a failure on many level and most of them have anything to do with WotLK or not.

    Just imagine having to farm reputation for the heroic key in only 3 max level instances (only max level instances did reward reputation)!

    And then being forced to farm your badges in only 6 heroic dungeons.

    And 4.1 mad it even worse. Now, to cap your weekly VP without raids, you have to farm TWO HEROIC DUNGEONS, all the older ones don't reward the max amount of VP.

    WotLK was not the first expansion to cut down to only 6 heroics. And WotLK was not the first expansion to replace the existing dungeons with a new tier of heroic dungeons, reducing the "max VP awarding heroics" it to only 2.

    TBC was the expansion where you had 14-15 heroic dungeons from which you could freely select the dungeons you would like to run for your badges which allowed you to buy top level gear. Please, don't compare TBC with Cataclysm... :-(

    ReplyDelete
  5. After BC, I looked at how much raid content I had done - and how much I hadn't - and decided if WotLK wasn't easier, I'd quit then and there. WotLK was much easier, at least most of it, so I subscribed through 96% of it.

    If the expansion after BC had been at the Cata level of end game difficulty, I would have quit. No doubt about it. And I suspect many others would have as well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Kring: I already agreed that Cata launched with too little non-raiding content at max level. (Though it had nine heroics at the start, not six.)

    The whole concept of "capping your weekly VP" only exists because of the tiered point system. Nobody in their right mind used to cap their weekly badges of justice. Though to be honest I still find the idea silly, and anyone who complains about "having" to reach their weekly cap and how much fun they are not having while doing so needs to rethink what they are doing. I still do dungeons only when I feel like doing dungeons...

    Also, WOTLK did introduce tiered heroics, except that people could get dumped into a higher tier even when they didn't want to go there, which resulted in fun times as you watched tank after tank get rotated into your HoR group and then drop instantly. There are pros and cons to both methods in this case.

    Please, don't compare TBC with Cataclysm... :-(
    Why not? I'm not saying it compares favourably, but I can see where the developers tried to go back to some of its concepts.

    @Neowolf: And yet you're implying that you enjoyed yourself during BC and cancelled during WOTLK (unless I read any of that wrong).

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Nobody in their right mind used to cap their weekly badges of justice."
    That's because they used the sensible system of making such an activity insanely demanding, thereby ensuring that only the insane would bother, and no one would ever expect it. I once capped badges for the day (at the time that meant doing every heroic once) and was so burnt out I didn't do any for at least a week. And now there's a post idea...

    ReplyDelete
  8. > The whole concept of "capping your weekly VP" only exists because
    > of the tiered point system.

    I agree but I think it wasn't a "WotLK idea" but was inevitable after TBC because of "hardcore tears".

    > Nobody in their right mind used to cap their weekly badges of justice.

    There was a cap?

    > Though to be honest I still find the idea silly, and anyone who
    > complains about "having" to reach their weekly cap and how much
    > fun they are not having while doing so needs to rethink what
    > they are doing.

    I did and it involved unsubscribing. :)

    > Also, WOTLK did introduce tiered heroics, except that people
    > could get dumped into a higher tier even when they didn't want
    > to go there, which resulted in fun times as you watched tank
    > after tank get rotated into your HoR group and then drop
    > instantly. There are pros and cons to both methods in this case.

    If you look at it this way then the first tiered heroic was Magisters' Terrace from TBC.

    But yes, tiered heroics don't work with random dungeons and the random concept was introduced by wrath.

    I still think the "RANDOM daily" is a really really bad idea and gets way to few hate.



    At least WotLK ended the lose 10 arena per week and BG for superior PvE gear. (There you had to farm Wintergrasp for it...)

    ReplyDelete
  9. @Kring: There was a cap, but it was too high for anyone to care. Run every heroic once per day, run Karazhan and the other raids, run a few dailies. That would give the maximum possible badges. No one did that and no one expected to. Instead it was obvious as a ridiculous goal so people could set their own.

    ReplyDelete
  10. @Neowolf: And yet you're implying that you enjoyed yourself during BC and cancelled during WOTLK (unless I read any of that wrong).

    BC was a learning experience. When it was done I had a better understanding of what I wanted, and didn't want, in a game. Had I had that understanding during BC I would have quit much earlier. This wasn't burnout so much as personal clarification.

    In WotLK, the guild I was in flamed out before clearing ICC. I unsubbed after hearing bad things about what was coming in Cata, but I decided I had to return to experience it to be able to leave without lingering regret. Two months of play more than sufficed.

    ReplyDelete
  11. @Kring: "Now, all those player that didn't raid but played heroics during TBC did get to raid in WotLK, regardless if they wanted to or not. It was easy enough and rewarding enough and there was nothing else to do."

    A ton of those same players in BC raided A LOT. TBC is what made raiding accessible. WotLK just made it easier. The only thing that really held those players back was that KZ was the only 10-man until ZA, and ZA was not aimed at KZ raiders at all when it released. I otherwise agree with you.

