I don't currently play any MMORPGs but that rant you linked to was a fascinating read.

Also, do you have any specific gripes? I don't want to get too technical, as I said I don't even play the game, but a few examples of how Blizzard has kneejerked and nerfed things to the detriment of the game would help me see where you're coming from. Though maybe asking for details is just inviting a horrible drawn out MMO argument.

I do, and I had them in the rant originally, but it ran to close to 3 pages, so I cut most of it out. Here are my pet peeves with the game at the moment.

Customer Service and swaggering GMs:
In-game customer service is so bad that filing a report is almost pointless. GMs who don't have time to respond to bug reports and problems seem to have an endless amount of time for changing the names of characters. I will grant you that in any fantasy game you're going to get some names that are, for lack of a better term, perfectly cromulent words, but banning names because they are "gibberish", and then reassigning a gibberish name is just silly. Also, banning names like Bob, Dave, Betti, because "it breaks the suspension of disbelief", but names like "Azzclown", "fuku" and "labialacer" are allowed to run free and unmolested is just absurd. The mistake Betti made? Filing a bug report. Silly kid. Of course, now she is known as Aisklmph, so that's nice. (In a touch of irony, names here have been changed, except the disgusting ones - those actually exist.)

Fishing: People who ignored the game's terms of agreement created bots that allowed characters to fish on autopilot until their bags were full, then sell the fish. Many would sell the proceeds on eBay in a "real money for imaginary game money" business model. Rather than doing the hard work of finding a real solution that punished the botters but left the game mechanics intact, they destroyed fishing for every other character in the game. The impact on botters? Zero. They're still out there. Because they aren't "real" players, it doesn't matter to them if a stack sells for 1 silver or 10 silver, it's just a bot that can keep fishing until the seas are empty. It hasn't slowed the sale of eBay gold down even a tiny bit.

Farmers: There are organized companies that exist purely to farm items and eBay them or the subsequent gold. There have been a series of nerfs, both content and class that were theoretically aimed at stopping these farmers. Impact on farmers: none. Impact on honest and casual players: painful.

Stealth Nerfs: Nothing pisses off gamers more than when companies try to slip a nerf past them. Blizzard has been particularly egregious about this, often not mentioning changes until many, many, many people have annotated and complained about it. Even then, sparse information is posted on the official forums, but rarely anywhere that a casual gamer would see it, such as in game. Interestingly, the European versions will often be annotated, but somehow the American information keeps getting lost before it gets an official note or patch release.

Servers: What can you say about something this bad? Tycho, over at Penny Arcade, wrote a great rant about servers, uptimes, and other annoying network issues, so I'll refer you to him, if I may.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2005-01-17

I'm still not understanding what the impact to players is here. Exactly how was fishing destroyed? What's now painful about farming?

Admittedly, I don't spend time in-game doing either of these things since I find them to be tedious and boring, which may very well be the answer to my question, but I'd like to know exactly what was changed in the way those processes worked or were originally supposed to work.

Edit: I apparently can't spell today

Wow, almost ten years later and I still hear about Tenarius. That's my (when I say my I mean I played it as a player all the way up to being 1 of 3 implementors) MUD he's referring to, Dragon Swords Mud. There's so much under the surface going on in that rant, but it's not worth getting into. He doesn make some good points about nerfing and implementor/player interaction.

Anyways, I agree with ya Ducki. I think WoW has some issues it needs to work out and soon, because it's loosing some of its luster. I hate stealth nerfs and they always leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Make nerfs, but never stealth them. Hell, make them and post afterwards, but don't let the community continually call you out on them before you admit to them. The queues, lag and disconnects are frustrating, as well. I hope they work it out and we can all return to thinking happy thoughts about WoW. Instead of arguing/debating the things that have gone wrong.

Well, the fishing nerf broke a lot of things. For instance, since the selling price of all fish was dropped to a copper or two per fish, but the cost of recipes to cook said fish still remain at 1-2 gold pieces. The cost to raise fishing to 225 is expensive and now impossible to regain. If they had also dropped the cost of the recipes, (or refunded me the cost of the high level recipes) and the skill raises to the same level as the nerfed fish price, it wouldn't piss me off as much that I've spent more gold than I can possibly recover.

I can't speak to Doan farming as I'm not high enough level to go there. But, I can tell you that I've had multiple occassions where I needed to do a quest and get a mob, and there will be a 60th lvl character farming the area, and when I ask to be able to get the mob, the response is "YOU GO! ME WORK!". If I don't leave the area, dozens of his guildmates will show up and make it impossible to get not only the mob you want, but any mob within about 2 minutes of that mob. I've had it happen in RR and the wetlands...both of which are way too low for 60th lvl characters to be doing anything but farming.

Will the game do anything about those people? Nope. Will they instead drop the selling price of all the items, making it that much harder on casual players to train, get equipment and later buy mounts? You betcha.

If I'm getting frustrated...and I have the most kick-ass guild on the server, how do you think real casual gamers feel? I'm talking about the people who by lvl 15-20 still don't have the cash to buy 10 slot bags, who are still wearing equipment from the starter zone, and who have experienced nothing but pickup groups...which we all know tend towards disaster.

I think both of those are pretty good examples. I think it's important to remember here that I'm not impugning yours or anyone else's experience with the game. I'm not trying to start a flame war, nor am I saying that Blizzard is the antichrist.

I love the game...but I love it primarily because I play with GWJ folks. I've given up playing on the other servers, because for my playing style, it's impossible to do much of anything without a good guild. Again, that's for *my playing style*. Despite the fact that I've been gaming since the pen and paper days, and I've played most non-shooters that have crossed the digital path, I'm still very much a casual gamer. An experienced one, I'll grant you...but still a casual gamer.

