Is there even any point to resubbing to this game?

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » August 28, 2006, 7:06 am

I've been thinking about giving it another go. I have heard that this game is slowly recovering from the abysmal fucking tigole induced abortion it was before with smaller raid sizes and caster loot that isn't god damn embarrasing. Churn is great!

Is there a point to even try or would a year old char with basically shit loot (no raid stuff at all), be so fucking far behind the curve that any guild worth a shit would laugh at me because I don't have all the fancy new items? Is the UI still a clusterfuck or do I have to gay around with seven trillion different xml upgrades? Can my gnome still do the /train emote?

Is it true I can ninja items and sell them on ebay for hundreds of dollars and then pay blizzard $25 to xfer my char to another server and do it again?!?!

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » August 28, 2006, 7:07 am

WHEN IS THE EXPANSION OUT

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » August 28, 2006, 9:40 am

Theres always lots of people who still have shit gear and run MC / Ony / ZG. You dont need to download UI mods if youre just coming back but if you get into it again they'll help you play it mo' betta. Caster gear is no longer shitty with the +Spell stat being appended to items. Assuming you're a mage.. You will probably dislike raiding because your job is 50% summoning and 50% killing shit, but hey you get to AE shit occasionally!

you can ninja one item and transfer every six months, but you must do it quickly because the victims will spam your in-game mailbox with useless items which prevents you from transferring. The real way to win is to cyber your way into someone's account info, shard all of their gear, and have a fire-sale on said shards before they figure out what happened and get their info changed.

Expansion date is currently in November. It already went gold a few weeks ago and is in alpha.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » August 28, 2006, 11:22 am

I don't think basic gameplay has changed drastically since launch. If you were bored then, you'll probably just get bored even faster now.

If you're not raiding, you can run Dire Maul East/West/North, Scholo, Strat Live, Strat Baron, BRD, UBRS, and LBRS. That's it. 9 Instances is not a whole lot to do if that's what you're playing for. However, the world PvP s pretty fun (unless you're Horde cause you're outnumbered 6 billion to 1) or hit the Battle Grouds (which is usually a slaughter one way or the other. Good games are rare.)

I am currently grinding CC rep. Welcome to the real end game of WoW. The fact that the zone is filled with PvPing players is actually quite refreshing and I join in all the time because I can't resist the urge to kill Horde when the opportunity presents itself.

And yes, you'll still need a shitload of UI mods that have to be upgrded every other patch in order to be most effective.

I'll still believe the expansion will be out sometime before X-mas. Novemeber? I'll believe it when I see it. Also, I thought "going Gold" meant a game was ready to be burnt to disk and shipped?

Midnyte_Ragebringer · August 28, 2006, 11:38 am

Fairweather Pure wrote:. Also, I thought "going Gold" meant a game was ready to be burnt to disk and shipped?

Yeah, me too.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » August 28, 2006, 12:32 pm

youre both right! the CD's are in production. As for the november date.. I'm as skeptical as you are, but that is currently the official target!

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » August 28, 2006, 12:32 pm

I'm not going to be playing this even after the expansion hits like I originally planned.

WoW is generic MMOG and has after about 2.5 years, you realise how fucking boring it is.

(I started in the Friends and Family Alpha of the original game back in Oct 03, quit in March/Apr 06.)

Spang · Post by **Spang** » August 28, 2006, 12:34 pm

And yes, you'll still need a shitload of UI mods that have to be upgrded every other patch in order to be most effective.

i totally disagree. i only used 2 mods; damage meters and the other was a guild requirement, CTRaid. i'm a firm believer that add-ons are not necessary in WoW.

but that was 6 months ago.

murr · Post by **murr** » August 28, 2006, 12:47 pm

kyou: when expansion hits, level 62 blue dungeon items will be on par with the first tier of raid loot - you're almost better off getting to 60, dicking around until the expansion (or, if you want to play one of the new races, just wait to resub until it hits) and then just leveling to 70 normally. Any time you spend now gearing up is pretty much wasted within a couple weeks after expansion comes out.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » August 28, 2006, 1:01 pm

Spang wrote:
And yes, you'll still need a shitload of UI mods that have to be upgrded every other patch in order to be most effective.
i totally disagree. i only used 2 mods; damage meters and the other was a guild requirement, CTRaid. i'm a firm believer that add-ons are not necessary in WoW.

but that was 6 months ago.

