1. This is exactly why they shouldn't increase the level cap to 80. Keep the talent trees exactly as they are and concentrate on making it more enjoyable to level a character, instead of making it faster to level.

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Krick
http://www.tankadin.com

Posted at 7:44PM on Oct 26th 2007 by Krick

2. I work in the video games industry too and it's really NOT easy as you think. I really wish more people would understand that before whining on forums.

Posted at 8:07PM on Oct 26th 2007 by Alex

3. If it makes the devs feel better, testers generally aren't too fond of them either.

Posted at 8:12PM on Oct 26th 2007 by Kalis

4. Mike Schramm should read this post since about 85% of his posts on this blog are complaints about something. I wonder why the guy even plays.

Posted at 9:42PM on Oct 26th 2007 by Sophey

5. You know, I'm going to totally disagree with this concept.

There's a small portion of very loud complaints that are baseless and just plain whiny.

Then there's the vast majority of very legitimate complaints about the game, that is for the most part completely and totally ignored because the lead design team is made up of former everquest no-life college kids who stayed up until 2AM every night playing a video game and thought it was the most fun thing ever, which is the direction they wanted to take their video game since they got a chance to finally drive the ship. And for a couple of years, the entire game was developed towards this end, rather than attempting to create a fully balanced game with fun for the entire subscriber base, rather than the top tier of elite guilds that raided.

Blizzard makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Yes, the least they could do would be to fix the game that exists, rather than churning out new stuff that nobody wants. Nobody really needed voice chat. Mages still need a 41-point talent in the Arcane tree that's worth putting a point into, and I think lots of other classes have the same issues. I play my mage every single day I'm in the game. I've never used voice chat. I'm pretty sure I'm in the majority here. What's Blizzard's focus? Voice chat. Nobody's even saying anything about ever doing anything about fixing classes with worthless talent trees.

I'm not sure why the fact that it's "hard" there should be any less honest feedback about the things in the game that make no sense, or just plain suck.

Posted at 10:19PM on Oct 26th 2007 by Dave

6. LAWL!!!!!!!!! "and a very nice job, I should say"

that tree is so retarded. and wtf? shadow priests are vampires too. that tree was written nicly but the actual talents were stupid.

Posted at 11:25PM on Oct 26th 2007 by vlad

7. @5 ... what, you're telling me that the people who worked on voice chat should've been working on talent tree balance instead? Maybe the model designers and server admins should've gotten in on it as well.

Idiot.

Posted at 12:13AM on Oct 27th 2007 by Caleb Archon

8. Glad someone's saying it. I don't work in the industry but have friends that do. Game design *hard*. Making content is time consuming and expensive. Balancing content is ridiculously time consuming and expensive. There's a limited number of people who can do any of the three well. Subsciption fees don't magically conjure them from the aether.

While I'm never giving any company a free pass--I complain more than most--many complaining clearly have no idea how to design a game, much less the cost/time involved in tweaking one.

Always reminds me of the response to a letter in Dragon Magazine many (eek, twenty?) years ago. The writer complained about the number of ad pages and claimed it was excessive. The editor said (this is from memory), "A year as junior editor on your high school paper didn't teach you the realities of magazine publishing."

Posted at 12:14AM on Oct 27th 2007 by ErsatzPotato

9. @5

I'd encourage you to actually go play some of the other games on the market. Blizzard didn't end up with such a massive player base by catering only to small minority. Maybe they don't do what you want. But hey you can't please everyone.

Your argument about EQ is just a repetition of an oft cited and erroneous complaint. By and large this game does not have the camp fests that other MMORPGs have in them. Most WoW players have never spent hours camping a world boss to get the best loot in the world. Then either see another guild get the claim on the boss or be MPK'ed (Mob Player Killed) by another guild in order for them to claim the mob.

By and large the vast majority of the content in this game is instanced so everyone can enjoy it on the schedule they want. The few world bosses there are don't drop loot significant for anyone to camp them, let alone be the best loot in the game.

If you want to see a post EQ game made in the mold of EQ go take a look at FFXI. You'll hate it, I can pretty much guarantee it. But maybe just maybe you'll appreciate the changes that were made for more casual players. You'll also find a bunch of people on those games who call WoW a carebear game.

Blizzard could probably do everything you wanted and you'd still find something to be unhappy about. There are always ways the game could be better.

I suspect part of the reason there is so much complaining about this game is because Blizzard actually listens and responds. They may not always respond how we'd like but they do respond.

Posted at 1:42AM on Oct 27th 2007 by Shefki

10. @6 While I haven't really studied the Shadow tree in the linked proto-build I *did* notice some extremely interesting gameplay innovations in the Discipline one.

Posted at 3:22AM on Oct 27th 2007 by Balli

11. Another consideration is that Blizzard is a company and is thus aiming to make money, so business decisions must come into what they decide to do to the game and when. Coming from a commercial software development background, I have often seen cool software features deprioritised and not made it so some relatively uninteresting (yet greatly in demand) thing can be added.

They only have limited resources and are most likely making some calls about what gets in and what isn't done based on how many subscribers it might keep, loose or gain. I'm sure they have a todo list 1000s of items long and would like to get them all done, but the day is only so long etc...

Posted at 4:44AM on Oct 27th 2007 by dacamper

12. _____________________________________________
Up one post, "They only have limited resources".

You CANT have it all.
Deal with it. WoW isn't everything.
_____________________________________________

Posted at 5:02AM on Oct 27th 2007 by Tyler

13. I'm agreeing with 11 if that isn't entirely clear, for those less intelligent reading this forum :)

Posted at 5:04AM on Oct 27th 2007 by Tyler