I loved being able to just sit somewhere and fish while I chatted with people and the boy napped. That way when he woke up, I could just log off and not be in the middle of a fight, or a quest, or anything else important. And the way the game was in beta all the way until the stealth nerfs, you were never going to get rich fishing, but you were going to raise cooking skills and make enough silver that it wasn't a complete waste of time. Not any more. Their response was actually a boon to the bots because they lowered the chance of pulling anything other than fish by 70%...botters love not having things clutter up inventory space.

When they nerfed fishing, they should have provided an option where you could sell the skill back, and sell the recipes back for what you paid. But I tell ya, at lvl 30, I have less than 6 gold...so the 3 or 4 that I've spent on fishing and recipes would be a welcome return now that the skill is useless.

I am saying that they didn't test the changes they made, those changes broke other things, and they've stated that they know the other things are broken, but they don't plan on changing it.

I'm saying that it seems that dev decisions are being made by MBAs based on the perceived "economy" of WoW, rather than the player's ability to enjoy the game.

I'm asking for testing. I'm asking for them to quit screwing up the live servers. I'm asking them to ban the crap out of organized farmers and bots. I'm asking for server stability, no loot lag, functional zones and quests. Pretty much, I'm asking for the stuff that was printed on the box when I bought it.

Well, I'm still averaging about 6 hours per day on the game, but the points are valid. I still enjoy the hell out of it...but there are two reasons mainly for that - Blizzard has created the most varied and stunningly beautiful game I've ever seen (riding a griffon, the huge fort we hit, riding the tip, etc) - and the GWJ folks. I'll tell you that I would have quit the game long ago if not for the guild. Your points ring even more true for those with a so-so guild or no guild at all. The generosity of the Lafretes, Snood, Peecaboo's, Storms and SOOOO many more makes this game even better. Up until yesterday, I offered everything I was going to sell up to the guild (ok...last night, I'm 40 and in withdrawal from 'mount envy' - so 10 more gold and I have that bad boy! - so expect to be back in the giving mood tomorrow That alone makes the game a winner...and that credit goes to the GWJ group!

Someone come play Jump to Lightspeed with me .

Gotta agree with Dhruin. I'm at 12 (nearly 13), just moved into the Barrens, spent all my money upgrading my armor. Still getting killed at least 5-6 times a session. Just picked up a veritable assload of quests. I usually only get in groups if I see someone needing help and ask if they want it (though that may account for my death rate). Probably won't touch it again until Monday, so I guess I could be counted as a casual player. Couldn't be happier.

Except when I walk into the Valley of Strength in Orgimmar. Then I want to just pull out my hair in frustration. Especially while walking by the AH and the Bank.

...why for the "Dwarven Fishing Pole", of course!

I just got one while completing the Murloc Fin quest in Redridge; what a hoot! I laughed out loud.

There are lots of little touches like that which can make my day....

If she is a whiner, the you may be on the opposite end of the spectrum.

In no way is she totally bashing the game, saying it sucks, posting on the boards how this game sucks in 50 posts.

She is stating problems that ARE there and have been expressed by numerous people, even on this board. You, on the other hand, say there are no problems and make it sound like she is crazy for even mentioning her problems with the game.

I guess what irritates me is that people bash other games, yet when their game has the same problem or worse, it's a non-issue.

I respect your opinion GG, but I think you are looking at the issue with blinders on.

*FYI, for karma's sake, this type of posting will carry on to this weekend's playoff game.

Why not? A small shovel is a small shovel. And a fanboi is a fanboi.

GG, think before you post man. Slavering over the CoolProductoftheWeek is alright, digging on people who aren't in line behind you isn't.

Bottom line... the post/article reeks of flame bait..

Most places this would be considered trolling..

Perhaps I'm simply confused but based on the wording of the article you'd expect the game to be a broken mess..

Man I remember how filled the general chat was in EQ when the game was in the first 1-2 months of people complaining..it was non stop..

I never see or hear that in WoW...

So it seems people are to busy actually playing and not noticing these "game mechanics getting beat within an inch of their lives"

Please spare me the melodrama...

I understand the appeal of bashing who ever is on top.. I just thought we were above that here... or at least we used to be.

Guru, I may have been out of line in my choice of words or phrases, and if that is the case I apologize.

Similarly, I hope that you can recognize how you have contributed to the negative tone of this discussion, and why your behavior may not have been appropriate.

That said, I no longer feel confident that I can continue this discussion in way that is constructive and within the constraints of the CoC. For that reason, I am going to walk away from this thread now and hope that the next time we meet on these forums the conversation will be more civil.

I think the same thing also applies for Horde vs. Alliance. As a Horde player on Blackhand (a high pop. server), Orgimmar has been the biggest problem area up to this point. But now that I'm moving into areas frequented by both factions, I'm seeing more of the server performance issues that DD and others have mentioned, so I can see where Alliance out numbers Horde by 3 to 1, that Alliance players may be the ones experiencing most of the persistent, fun-killing performance issues, earlier in the game and getting worse as time goes by.

Now I can completely understand your point of view GG. I am not playing the game right now so I can't really come to a decision myself, but I just wanted to say that I found your last post informative and a very strong argument to the opposite of what DuckiDeva was saying. Thanks.

Another bit of info I find compelling for your argument is that Blizzard has stopped shipping more copies of WoW until they fix their infrastructure problems. What other company in recent memory refused perfectly willing, or even rabid customers who are willing to pay simply to improve the experience of the current players.

I was just thinking how for people not playing WoW, Blizzard has put us in the fortunate position of having to wait until the game works well again before we can give up any hard earned cash. How I wish other developers and publishers would do that for us.