Where are your glyphs that made us run
To WoW.com for information
Indeed your development days are done
Oh Path of the Titans, I hardly knew ye.
-Inspired by the tradition Irish anti-war song "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye"
With Path of the Titans officially scrapped, I have been thinking about whether something should be implemented to replace it. I was excited for Path of the Titans because it promised to add a new dimension of character progression to the game, one that would make solo-ing at the level cap more interesting. With that gone, it seems that when we reach the level cap, all we'll have to await us is the same old same old of dailies, dailies, dailies. And in case you weren't aware, I am sick and tired of the same old dailies, dailies, dailies. I want something more, and I was hoping that Path of the Titans would be that something more. Now it won't be, but we can still hope that Blizzard will implement something to keep us soloists occupied. (You know, something other than the massive overhaul of the old world. What can I say? I got my druid to the level cap, now I want to do something with him... something other than raiding or PvP.)
But what could that something be? Well, as much as we soloists may want something that will reward us with unique items that raiders won't be able to get without spending twice as much time on the game (such as the ancient glyphs that Path of the Titans would have provided), that would be unfair to WoW's raiding community, for they would need to spend an ungodly amount of time on the game to stay as competitive as possible. Since Blizzard is making 10-man and 25-man raids share a lockout in Cataclysm to prevent raiders from needing to spend an ungodly amount of time on the game to stay competitive, we can bet they wouldn't want raiders to need to spend twice as much time on two parts of the game just to stay competitive. While Blizzard could always implement some mechanic to allow raiders to progress along this solo progression as they raid, preventing them from needing to spend extra time to stay competitive, this would rob the solo community of the sense that their progression is special to them, and it would almost invalidate any efforts they make towards that progression; after all, why spend time doing the solo ventures if raiding gets you good gear and helps you progress along those solo ventures just as quickly?
So we are left with the conclusion that whatever solo venture Blizzard could put in to replace Path of the Titans, it would need to reward similar rewards to raiding. This kind of precedent already exists in game in the fact that both PvP and raiding award gear, but the stats on that gear make it specifically geared for the content that rewards it, so it never feels like you need to engage in one to be competitive at the other (at least, these days I doesn't feel that way). Perhaps if Blizzard added a solo venture to replace Path of the Titans, it could also reward gear, but the gear rewarded would have stats on it (and set bonuses?) geared specifically for solo-ing. At this point, you may be asking why we should even have solo content that rewards gear the same way raiding rewards gear, but as I have already said, since Blizzard draws us in with WoW's solo content and some of us are quite content with that solo content, they do owe it to us to keep us as occupied as they do raiders and PvP'ers.
But how to reward that gear? Why not have it start with something that everyone will be going for: faction reputation. I assume that Cataclysm's endgame content will still have factions who reward raid-worthy gear at exalted, so perhaps the path to the end-game solo content could start there. Perhaps the factions could give people who reach exalted with them special quests that they can only trust to their "closest allies", such as infiltration missions or quests to search for some secret artifact. Though those quests would take a long time, they would reward better gear than most solo ventures. They could also be a good way to add a bit more lore to the game.
Of course, all things being fair, the gear these solo ventures initially reward would have to be worse than the gear dropped by heroics, so that people who like heroics wouldn't feel pressured to pursue these solo ventures. To borrow numbers from this current expansion, perhaps these solo ventures could reward rare-quality ilevel 200 gear, which would still not be as good as the epics one can gain from heroics, but better than the items gained from normal 5-man dungeons (which are like an extension of the solo content, anyways). As new 5-man dungeons are released, the solo ventures could be updated as well to reward items better than the normal mode loot of the new dungeons, but not as good as the heroic mode loot. That would mean, if this kind of system were implemented with Wrath of the Lich King, once Trial of the Champion was released (200 on normal, 219 on heroic), new quests would be added that would reward 213 epics. When The Frozen Halls was released (219 on normal, 232 on heroic), new quests would be added that would reward 226 epics.