Anyone with the Enemy Cast Bar Mod has a huge avantage over you then.

As a druid, Item Rack and druid cast bar are essential to me. Without the Item Rack mod, it takes me about 5 minutes to swap my gear. With that mod, it takes .5 seconds.

I'm not talking about cosmetic mods, I'm talking about game changing mods. Full CT install is at least 10-15 mods in 1 DL. If you're honestly running bare bones CT and dmg meters, you're really playing with one hand tied behind your back.

EDIT: Decursive is a required mod as well.

Spang · Post by **Spang** » August 28, 2006, 1:27 pm

i guess it depends on the class. i was a warlock and leveled a hunter and shaman and did some instances/raids all before i ever installed CTRaid. i didn't feel i was any better with CTRaid.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » August 28, 2006, 2:04 pm

It all depends on the class and playstyle.

I am currently back to playing my Druid, and all I run are:

CTRaidAssist
Decursive
Healing Toucher

masteen · Post by **masteen** » August 28, 2006, 2:33 pm

p.s. Yes, the gnome train emote still rules.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » August 28, 2006, 2:43 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote:Anyone with the Enemy Cast Bar Mod has a huge avantage over you then.

Why?

I'm only running a couple pieces of CTMod, ctraid, massmailer and a couple others. I've tinkered with a bunch of other stuff and didn't find it all that useful.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » August 28, 2006, 2:55 pm

Aabidano wrote:
Fairweather Pure wrote:Anyone with the Enemy Cast Bar Mod has a huge avantage over you then.
Why?

I'm only running a couple pieces of CTMod, ctraid, massmailer and a couple others. I've tinkered with a bunch of other stuff and didn't find it all that useful.

because they (in pvp) can see what you're casting and (if it's the mod I am thinking of) how long your recast timer has left.

This has been one of the biggest mods that I see no reason for Blizzard to allow because of the advantage in PvP.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » August 28, 2006, 3:03 pm

Why?

I'm only running a couple pieces of CTMod, ctraid, massmailer and a couple others. I've tinkered with a bunch of other stuff and didn't find it all that useful.

Well, have you ever PVP'd or raided anything past.. like.. molten core?

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » August 28, 2006, 3:43 pm

Boogahz wrote:because they (in pvp) can see what you're casting and (if it's the mod I am thinking of) how long your recast timer has left.

Just started farting around with BGs this weekend.

cadalano wrote:Well, have you ever PVP'd or raided anything past.. like.. molten core?

Nope.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » August 28, 2006, 3:53 pm

well if you start getting into the game again (like i mentioned above in response to Kyou) you will probably want to ask around and get a few mods if you care about not sucking. If youre still a relative noober, then it really won't matter.. and in fact it'd probably be an overwhelming about of shit to keep track of. The value of the mods will be very obvious if you PVP or Raid enough to know what to do with them.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » August 28, 2006, 4:08 pm

Maybe in PvP, but the CT boss mods + decursive seem to be plenty enough for relatively intelligent mammals to successfully raid everything.

Sure, threat meters are handy, but does it really take a mod to tell you that when you crit a bunch in short order that it might be a good idea to wand for a few ticks?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » August 28, 2006, 4:28 pm

cadalano wrote:youre both right! the CD's are in production. As for the november date.. I'm as skeptical as you are, but that is currently the official target!

You'll buy the "Gold" expansion and then probably have to download a monster patch the first time you log on.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » August 28, 2006, 4:34 pm

Maybe in PvP, but the CT boss mods + decursive seem to be plenty enough for relatively intelligent mammals to successfully raid everything.

everything? how much of everything have you seen?

Sure, threat meters are handy, but does it really take a mod to tell you that when you crit a bunch in short order that it might be a good idea to wand for a few ticks?

If you care about doing as much damage as possible, yeah. There are situations where halting your damage when you dont need to would be just as wrong as pulling aggro.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » August 28, 2006, 4:41 pm

Winnow wrote:
cadalano wrote:youre both right! the CD's are in production. As for the november date.. I'm as skeptical as you are, but that is currently the official target!
You'll buy the "Gold" expansion and then probably have to download a monster patch the first time you log on.

wow I didnt think i'd have to explain that. heh sorry..

