The Snuggelbunny's Potty schedule - All of January and February

[Lyntha]

To all:

I've known for a few weeks that January and part of February are going to be very spotty for me attendance-wise due to my work schedule. The after-hours stuff is largely going to be available to be worked around my personal preference but I nonetheless won't be able to consistenlty raid 3 nights a week like normal.

As such, I am looking for a tank to permanently replace me but we can be picky in the meantime. I will be seeing when Fdragon can make it... If he can't make it, I can almost guarantee that I will be there (Until we can find a new tank). Same thing if Foto is missing. For now, we will basically have 3 tanks.

Since I typically do a majority of the active raid-leading and calling things out, I'm going to start dialing things down so that the other officers can take over, but I will still do my best when I can there (As long as I'm not in the other officers' way).

Will this lead to me permanently quitting??? Not sure yet. In addition to some upcoming work stuff, I also am going to start actually trying to date people and hang out with my real-life friends a bit more. I'll keep you guys in the loop! For now, just don't expect me to be there all the time.

[Varibash]

right... you'll be "busy" with your new work promotion.... aka this is how you start your withdraw from WoW and movement to SWTOR

[Lyntha]

SWTOR is fun in its own ways but it feels more like a single-player game to me. The overall class dynamics and priorities of its classes just don't seem as fun. I'm not sure if that's because the UI is shit and doesnt do good enough of a job, or if WoW has just perfected how to make a priority system fun.

TL;DR: Not leaving to play SWTOR. Nice try.

Edit: I played exactly 0 hours of SWTOR yesterday and almost none the day before and instead elected to clean the hell out of my house. The desire to play is there but not as much as a game I'm addicted madly to.

[Viledead]

Swtor doesn't yet have that community feel that keeps dragging people back to WoW. Especially with no server forums. They need to do more to get there - but I think they know this. Lvl 1-50 is about 200 hours without xp cheats (like the warzone ones from before)....so there really is enough content to keep hardcores engaged for a month, and casuals for 3-6 months. They are already releasing new content this month. I think the biggest drawback is that the UI is not customizable - it's amazing for many people just how important recount is. Hell at least we KNOW heldarram is afk on trash! I also think SWTOR will need to find a way to gain the "professional gamers" interest - esports is growing and they shouldn't miss it. (ie competitive raiding, competitive pvp).

I also think the "old school WoW" talent trees are a mistake.

However, what swtor really does show me at least with their fairly aggressive content schedule with much less cash overall than blizzard is that WoW is completely being milked, and we're kind of all suckers. I know bash will say "yeah duh" - but hell even he's back casual after saying he'll never play again.

The problem is that Dragon Soul suffers from the TOC problem - same bosses over and over on different difficulties. On different alts. Eyes Bleed.

But snuggle - RL is important and can't get forgotten! Not only that, it really should be the priority.

[Lyntha]

SWTOR is a great game, don't get me wrong, it's just way different. As you said, it doesn't feel like something competitive and fun at the same time. That said, it REALLY nails immersing me in the story as an insanely badass sith Warrior who is basically wrath incarnate. I'll play it when I'm bored of WoW but I don't see it replacing WoW.

Yes, Blizzard is really milking us. One of the biggest reasons I will stop playing WoW is because releasing two raids with 7/8 bosses in a row was an absolute slap in the face. Content is good, and having both LFR and Normals are great, but I don't think blizzard realizes that we want content that is challenging for our level of gameplay without being too harsh. I think that other than Hagara and Blackhorn, Dragon Soul fights are fun and challenging on normal with a gradual difficulty ramp as you progress through bosses with the the culmination being an excellent Deathwing fight that feels pretty epic and is fun and well-tuned

However, 8 bosses is just NOT ENOUGH. The heroics are fine if you're more of a hardcore guild, but we're not. Yes, we'll get a few down but it will be very tough. Tough is good if you're in a raid group that shares your mentality and skill level (AKA a hardcore guild) but our guild has a large disparity in quality and commitment from top to bottom. That's not a knock on our guild, we're a casual guild. Blizzard needs to realize that most guilds are like this. We need more content that is challenging without being unforgiving. Did we ever feel like Spine or Madness were unforgiving? I didn't. I felt like they were well-tuned and we were slowly getting better and executing better until, BAM, we got the kill. Now compare that to like Heroic spine or something, where the best guilds in the world spent hundreds of attempts on it and even when they killed it (By class stacking like nobody's business), they said that they didn't want to repeat the kill. That's not a fun fight for 99.999% of the guilds out there. Hell, it's probably not a fun fight for 100% of the guilds out there if the best in the world are complaining about it. How does blizzard expect us to be happy with content like that?

And don't even get me started on the loot! It's a goddamn nightmare to assign loot when there's only 8 bosses a week that drop loot, and we only get 2 tier tokens per boss for a goddamn 25-man raid. Seriously, wtf is up with the tier. You guys have no idea how much I hate doing loot because of how many tough choices we have to make on every boss. While most of the raid have accepted accidental slights or terrible RNG with grace, we see how frustrated some of our core guys can get when they have 1-2 pieces of loot after we've killed a total of 26 bosses in DS.