But how exactly would these quests play out? I envision something like the Swift Flight Form questline, minus needing to run a dungeon to finish it. I envision questlines that would take you all over the world to perform a wide variety of tasks. They could begin with simple killing, collecting, and exploration quests, and end with quests that involve vehicles, flying mounts, and perhaps even phased quests where you and you alone go through some sort of gauntlet assisted by members of the associated faction. Or perhaps a quest like The Drakkensryd, which, to this day, is one of my favorite quests that I have ever done. Hell, I wouldn't mind if these questlines required temporary dailies (like the ones that award Aspirant's Seals), as long as there is a good in-quest reason for them.
There are some of my ideas. I know we'll probably never see anything like this in-game, but it's always nice to dream.
Showing posts with label Path of the Titans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Path of the Titans. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Why have solo content in a Massively Multiplayer Online Game?
Whenever I talk about solo content in WoW, if I ever lament the sad state of it these days (whether it be on this blog, in the comments section of WoW.com, or anywhere else), I frequently get reactions that sound something like this: "WoW is a massively multiplayer online RPG. Why worry about the solo content?" I think we can all agree that WoW needs some solo content. The question is, how extensive should that solo content be? Should we expect Blizzard to deliver engaging solo content to us players on a regular basis, or should we greet extensive solo content with a surprised, "Solo content? In my MMO?"
Picture is unrelated.
It's pretty obvious why an MMO needs any solo content at all: when players are just starting out, it's a pretty big challenge for them to try to get a hold of all the new game mechanics that WoW throws at them; needing to learn group mechanics would make it even more difficult. Solo content allows people to become familiar with the game and get a feeling for the way their class plays. It allows them to push their class to its limits without the risk of letting other people down if the fail. Solo content is, if nothing else, a training ground for new players to get them comfortable with the game before they enter group play. There is a risk in that set-up, though. Blizzard could, if they so desired, make sub-par solo content to try to motivate people to move into group play, but if they did that, no one would stick around to see the group content, no matter how awesome it may be. Blizzard needs to make WoW's solo content fun and engaging to draw players in, so they do. This is where the trouble starts.
Though WoW may be a MMO, it is really the solo content that gets people hooked. However, people respond differently to the solo content: some say, "If playing alone is this fun, I bet playing with other people must be even more fun!" These people end up being raiders. Some say, "If the game is this fun fighting computer-controlled enemies, fighting other players must be even more fun!" These people end up fighting in battlegrounds or competing in the arena. Then you have the players like me. Players like me go into raids and say, "Ack, this is too much of a time commitment/too much pressure/etc." Players like me go into battlegrounds and say, "Ack, this is too much of a variable experience, and I play this game to relax. " Or maybe we just don't PvP as a matter of principle. Either way, we don't enjoy the group content that WoW seems to be geared towards getting us to play, so we are quite content with playing the part of the game we enjoy, the part that drew us in in the first place: the solo content.
This leaves Blizzard in a tight spot. They designed WoW to be, at its core, a group game. Ghostcrawler has even said explicitly that their goal is to get PvE'ers into raids. The solo content was meant to draw us in so we could move on to bigger and supposedly better things; to paraphrase one of my commenters, "If I want to play a solo-RPG, I'll play Dragon Age or Mass Effect." However, if the poll on the side of my blog is anything to go on, a fair amount of us prefer to stick with the solo content, in spite of the greater challenges to be had by grouping up.
It seems Blizzard doesn't mind that fact, though, or if they do, they have at least resigned themselves to designing solo content in spite of their larger goals for WoW players. Why else would they release solo content with each expansions pack and with many of the patches? In spite of Ghostcrawler's statement, it seems Blizzard has made it their goal to satisfy all WoW player, including those of us who are quite happy to chuckle at Ghostcrawler's sentiment and keep on solo-ing.
Why is he smiling? That can't be a good sign.