YES. they release the beef of the expansion on a disc or on a pre-download. Any changes from that version to release will be patched incrementally. sorry for confusing you, i guess

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » August 28, 2006, 4:48 pm

cadalano wrote:
Winnow wrote:
cadalano wrote:youre both right! the CD's are in production. As for the november date.. I'm as skeptical as you are, but that is currently the official target!
You'll buy the "Gold" expansion and then probably have to download a monster patch the first time you log on.
wow I didnt think i'd have to explain that. heh sorry..

Then why were you skeptical? They could release a CD with just an installation app that connects to their server and downloads the entire expansion so the actual retail DVD/CD isn't that big a deal except for saving bandwidth and irritating the WoW fans having to wait for a large patch to download.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » August 28, 2006, 4:59 pm

oh no i'm just skeptical about the actual date that the expansion goes live because blizzard.. and specifically WoW.. is notorious for long testing periods.

I don't really care about the contents of the CD but I'm pretty sure that they arent paying those kinds of production & distribution overheads just to pass out a 3mb patcher program that you can download off the internet. That would be ABSOLUTELY hilarious though because its been available for pre-order for like 6 months.

or.... OR ITS A COLLECTOR'S EDITION WITH A NEW PET!!! /preorder /preorder /preorder

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » August 29, 2006, 10:39 am

cadalano wrote:If you care about doing as much damage as possible, yeah. There are situations where halting your damage when you dont need to would be just as wrong as pulling aggro.

That sounds like entirely too much work to me, different strokes for different folks I guess...

The biggest reason I stopped raiding was that you have to take the game far more seriously to be succesful or even access high end content than I'm willing to.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » August 31, 2006, 6:26 pm

cadalano wrote:
Maybe in PvP, but the CT boss mods + decursive seem to be plenty enough for relatively intelligent mammals to successfully raid everything.
everything? how much of everything have you seen?

Everything except Naxx and Twins/Cthun. I'll be getting Naxx attuned this weekend. I server moved my hunter a couple moths ago to join Grishord's friends' raid guild.

Sure, threat meters are handy, but does it really take a mod to tell you that when you crit a bunch in short order that it might be a good idea to wand for a few ticks?
If you care about doing as much damage as possible, yeah. There are situations where halting your damage when you dont need to would be just as wrong as pulling aggro.

I guess this is true for classes without an aggro dump. As a hunter, I FD whenever it pops, so I can crazy go nuts DPS with no worries.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » September 1, 2006, 1:57 pm

As far as mods go, it like an abacus vs. a calculater. Keep using your abacus though, I'm sure it works great for what you do!

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » September 1, 2006, 3:14 pm

there are meters that tell you how much aggro you have? is there a mod that plays the game for you too?

miir · Post by **miir** » September 1, 2006, 3:22 pm

kyoukan wrote:there are meters that tell you how much aggro you have? is there a mod that plays the game for you too?

I thought CT raid was bad enough with it's bells and warnings telling you what was about to happen in the raid encounter, but having a meter telling you when you're close to getting aggro takes away any sort of skill or finesse required to play a DPS class.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » September 1, 2006, 4:58 pm

miir wrote:
kyoukan wrote:there are meters that tell you how much aggro you have? is there a mod that plays the game for you too?
I thought CT raid was bad enough with it's bells and warnings telling you what was about to happen in the raid encounter, but having a meter telling you when you're close to getting aggro takes away any sort of skill or finesse required to play a DPS class.

I couldn't agree more. It's like the people that would use game genies back in the day and be proud when they beat a game.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » September 3, 2006, 2:15 pm

PvP is a little war of "mod esculation". You have to get the best mods to combat those who use them against you.

Overall, these mods just present existing information in easily recognaizable formats. Where is the line drawn between skill and cheating with mods? I can't say for sure, but I imagine that our best players, raid leaders, and highest DPS classes are all running the latest and greatest mods for thier perspective classes. Information is power. Mods give you more information. You will be a better player/teammate/leader with mods than without.