They needed to release at least three tiers of additional raiding after T11, each with 10-14 bosses. Instead, we got Firelands and Dragon Soul.

TL;DR: Blizzard needs 12-13 bosses per raid. They don't give a shit and are content with releasing two 7-8 boss tiers as a TOTAL amount of raiding patches for an ENTIRE expansion. Un-fucking-acceptable.

[Unholyfaith]

Considering SWTOR has only been out for a month, and it's their first venture into this kind of game, I think they are doing pretty good. I fully expect some big changes based on feedback in the coming months. I hit 50 last night, still have a ton of stuff to do not even including the OPS groups (raids). So I'm happy with it.

That being said, I'm still looking forward to doing some raiding on WoW tonight. We got about 17 people playing SWTOR now. If that number increases a lot and some more of our guildies come over from WoW my opinion could change. It's based largely on where the people are.

[Lyntha]

BTW, I need an officer to take over recruiting for me since I won't be there as much as I used to. Someone's gotta step up the plate and handle the pending recruits ASAP.

[Varibash]

wall o text's in this thread, and I nominate........ Gump, so he will be forced to use the website.

I know bash will say "yeah duh" - but hell even he's back casual after saying he'll never play again.

well yeah.... duh.... and what do you mean I'm back casual, that's heresy, My toons haven't been logged on in a month as far as i'm aware, Casual nothing, I have been gone for 2 months now... and I don't miss it at all. It's been very nice not having a raid time to worry about, I can focus on other things in my life, I honestly dont know if I will ever pick up another mmo again, but right now, It's looking like a no, I won't.

TL;DR: Blizzard needs 12-13 bosses per raid. They don't give a shit and are content with releasing two 7-8 boss tiers as a TOTAL amount of raiding patches for an ENTIRE expansion. Un-fucking-acceptable.

Blizzard doesn't care about WoW anymore, their endgame cinematic after you kill deathwing is fucking terrible and so poorly done, their patch trailers have gotten terrible and not worth watching,

4.3 patch trailer

2.1 trailer

hell even the 3.3 trailer was really good

Blizzard is just milking WoW for everything it's worth now, i.e. purchasable pets / mounts, rehashed content i.e ZA/ZG BWD, they are literally spitting in the face of long time players. And it's only gonna get worse with release of MoP, it's like they took everything WoW was buidling up to be, and took a big shit right on top of it... pandaran was supposed to be a part of TBC as another playable race/zone along with the outland, it's retarded they are making it into it's own expansion.

[Viledead]

What's unfortunately ultimately is that despite all of WoW's recent flaws and RL issues that will come up for people, no other game has come close yet to the sense of community. Sure there are older games (ask any SW:G fan), but the fact that you could play with both RL friends and extended friends on a constant basis was/is great. I've logged in just to chat to RL friends - WoW was almost a MSN Messenger.

I really think that LFR should be different bosses - some of the best moments in WoW was downing that boss finally (for almost everyone who raids). Now downing the boss on normal difficulty when you've downed it over and over on super-eze mode just isn't as much of a high.

Also - re: Blizz milking WoW - the Activision future is now. Divisional funding, P&Ls, shareholders, etc...all stifle innovation. You can kite the top of the hill for awhile, but soon others will innovate. Ask Microsoft about Apple (and now Google). I don't think SWTOR is any Apple/Google - but there will be one. And I tend to think it will be browser & phone-based ARG. The core model needs to change to really see a breakthrough.

[Varibash]

What's unfortunately ultimately is that despite all of WoW's recent flaws and RL issues that will come up for people, no other game has come close yet to the sense of community. Sure there are older games (ask any SW:G fan), but the fact that you could play with both RL friends and extended friends on a constant basis was/is great. I've logged in just to chat to RL friends - WoW was almost a MSN Messenger.

I really think that LFR should be different bosses - some of the best moments in WoW was downing that boss finally (for almost everyone who raids). Now downing the boss on normal difficulty when you've downed it over and over on super-eze mode just isn't as much of a high.

Also - re: Blizz milking WoW - the Activision future is now. Divisional funding, P&Ls, shareholders, etc...all stifle innovation. You can kite the top of the hill for awhile, but soon others will innovate. Ask Microsoft about Apple (and now Google). I don't think SWTOR is any Apple/Google - but there will be one. And I tend to think it will be browser & phone-based ARG. The core model needs to change to really see a breakthrough.

sadly, all true, once blizzard stopped being it's own boss, it's all been going down hill, even Diablo 3 is suffering... ie- real money auction house that blizz takes a % of each sale.

There isn't a lot of hope for blizzard's future, i assume they will just continue creep along on people willing to play just because it's blizzard. It's going that way with a lot of video game companies it seems, look at activisions CoD series... the 3rd one that was just released is basically the same game as it's predessor, with a few more bells and whistles, no innovation, no graphical update.... same shit being trolled out... and yet somehow it makes money, it will continue to get worse as time goes on as long as gamers continue to mindless purchase these rehashed bags of shit. I for one do not purchase a game if the I do not support the company that made it.