That could, however, all be an illusion. As I said in my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content, solo content in Wrath of the Lich King has been streamlined to make it more straightforward and make the road from solo-ing to heroics to raiding a smoother one, and the road is only going to become smoother. One of the major promises of Cataclysm is that the old world will be made over to make leveling from 1 to 60 more fun and more like leveling through Outland or Northrend, i.e., smoother. After all, one of the biggest obstacles to getting to level 80 is vanilla Azeroth, which wasn't designed for fast leveling, but that's going to change. Come Cataclysm, the road to the level cap will have even fewer roadblocks than it does now, and the road to raiding will be similarly affected, assuming Blizzard sticks with their current design for solo content. What am I trying to get at here? It seems to me that Blizzard is designing their solo content to make it easier for people to get into heroics and raids, rather than as its own stand-alone content. Solo content in WoW is merely a stepping stone to bigger things, and they are making those steps even smaller.
I know that's a tough contention to prove. After all, why would Blizzard add two extra zones (Icecrown and Storm Peaks) of quests to do after hitting level 80 if they wanted to get us into raids as soon as possible? Well, those quests certainly provided a large chunk of cash, cash we needed to get some basic gear upgrades before starting heroics. (Hell, if you put in enough gold and effort, you could get your gear to the point where it was good enough for starting Naxx-10 without ever entering a heroic; I did. It wasn't advisable, but it was possible.) They also provided the back-story and starting points to the plots of the various heroics and raids those zones contained or would eventually contain, plots we could only see the conclusions of by running those heroics and raids. I think you get what I'm trying to say.
Now, I'm not saying that this design is a bad thing. There are plenty of people who just want to get into the group play, but without solo content, those heroics and raids would have no back story, and there would be no motivation to run them. Solo content also allows those who didn't get good gear in the last expansion to get on even ground with those who did, which prevents people from being locked out of raiding because they arrived at the party late (metaphorically speaking). Solo content is a good thing, even for people who prefer group content. The question is, how far should this smoothing of the path from solo-ing to heroics and raids go? When solo content is designed for the people who hope to surpass it, those who are quite content to stay within it are left behind.
I think Blizzard owes it to us soloists to not leave us out in the dust with their solo content. They drew us in with the solo content, and though they might want us to move on to bigger and supposedly better things, we would rather not. We like where we are, and that isn't going to change any time soon without a big change to the way raiding or PvP works. Now, granted, solo content shouldn't hinder people who want to go right into raiding or PvP, so where can a happy medium be found? Long-term goals. Burning Crusade had reputations like the Consortium and Sporeggar that gave solo-ists something they could work for that couldn't be steam-roled by grouping. The closest thing we have to them in Wrath of the Lich King is the Kalu'ak, and I hit exalted with them a week after hitting 80. What we need is more solo content that takes a large commitment of time to complete and provides appropriate rewards for that commitment. Supposedly, the Path of the Titans will be along the lines of what I am thinking of; let's hope Blizzard does it well.
Picture is unrelated.It's pretty obvious why an MMO needs any solo content at all: when players are just starting out, it's a pretty big challenge for them to try to get a hold of all the new game mechanics that WoW throws at them; needing to learn group mechanics would make it even more difficult. Solo content allows people to become familiar with the game and get a feeling for the way their class plays. It allows them to push their class to its limits without the risk of letting other people down if the fail. Solo content is, if nothing else, a training ground for new players to get them comfortable with the game before they enter group play. There is a risk in that set-up, though. Blizzard could, if they so desired, make sub-par solo content to try to motivate people to move into group play, but if they did that, no one would stick around to see the group content, no matter how awesome it may be. Blizzard needs to make WoW's solo content fun and engaging to draw players in, so they do. This is where the trouble starts.
Though WoW may be a MMO, it is really the solo content that gets people hooked. However, people respond differently to the solo content: some say, "If playing alone is this fun, I bet playing with other people must be even more fun!" These people end up being raiders. Some say, "If the game is this fun fighting computer-controlled enemies, fighting other players must be even more fun!" These people end up fighting in battlegrounds or competing in the arena. Then you have the players like me. Players like me go into raids and say, "Ack, this is too much of a time commitment/too much pressure/etc." Players like me go into battlegrounds and say, "Ack, this is too much of a variable experience, and I play this game to relax. " Or maybe we just don't PvP as a matter of principle. Either way, we don't enjoy the group content that WoW seems to be geared towards getting us to play, so we are quite content with playing the part of the game we enjoy, the part that drew us in in the first place: the solo content.