It seems like a micro vs. macro argument. Mods allow me to micro manage every stat about my character. I can milk the most out of my DPS, Healing, Nuking, and Tanking with various mods. The mods allow me to streamline and improve my abilities. They are a tool for learning and bulding upon existing knowledge. Hell, almost everything we've learned about game mechanics in WoW has come from parsed information taken from various mods.

Also, many mods are strictly for convenience. Item rack replaces my entire gear set in .5 secs. When you play a class that has 3 very distinct roles and each role is entirely gear dependant, it's sheer stupidity to swap out your gear every other fight.

How "pure" are some of you people that seem so against mods? Is Vent or TS "cheating"? How about something simple like being able to mark all your gatherable mats like herbs/mining on your in-game map? How about being able to check to AH average prices? Is using websites to check strats and mob abilities cheating? Where do you draw the line, and why? Enlighten me. I'm honestly curious.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » September 3, 2006, 2:21 pm

I used a lot of mods before I stopped playing, including the wardrobe one.

Using one that somehow tells you how much aggro you are getting is beyond what the game is supposed to be telling you though, unless it is some new feature I am not aware of. The whole point of raiding stuff is that it is difficult and you get good items, not how many people you can stick in a room with mods that tell you how to play your class.

Gamei · Post by **Gamei** » September 3, 2006, 3:18 pm

This may all be wrong, but I read it on a forum discussing the mod, so it's definitely true!

Threatmeters use a derived formula, which is based on a lot of testing by a number of people. It's not always right, and I felt like a worse player with it on. At best it's a guesstimate, which I do just fine in my head.

I don't consider it cheating because it's not pulling information out of the game that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise. It's just reading everyone's combat log and putting their dmg/crits etc into a relative number and spitting out who ranks where according to its calculations. With that said, it was always a distraction to me and I found myself worrying about it overly much, as opposed to just doing my job like I always did.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » September 3, 2006, 4:13 pm

I do not use threat meter either, for the same reasons you stated. I think I have a pretty good feel for my own aggro. That's for holding aggro while bear, as well as pushing aggro while in cat. The latest patch was a godsend to cat druids btw, because they added innate threat reduction, which we never had before. We were the only class without it prior to this patch and it was a bitch.

I use a lot of mods for information. Macros are the types of things that play your character for you. Like "if behind target, use shred" "if not, use claw". I detest combat macros because I think that makes players into robots and removes skill.

Having information just helps you determine the best course for your character. Mods can tell you every single detail of everything going on around you, but if you do't have the knowledge to interpret that information or the skill to put it to use, mods mean nothing. It still comes down to the person behind the keyboard.

Spang · Post by **Spang** » September 3, 2006, 5:07 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote: How "pure" are some of you people that seem so against mods? Is Vent or TS "cheating"? How about something simple like being able to mark all your gatherable mats like herbs/mining on your in-game map? How about being able to check to AH average prices? Is using websites to check strats and mob abilities cheating? Where do you draw the line, and why? Enlighten me. I'm honestly curious.

i played a shaman in EQ. i remember my priority in most fights was curing people. if a person needed a cure they'd send me a tell. then i would target them and cast the cure. this was all doen with hotkeys. all this stuff was setup before the fight. we never used mods.

apparently in WOW with the right mod it cures the person for you. i think all you do is click a button or something.

i also casted a ton of buffs in EQ without any mods. in WoW they have mods that do that for you too.

i did some healing without mods. i guess they have mods that will do your healing for you? i'm not too sure.

in EQ i don't remember having to change my gear before fights. but in WoW i would change my gear before certain fights without any mods. you say you can change your gear in half a second. i can change my gear out unassisted in about 5 seconds. if it took me 5 minutes i may consider using a mod to do it for me but i don't see the necessity.

Blizzard is allowing all these mods so i guess it's not cheating. i'd rather be considered a good player because of my skill not because of my mods.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 3, 2006, 5:48 pm

kyoukan wrote:I used a lot of mods before I stopped playing, including the wardrobe one.

Using one that somehow tells you how much aggro you are getting is beyond what the game is supposed to be telling you though, unless it is some new feature I am not aware of. The whole point of raiding stuff is that it is difficult and you get good items, not how many people you can stick in a room with mods that tell you how to play your class.

