Pandas, Straw, Camel's backs etc.

This entry makes me a fucking hypocrite. I have always hated blogs and forum posts where people moan about WoW and start listing up all the many reasons why they're quitting, when the fault usually didn't lie within the actual game, but the players, themselves. If you play the shit out of something for almost seven years straight, it doesn't fucking matter whether it keeps on changing 'for the worse', whether it doesn't change enough or anything in between these two extremes. You're just full. In fact, all these people are just full.

I've been full for a while now. Even when the goats from outer space crashed into the planet, I had known I was full and it wasn't their fault WoW was starting to get on my nuts. When the lore finally changed from "female night elves may never be druids" to "Look, it's a holy cow!" I knew I was just full and the game itself didn't really make a change for the worse. When the game changed to World of Frost Mages to World of Holy Paladins to World of Win Any BG By Stacking Healers, I knew the problem was really on my end.

But for the love of tuna - SIX fucking talents per class? Just how much more can you simplify a game?
Once Pandaria goes live the way they're planning it right now, you'll get to choose from 3 near-identical talents every 15 levels. At some point you'll get one of three slightly different self-heals, one of three slightly different snares, one of three different berserk mechanisms and so on. One of them might be a bit stronger than the other but comes with a greater cooldown or one might affect more than just one target, but at greater mana/rage/whatthefuckever cost. Everyone is gonna be fucking identical. Perfect balance.

For contrast, I'm playing Age of Conan right now. I know - it's just as easy to mock AoC, if not easier. But have you seen the character development on there? Three different talent (or 'feat') trees, which let you distribute your points any way you want, a max level perk-system, which lets you power up endgame toons much like the promised and then scrapped Path of the Titans for WoW, a whole lot of means and ways to spec out and play your toon, some of them good, many of them utter shit.

Yes, WoW eliminates the utter shit now by making everyone equal. But I don't like that. I like being unique, being an individual, having the possibility to choose my own character's strengths and weaknesses. It's what makes a fucking RPG a role playing game!


Ironically, at the same time they're announcing pet battles. So people will train their cats, skunks, squirrels and other shit to fight other critters in the arena. The player character becomes ever more simplified up to a point where you can focus on your fucking CAT more than your own progression!

Hold it, I'm not done bitching. Remember the attacks of the undead hordes before Wrath went live? How they would change you into a ghoul if you died, allowing you to attack and kill your fellow players? Remember those bastards appearing seemingly out of nowhere, without warning, without giving you a god damn clue where they would strike next? I loved that shit. Now look at what we're getting before Pandaria.

Theramore gets destroyed. Nobody gives a shit about the place, it's just another spot on the map the Alliance will lose to the Horde, because that's what they're best at. Getting their asses kicked. Funny thing is, Pandaria is probably a year away from us and everyone already fucking knows that Theramore will be destroyed. Can it get any more anti-climatic? The destruction of that place should strike people as a shock, it should be something big and meaningful, a surprise event! Instead, everyone already knows it's gonna happen and people couldn't care less.

But the real joke is this: Upon the destruction of Theramore and the ensuing battle at sea, some stranded soldiers will end up discovering Pandaria. Okay, let me get this straight: People in Azeroth ride dragons and gryphons, gnomes and goblins build whacky airplanes. People in Azeroth fucking fly! They fly, they teleport, they travel the sea. HOW THE FUCK DO YOU FAIL TO NOTICE A WHOLE FUCKING CONTINENT?

Now, do I seriously have to get started on a new race, which started out as an April Fool's joke?* And since they couldn't be bothered to come up with something cool that actually makes sense, both the Alliance and the Horde will get fucking pandas now. And a new class. Remember how people talked about how badly they wanted the Blademaster or the Demonslayer or any of the many brilliant heroic classes known from the Warcraft Universe? We're getting monks. The one class I already don't give a fuck about in Diablo 3.
*Pandaren Brewmasters have been sighted in Warcraft 3 before this prank, of course.

I have always been with the guys who backed up Blizzard and all their stupid changes to WoW. I have always agreed that, for the most part, my desire to leave WoW, just as everyone else's, was mostly related to all of us simply having played it too fucking much. But come on. This is a fucking April Fool's joke turned real. This is the ultimate simplification, the ultimate lack of ideas. And spare me the crap about how awesome it's gonna be to have some oriental landscapes and architecture. Every fucking online game out there jumps the Asia-bandwagon at some point. We've seen Khitai in AoC, the fucking Fortress of Edou in Hellgate London, the Chinese-style Sarnak islands on Everquest 2, Guild Wars had gone for it and there's about a million F2P-titles out there, which exclusively use settings inspired by ancient China, Japan and Korea. Why is it suddenly cool, fun, new and unique if WoW does it?

I like how resilience will become a base stat and how you might no longer be forced to farm both pvp and pve gear. I like how epic items and 1 or 2 character levels are supposed to make less of a difference than they do now. I like how the whole thing is supposed to get a bit tougher again. But for crying out loud. Pet battles? Fucking pandas? And to all you people telling me I could just ignore all of that crap if I don't like it: Well, what are you gonna do if you end up ignoring all that? Focus on the battle against a brand new evil, which threatens to destroy all of Azeroth? Oh right, there is no such thing! WoW wants to focus more on the oh-so interesting battle of the Alliance vs the Horde, which has always been completely in the hands of the writers out there. A battle, which us players, the very members of both of these factions, had absolutely no fucking say in. Other than occupying a tower on Hellfire Peninsula or slaying Varian, who will respawn a couple minutes later, did we ever have any influence on how the battle of the Horde against the Alliance would progress, maybe even change the world?

And what about the people, pussies as they might be, who don't give a crap about PVP and the whole Horde vs Alliance thing, the lovers of pve content, the raiders, the guys who want to tackle all the tough bosses and face all the biggest evils of Azeroth? Since we've already recycled Nefarian and Ragnaros, are they gonna face Illidan all over again until you can be arsed to come up with a new bad guy?

I used to love this game. Sure, I'm bored with it now and chances are, I'd be bored with it even if it was still as tough and complex as nostalgia is making me believe it used to be. But what the fuck are they doing to that damn game now? What the hell is going on here? Is this some kind of messed up experiment or is the whole damn design team being run by interns and trainees now, as everyone else is working on Titan, some stupid new game nobody knows anything about?

I'm known for being a bit drastic and extreme with my opinions. I'm known for changing them over night whenever I feel like it. But for the time being, I'm enjoying the additional 25GB of space left by WoW, which can now be occupied by some new porn.

-Cat