This leaves Blizzard in a tight spot. They designed WoW to be, at its core, a group game. Ghostcrawler has even said explicitly that their goal is to get PvE'ers into raids. The solo content was meant to draw us in so we could move on to bigger and supposedly better things; to paraphrase one of my commenters, "If I want to play a solo-RPG, I'll play Dragon Age or Mass Effect." However, if the poll on the side of my blog is anything to go on, a fair amount of us prefer to stick with the solo content, in spite of the greater challenges to be had by grouping up.
It seems Blizzard doesn't mind that fact, though, or if they do, they have at least resigned themselves to designing solo content in spite of their larger goals for WoW players. Why else would they release solo content with each expansions pack and with many of the patches? In spite of Ghostcrawler's statement, it seems Blizzard has made it their goal to satisfy all WoW player, including those of us who are quite happy to chuckle at Ghostcrawler's sentiment and keep on solo-ing.
Why is he smiling? That can't be a good sign.That could, however, all be an illusion. As I said in my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content, solo content in Wrath of the Lich King has been streamlined to make it more straightforward and make the road from solo-ing to heroics to raiding a smoother one, and the road is only going to become smoother. One of the major promises of Cataclysm is that the old world will be made over to make leveling from 1 to 60 more fun and more like leveling through Outland or Northrend, i.e., smoother. After all, one of the biggest obstacles to getting to level 80 is vanilla Azeroth, which wasn't designed for fast leveling, but that's going to change. Come Cataclysm, the road to the level cap will have even fewer roadblocks than it does now, and the road to raiding will be similarly affected, assuming Blizzard sticks with their current design for solo content. What am I trying to get at here? It seems to me that Blizzard is designing their solo content to make it easier for people to get into heroics and raids, rather than as its own stand-alone content. Solo content in WoW is merely a stepping stone to bigger things, and they are making those steps even smaller.
I know that's a tough contention to prove. After all, why would Blizzard add two extra zones (Icecrown and Storm Peaks) of quests to do after hitting level 80 if they wanted to get us into raids as soon as possible? Well, those quests certainly provided a large chunk of cash, cash we needed to get some basic gear upgrades before starting heroics. (Hell, if you put in enough gold and effort, you could get your gear to the point where it was good enough for starting Naxx-10 without ever entering a heroic; I did. It wasn't advisable, but it was possible.) They also provided the back-story and starting points to the plots of the various heroics and raids those zones contained or would eventually contain, plots we could only see the conclusions of by running those heroics and raids. I think you get what I'm trying to say.
Now, I'm not saying that this design is a bad thing. There are plenty of people who just want to get into the group play, but without solo content, those heroics and raids would have no back story, and there would be no motivation to run them. Solo content also allows those who didn't get good gear in the last expansion to get on even ground with those who did, which prevents people from being locked out of raiding because they arrived at the party late (metaphorically speaking). Solo content is a good thing, even for people who prefer group content. The question is, how far should this smoothing of the path from solo-ing to heroics and raids go? When solo content is designed for the people who hope to surpass it, those who are quite content to stay within it are left behind.
I think Blizzard owes it to us soloists to not leave us out in the dust with their solo content. They drew us in with the solo content, and though they might want us to move on to bigger and supposedly better things, we would rather not. We like where we are, and that isn't going to change any time soon without a big change to the way raiding or PvP works. Now, granted, solo content shouldn't hinder people who want to go right into raiding or PvP, so where can a happy medium be found? Long-term goals. Burning Crusade had reputations like the Consortium and Sporeggar that gave solo-ists something they could work for that couldn't be steam-roled by grouping. The closest thing we have to them in Wrath of the Lich King is the Kalu'ak, and I hit exalted with them a week after hitting 80. What we need is more solo content that takes a large commitment of time to complete and provides appropriate rewards for that commitment. Supposedly, the Path of the Titans will be along the lines of what I am thinking of; let's hope Blizzard does it well.
