Panda to the audience
Playing a Pandaren monk Windwalker is marvellous. I come over all Bruce Lee, using my body as a weapon in hand-to-hand combat, as well as wielding the usual trusty daggers and staves. Being a hybrid class, I get to heal, tank and DPS making me slightly fluffy – I mean, overpowered. But if I’m honest it wasn’t long till I re-spec'd as a Brewmaster, as I liked the idea of getting drunk and setting stuff on fire with my flamebreath.
Hold shoulder
Talking of fluffiness, there was a time where someone showing up meant tears before bedtime, as they would usually steal my mobs. Perhaps everyone has been playing GW2 as there’s a definite culture shift and it seems everyone is happier to help out and be friendly. Maybe it’s just everyone is so happy to have some new content after an eleven month dry spell.
Dispatching my level 85 Tauren hunter on a boat to Pandaria – with the accompaniment of many an epic cut scene – was thrilling but it was being a able to play a new race that makes this expansion a special experience. I started a Worgen in Cataclysm, but somehow it just wasn't the same. Boat battles aside I also managed to pick a sexy new pet prowler.
Cloud management
It's certainly evident that Blizzard has thought about how people play in different ways and has tried to accommodate that. Side games and a varied questing experience do away with the linear feel of Cataclysm’s questing.
But behind every fluffy black and white fat bum, is a daily grind. The limit of daily quests has been removed and the only restriction is how much time you want to spend alone doing the truffle shuffle.
Auf wiedersehen, pets
I am addicted to turn-based pet battles, which is, yes, I admit it, just like playing Pokémon. And I have to confess that I actively look at the mini map as I fly over new zones for pets I might want to capture and level. Looking out for the elusive 'rares' is now my day job.
Next page: Farmer meth
COMMENTS
I have never played WoW.....
....I played Eve Online for four years though, so can grasp tough concepts, but little of that review made any sense to me as a non-player.
I guess you have to be there.
<raises hand>
Can we expect an 'EverQuest: Veil of Alaris' review?
I demand an answer!
sez Jeanmirac Onxysablet - lvl 78 Drakkin Shadowknight (The Rathe server)
;)
Re: WoW could have been eternal
While I don't agree with everything you've said, the comments about dungeons really does ring true for me. Granted, it was a massive pain in the ass looking for the right class with the right cc for a dungeon and using "Fear" was often an amusing recipe for suicide but because the dungeons were hard, you *had* to talk to the other people in the group and sometimes you'd even make a friend in the process.
I'd like to see dungeons go back to the time time when CC was essential and planning careful pulls was the mark of a good tank. It is really is just "go nuts with you AoE, don't forget the loot on the way out".
I still remember the dungeon runs people did for the Warlock and Paladin epic mounts back in vanilla. They were ball busting challenges and truly deserving of the "Epic" epithet.
Now get the hell off my lawn you goddamn punk kids.
Re: WoW could have been eternal
It's a simple as the fact that years ago I could log on and play an actual game. When doing a quest and approaching a group of mobs I had to think about how to avoid pulling too many, for instance. These days no thought is required - in PvE your toon is an indestructible demigod, which renders the experience pointless. Dungeons also no longer require any thought - all those CC abilities, for example, just sit there redundant now that the bad guys universally drop like flies in seconds.
There's really nothing more to the death of WoW than this. If you can play in a coma, it's not a game any more, and its fate is sealed.