    @Neowolf2: "If the expansion after BC had been at the Cata level of end game difficulty, I would have quit. No doubt about it. And I suspect many others would have as well."

    I don't see why this is a problem for anyone. For years, gamers have only stuck with games they like. I'm not sure why there is some expectation that WoW should be different. I think it's ok for players to quit games they don't like. It's actually healthier for the community over the long term.

    @Klepsovac: "That's because they used the sensible system of making such an activity insanely demanding, thereby ensuring that only the insane would bother, and no one would ever expect it. I once capped badges for the day (at the time that meant doing every heroic once) and was so burnt out I didn't do any for at least a week. And now there's a post idea... "

    It wasn't insane. There was no need to cap badges daily, or even weekly for your average player. Unless my memory is failing me, there was no cap in the first place; this was the reason that when badge vendors got gear updates in the Sunwell patch, players were swimming in badges they weren't spending, and the gear cost at least twice as much as the old. Beyond that, there are a plethora of reasons players didn't need to "cap".

    Faction rewards were awesome, crafting sets were incredible, and if you did heroics regularly you had really solid gear for whatever activity you were doing. For raiders, raiding gear only came from the raid dungeons, not from vendors. There just wasn't any need to cap badges. I'll give some minor exception to middle of the road "SSC" guilds who used the vendor badge gear updates to push themselves through TK and into BT.

    As to Cata coming after BC ...it would have been LK, but with a revamped world. It would have introduced all the same things that 3.0 did. 4.0 would have been LK but with all the things Cata brought. While LK was a really strong expansion as far as lore and content, they ultimately changed the game forever with game direction.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Very compelling idea. I personally find myself falling into this line of thinking to a certain extent, even though I raided Vanilla and BC WoW. I miss the LK lockout system for 10s and 25s, but I don't miss the easy mode raiding. I miss having a raid boss feel like an epic encounter; so far none of the T11 bosses quite measure up on "OMG" scale.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Two points:

    1) People like Burning Crusade because it added so much to the game in Vanilla. New features keep things interesting, and Cataclysm hasn't added new features to make solo game play easier, more rewarding, nor more entertaining.

    2) Wrath's difficulty was a direct response to BC's difficulty. It's probably more fair to say that had Cataclysm been released immediately after that people would be complaining as loudly as they do now. People were sick of not progressing then, and they're even more sick of it now. Wrath was merely a respite, not a calamity.

    Subscriptions and activity levels will continue to bear this out.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "So would that have been a better game? In some ways yes, in some ways no."

    I do believe this statement can be applied to all three expansions the game has seen, and I do believe that each and every answer to what was Yes and what was No will vary depending on each person asked.

    I found TBC tedious. Raiding for our guild was like ice skating up hill and I don't think we even glimpsed the end of T5 by the end, and I personally was about to quit until they added solo content in the form of Ogrila, the Skyguard, Netherwing and ultimately Quel'Danas.

    WotLK had tons for me to do solo-wise and I really loved being able the ease to jump into raids. But I think it bred a mindset in people that was problematic for the player base at large.

    Cata's biggest issue is the lack of solo content which has been mentioned here several times. The Molten Front news is what brought me back to the game honestly, because that's what I like to do.

    If we had skipped WotLK and went straight to Cata? I think there would be a lot of lessons that wouldn't have been learned, and I think those who prospered during TBC might have enjoyed it more than those who felt like doing anything was like pushing a piano up the stairs, and I know I'm not alone in that view.

    ReplyDelete
  15. What I find weird about Cata is comparing it not to BC but to Vanilla. Vanilla didn't start out with many level-60 instances, but it did have a more varied grind in those instances- you had reps being gained through more complex means than a tabard, items to collect and turn in for rep or gear, lots of bosses, skippable sections, distinct segments to break up a run, no special items associated with the "end boss", quests, quest drops, crafting mats, even spell/ability tomes! Cata went back to having less variety in its instances, but with Wrath's model of getting rep from kills alone and not having anything really interesting drop- a model that only works with a large number of Heroics providing some variety and a challenge more suited to easy, quick, full-clear (or at least to-end-boss) runs.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Maybe the question is not how the present Cata expansion would received after TBC but how Cata's design would be with more of a TBC feel.

    Would "Bring the player, not the class" be a motto for buffs and nerfs?

    Would there be a concurrent tier composed of 10mans given the reception of Kara and ZA?

    Would professions be a viable for the gear and not stat bonuses? Would gear again be upgradeable?

    Would questing remain a way to get players to explore the world rather than to tell a specific story? Would group quests flourish, remain at similar numbers, or they suffer the same fate they did in Cata?

    Would there be multiple world PvP events for largely inconsequential buffs and gear, but offered interesting stuff (Halaa mounts, lowbie trinkets & blue pvp gear)?

    ReplyDelete