Friday, November 6, 2009
New professions as the embodiments of each expansion pack
One thing I have noticed about both Jewelcrafting and Inscription is that they both embodied significant aspects of their respective expansion pack. I will go over each one in time, but this got me thinking: if this is true of the previous professions, then what can we gleam about Cataclysm from the new profession that is slated to be included, Archaeology? Let's find out.
Burning Crusade was a partial deviation from many of the ways Blizzard did things. Factions were emphasized much more, and Jewelcrafting reflected this by having many of its patterns for gem cuts (of which there were many) come from reputations. Burning Crusade also brought the advent of heroics, many of which dropped Jewelcrafting plans, encouraging jewelcrafters to run them. BC also had something for both new players and players at the level cap (with the inclusion of two new races and the new continent, respectively), but it was mostly focused on the level cap. This was reflected in jewelcrafting, which finally allowed for the creation of useful BoE jewelry for people who were still leveling up, but mostly found its niche in the the creation of gems to put in high-level players' gear. Because of all of these facets (pun not intended) of Jewelcrafting, Jewelcrafting reflected the spirit of BC: varied and with something for everyone.
Inscription, of the other hand, really reflected Blizzard's push for homogenization in Wrath of the Lich King (see my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content if you haven't already). Blizzard pushed for a more straight forward way of players acquiring their recipes for professions, which Inscription definitely reflects, for all of Inscription's recipes are gained from either trainers or discovery, with the one exception of Technique: Rituals of the New Moon (seriously, that is the only exception). Wrath also made it much easier to level up professions, as anyone who leveled a profession to Grand Master level can attest. Inscription followed this pattern, with all herbs the scribe found being turned into ink, meaning that it didn't matter what herbs you found; as long as they were the right level, you would get the ink you needed to level the profession. Inscription also focused mostly on high-end content, since that is when the profession is at its most useful (with the third major glyph slot being unlocked at 80) and glyphs were really expensive when the profession was first implemented, so they couldn't be accessed by low level players. Thus the products in inscription were only available to those close to the level cap, like all of the new content in Wrath. Of course, glyphs have since come down to a reasonable price now that everyone has glyphs and the demand has shrunk.
So, what can we infer about Cataclysm by looking at Archeology? Let's take a look, going point by point on all of the information WoWWiki has on the new secondary skill.
-It will be a secondary profession.
This means it will be available to everyone. Considering that Cataclysm will change Azeroth to make leveling easier and also include new end-game content, it really will be an expansion for everyone, so this fits.
-Focused on locating artifacts unearthed by the cataclysm.
So the cataclysm itself will be an important part of the expansion pack. No surprises there. Perhaps Cataclysm will also result in us finding out something about Warcraft's past that we had no idea of before.
-Artifacts will go into a new artifact journal instead of your inventory.
Blizzard has put more emphasis on clearing bag space by making more things not take up space in bags (pets, mounts, emblems, non-monetary currency, etc.), so this is no surprise either. Perhaps Cataclysm will result in even more things going somewhere aside from our bags. Tabards, please?
-Placing an artifact in your journal will allow you to "study" it and progressively unlock new rewards.
Perhaps this points to a larger theme of going back to the same place multiple times. Obviously we will be doing that by going back to Azeroth, but perhaps Blizzard will also have us running dungeons multiple times in order to advance the dungeon's story, getting better rewards each time.
-Unlocks unique rewards such as vanity pets.
If Archaeology will not be just about the epic loot and the "useful" rewards, perhaps Cataclysm will be the same way. As a pet collector and a casual player, this pleases me.
-Unlocks paths in the Paths of the Titans system. This will give players a tool to change their characters even more than regular talents.
