In a few days - a week, if I'm not mistaken - Mists
of Pandaria, the fourth WoW expansion, is launching. Its self-imposed mission
is reversing the dreary boredom that (most everybody pretty much agrees) drove
away a lot of players in Cataclysm. For that, the standard
leveling->dungeons->raids scheme is being complemented by things like challenge
modes, pet battles, scenarios, dailies and maybe something else I've forgotten.
I still care about WoW more that I should, but the
way I see it, there are two major things right now preventing me from jumping
back in. Unfortunately, neither is being addressed in MoP. If anything, they're
being made worse.
First is the utter joke that leveling has become. I
used to enjoy making a new character, with the prospect of a long journey
ahead. Reaching the end of that journey, max level, was a worthy deed in
itself. Having a full stable of max-level alts wasn't something everyone and
their mommy could accomplish. Personally, I never had more than one active
max-level character before Wrath of the Lich King.
Paradoxically, too, even though you needed a lot
more experience to level up, exploring all the zones thoroughly was significantly
harder. No mounts until 40 and no flying mounts until 70 - or no flying mounts
period, even! Mobs would actually give you a tough time if you pulled too many
or if your gear wasn't up to par. Quests were grindier.
Leveling-up dungeons weren't a joke, and they weren't
meant to be ran over and over again - they felt like an adventure. And even
though they weren't trivial, there was good reason to do them at least once. Getting
a blue item from them was a significant boost to your character power, helping
burn through quests faster. And dungeon quests were a good way to earn precious
XP. There were even some flavor epics to be had in those places... imagine
that.
Thus an alt had more replay value - you could, say,
skip Terokkar if you'd already done it on your main, and instead go to Blade's
Edge Mountains. Or, if you had skipped Maraudon on your first run to 60,
because it was too remote and you'd only ever heard of it in passing, you could
do it the second time.
I really miss this feeling of not being able to see
everything the world has to offer, this perception of depth. It dares the
player to clench his jaw and march through the leveling process again, in order
to make a bigger dent in the game world. Yes, I know, it's a deception... but
what are you doing playing a fantasy game, if you don't like being deceived in
such a way, at least a little?
If they un-nerfed the leveling process, forced me to
take my time making my way through the world, I'd be back in a jiffy. It's
probably what I miss the most. Sadly, the chances of that happening are next to
none.
The second point is dungeon difficulty, and raid
difficulty too, to a lesser extent (though I was never much of a raider). Now
hold your horses, I know Challenge Modes are hard. The problem is... that's
about all they offer.
They're different versions of the same dungeons you
ran before - much like heroic raids. Nothing new story-wise, and even though
I'm no big fan of Metzen's work for the most part, story helps to keep things
in focus.
Another thing that bugs me immensely about them is
that they're competitive and repetitive. Now, racing against the clock is a nice
twist, and even a good-natured loner like me enjoys a bit of friendly
competition. However, sometimes I like to approach dungeons as if they were a puzzle
to be tackled carefully - something whose reward is reaching the end, not
seeing how fast you can get there. Think of Dire Maul, BRS and BRD.
Sadly, dungeons these days are designed specifically
with the goal of being ran over and over again - for the sake of weekly valor
points. That's something I can't abide. In trying to make the whole game more
streamlined and friendly, they've turned dungeons - something I once faced as a
challenge - into a chore.
Storytelling suffers immensely as well: there's no
mob chatter, no NPC dialogue, no intricate quest descriptions, no books lying
around waiting to be read. Just kill this guy. He's bad. The over-the-top,
vainglorious, and unimaginative yelling from bosses is basically what passes
for story these days. "I grow tired of these games! Witness the true power
of Boogiezax, servant of Nasalgtha!"
Moreover, another feature of Challenge Modes that
falls way short of my expectations is the concept of it being gear-neutral, and
rewarding "bragging rights" instead. I've went over this before - the
"special snowflake" thing and all that. My view hasn't changed. Gear
is the one thing that matters in the game, as far as performance is concerned,
and trying to normalize it across the board stinks of socialism, which is to
say, the politics of envy.
Achievements and clothing simply don't do it for me.
I'm not the sort who buys an expensive car so I can park it in the driveway and
make my neighbors green with envy. An expensive car should make other drivers green with envy -
especially the obnoxious ones who think they own the road. Or, in WoW terms,
the mediocre kiddies who think they're the coolest thing ever.
Something tells me that these two things - making
leveling and dungeons meaningful again - are connected. Unfortunately there's
not even a whiff of either of them happening in the foreseeable future. So WoW
is bye-bye for now.