[Lyntha]

Not too many companies understand the gamer market. Companies build good will by making excellent products. In return, they get the undying loyalty of a very hardcore user-base with money to spend.

The goodwill from previous games and shit will only last for so long, at which point they're going to start losing customers fast and looking at shitty sales numbers. Look at the Apple Business model as a good example of this. They really need to turn it around. MoP had better be incredible or it's going to be the death-knell for WoW.

Edit: I love how my attendance post has the ability to morph into a debate on Blizzard's performance as a whole company and the demographics of the gamer market.

[Viledead]

The goodwill from previous games and shit will only last for so long, at which point they're going to start losing customers fast and looking at shitty sales numbers. Look at the Apple Business model as a good example of this.

Look at the Microsoft and RIM business models. Less than a year ago RIM was saying that Apple/Android have no chance and that people love RIM devices (man that was funny!). Since then cell contracts came up and they got destroyed. Same with MS - everyone thinks steve jobs is a patron saint but just as important is the fact that Microsoft had done nothing OS wise since the initial release of WinXP other than suck customers dry and release 1/2 baked software.

@Bash What also happens is even if the original devs at blizz leave and start their own company again (presumably once the non-compete is up which is barely enforceable anyways), they still will struggle because they'll have lived that life. Tough to go back to being creative.

[Lyntha]

Haha RIM is a great example of an industry leader being stagnant. 3-4 year ago, RIM literally ruled the business phone market. EVERYBODY who was important in business had a shitty blackberry. Now they're going out of business.

[Prydain]

I feel that Dragon Soul boss fight design was really lackluster for the majority of them. Only fights I found well done were Blackhorn, Yorsahj, Hagara, Ultaxion. I think LFR affected the normals and heroics in a very negative way. Look at Madness for example and compare it to Ragnaros, on H Ragnaros had an extra phase while H-Madness just has extra adds for each platform.

A lot of the fights seemed 2-phased and made them very boring, especially if they are really long (madness). This tier is definitely not my favorite. Regarding only having 8 bosses it sucks big time. Having ~12 bosses make the progression curve a lot smoother and gearing a lot better.

[Lyntha]

That's funny that you mentioned Hagara and Blackhorn as good fights. I thought they both were boring, though that may be because of the tuning. Regardless, I think the fights are OK, for the most part, there's just not enough! They can't make the fights TOO different or we all suck at it and hate it (Like Flame Leviathan was in FL). Either that, or the new mechanics just become gimmicky. Blizzard can only do so much and yes, the fights will invariably end up being some twist on an already-existing mechanic. It doesn't mean it's a bad fight.

LFR is fantastic and I don't see why people hark on it. Yes, you can kill Deathwing with it. No, it doesn't really mean anything because the challenge in Normal and Heroic are still tehre. You're still going to wipe a bit (Or a lot) before you kill him and it makes for a proper thrill when you do kill him.

[Prydain]

I say they are fun in comparison to the other bosses in Dragon Soul. Hagara is lacking an extra mechanics for the regular phase and a sub 35% phase. Blackhorn I would say is the best fight done. You have 2 phases, on the first one each role has something to do. Tanks have to make sure to rotate adds for every wave. Healers have to make sure to keep the raid stable and rotate cds for the Onslaught, and the DPS has to focus on sappers while making sure to kill the drakes & vyrkul-dudes in a timely manner. All while everyone is making sure to avoid the charge & standing on the barrage. And you still have another phase to go.

LFR is fine as it is, I love gearing my alts there and not spending a lot of time wiping. But the problem is that it 'decided' how to the other difficulty levels were going to be designed, and that's a huge design fail. Like I said in my previous post, DW fights are pretty bland when you compare them to the previous tier end-bosses. Spine should have been similar in design to Nef/Alakir/Chog/Rag, while Madness to Sinestra. That's not saying it should be as hard, but comparing them when it comes to mechanics and about same amout of effort. When you are Raid Leading Madness how much stuff do you actually have to organize compared to Nef? Just where people are going to stack on the last platform and when you are lusting. And I'm hoping T14 won't be decided by LFR again otherwise encounters are going to be pretty bland.

[Viledead]

When you are Raid Leading Madness how much stuff do you actually have to organize compared to Nef?

Quote of the day material!

Seriously - this is a great point. If a raid group is filled with above average players in 10m, you can almost full clear normals in 1 night...first time in. 25man has less room based on competence (mainly due to dps underperforming) but ultimately even normal mode barely requires vent other than tank swaps and healer cds (or yelling at the melee who bounced the ball an extra time...

[Varibash]

I did madness normal with prydains alt group, the madness fights seems overly easy.. the mechanics include killing adds and jumping to the next target.. overly simple.. it's a pure dps check.

[Lyntha]

I don't think it's fair to judge a fight based on how simple it is once you figure it out. M'uru was one of the hardest fights EVER but it didn't require any communication once you knew the fight. It was a pure execution check, the same as Deathwing. Complexity =/= difficulty, although the two definitely correlate.

UPDATE: As mentioned to the officers last night, I won't be there today. Good luck on Spine!