Path of the Titans, as far as I know, is slated to be a way for player to improve their character at the level cap without raiding or PvP'ing. It's basically end-game for solo-ers. We know that Azeroth's make-over will certainly be something for the solo-ers, but perhaps Cataclysm's end-game will also be more geared towards solo-ers.
If these predictions are accurate, they certainly make me excited for Cataclysm. Let's hope they are.
Burning Crusade was a partial deviation from many of the ways Blizzard did things. Factions were emphasized much more, and Jewelcrafting reflected this by having many of its patterns for gem cuts (of which there were many) come from reputations. Burning Crusade also brought the advent of heroics, many of which dropped Jewelcrafting plans, encouraging jewelcrafters to run them. BC also had something for both new players and players at the level cap (with the inclusion of two new races and the new continent, respectively), but it was mostly focused on the level cap. This was reflected in jewelcrafting, which finally allowed for the creation of useful BoE jewelry for people who were still leveling up, but mostly found its niche in the the creation of gems to put in high-level players' gear. Because of all of these facets (pun not intended) of Jewelcrafting, Jewelcrafting reflected the spirit of BC: varied and with something for everyone.
Inscription, of the other hand, really reflected Blizzard's push for homogenization in Wrath of the Lich King (see my post on the homogenization of Wrath of the Lich King solo content if you haven't already). Blizzard pushed for a more straight forward way of players acquiring their recipes for professions, which Inscription definitely reflects, for all of Inscription's recipes are gained from either trainers or discovery, with the one exception of Technique: Rituals of the New Moon (seriously, that is the only exception). Wrath also made it much easier to level up professions, as anyone who leveled a profession to Grand Master level can attest. Inscription followed this pattern, with all herbs the scribe found being turned into ink, meaning that it didn't matter what herbs you found; as long as they were the right level, you would get the ink you needed to level the profession. Inscription also focused mostly on high-end content, since that is when the profession is at its most useful (with the third major glyph slot being unlocked at 80) and glyphs were really expensive when the profession was first implemented, so they couldn't be accessed by low level players. Thus the products in inscription were only available to those close to the level cap, like all of the new content in Wrath. Of course, glyphs have since come down to a reasonable price now that everyone has glyphs and the demand has shrunk.
So, what can we infer about Cataclysm by looking at Archeology? Let's take a look, going point by point on all of the information WoWWiki has on the new secondary skill.
-It will be a secondary profession.
This means it will be available to everyone. Considering that Cataclysm will change Azeroth to make leveling easier and also include new end-game content, it really will be an expansion for everyone, so this fits.
-Focused on locating artifacts unearthed by the cataclysm.
So the cataclysm itself will be an important part of the expansion pack. No surprises there. Perhaps Cataclysm will also result in us finding out something about Warcraft's past that we had no idea of before.
-Artifacts will go into a new artifact journal instead of your inventory.
Blizzard has put more emphasis on clearing bag space by making more things not take up space in bags (pets, mounts, emblems, non-monetary currency, etc.), so this is no surprise either. Perhaps Cataclysm will result in even more things going somewhere aside from our bags. Tabards, please?
-Placing an artifact in your journal will allow you to "study" it and progressively unlock new rewards.
Perhaps this points to a larger theme of going back to the same place multiple times. Obviously we will be doing that by going back to Azeroth, but perhaps Blizzard will also have us running dungeons multiple times in order to advance the dungeon's story, getting better rewards each time.
-Unlocks unique rewards such as vanity pets.
If Archaeology will not be just about the epic loot and the "useful" rewards, perhaps Cataclysm will be the same way. As a pet collector and a casual player, this pleases me.
-Unlocks paths in the Paths of the Titans system. This will give players a tool to change their characters even more than regular talents.
Path of the Titans, as far as I know, is slated to be a way for player to improve their character at the level cap without raiding or PvP'ing. It's basically end-game for solo-ers. We know that Azeroth's make-over will certainly be something for the solo-ers, but perhaps Cataclysm's end-game will also be more geared towards solo-ers.
If these predictions are accurate, they certainly make me excited for Cataclysm. Let's hope they are.
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