I totally agree. I am leveling a warlock right now (currently at lv 53). Once I reach 60, then finally being able to raid, using mods like this makes the difference between someone great at playing there class vs. someone aweful at it very slim. Whats next, a bot that will do it all for me during the not-so-exciting times of clearing to a boss in MC?

Post by **pyrella** » September 4, 2006, 1:31 am

Mods should be used as a tool, and not as a crutch.

A good player with no mods, will out perform a shitty player with all mods.

A good player with mods will be able to be that more efficient/resourceful. There is no stratification of mod users/non mod users - mods are available to everyone, it's up to you to use them or not.

And before the arguments of 'it shouldn't be about min/max', I don't know anyone I've ever played with who hasn't been wondering how they could increase damage/healing/aggro/awareness of surroundings. Mods make these things possible. Whether it be tracking your dps/healing, or being made aware of encounter specific events. Mods do not play the game for you, it makes more information available to you, it's still on the player to react accordingly. Mundane/time sensitive/repetitive tasks such as decursing on noth or Chromo I fully support having the ability to use a mod for. Something where you push one button to have it perform a string of actions for you to kill mobs, I do not(however the default /macro in game system enables you to queue up actions, no mod required).

You show me 6 people who can cure an entire raid of 40 in less than 10 seconds without a mod, and I'll show you 6 people who are somehow able to log in directly from the server. Time sensitive actions + consistant lag just really aren't feasible without severe padding, even with mods.

My current ui, with tons of mods that I feel I use frequently enough to warrant keeping:
http://ixtlanguild.org/gallery/albums/a ... 071906.jpg

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » September 4, 2006, 1:32 am

threat meters is always wrong but it is good at figuring a ballpark. And yeah it uses derived formulas and does not compensate for all factors

Its useful only when you can expect your tanks to be dying or losing a lot of aggro suddenly.. which then almost always means that the next target will be the 2nd rank on the list. You cant use it to say "oh crap, if i do one more fireball i'll be over the limit!"

most of the detractors who have posted will not really be put into situations where mods would be useful, so i totally agree that its pointless to use them. If you play enough of the game though you'll not only use them yourself but expect everyone else to use them because every bit helps.. the game isnt as easy as everyone thinks

Breagen · Post by **Breagen** » September 4, 2006, 7:50 am

I really don't think you need very many mods to play effectively. Depending on your class and if you are doing PvE/PvP it varies a bit but in my experience I've never used more than a few mods.

When I was playing my rogue I had Nurfed UI, Titanbar, and SCT. None of which really affected my gameplay other than making things look better. All the above did was change the way information was displayed, as to actual mods I used a combo point counter, a energy tic meter, itemrack and a version of the enemy cast bar for PvP.

I've never seen the point of the threatmeter addon to be honest. Not only can it be fairly inaccurate, and therefore make people assume something that may or may not be true, but I think it really does diminish from one of the few areas of skill required in the PvE of WoW. Personally as a rogue I never had issues with aggro using nothing more than the addons listed above and more recently as a fury warrior which are notorious for having aggro issues I've never had trouble. People should have to learn the threshold of their personal tanks and adjust their damage, not stare at a few bars while mashing their BS/FB/whatever key.

Spang · Post by **Spang** » September 4, 2006, 9:09 am

...You show me 6 people who can cure an entire raid of 40 in less than 10 seconds without a mod, and I'll show you 6 people who are somehow able to log in directly from the server...

i don't think there are 6 people on any one realm that don't use mods!

this was my UI when i played:

murr · Post by **murr** » September 6, 2006, 5:15 pm

The issue with threatmeter is a lot of the newer raid fights are so time centric - ie you can't spare x amount of time or the mob goes berserk and rapes your entire raid - that any extra dps you can pile on by just skirting the aggro line can really make a difference.

Take the Noth the Plaguebringer encounter in Naxx. General concept is he summons waves of skeleton adds (among other things like cursing the entire raid and if everyone isn't cured in the duration of the curse, you basically kill the entire raid) which have to be managed while you fight him. Every few minutes he teleports up onto a balcony and spawns special adds for 30 seconds, then comes back down. These special waves get progressively harder as the fight goes on so it's in your best interest (ie, nearly impossible to win if you don't) to kill him before the 3rd balcony teleport. He also blinks every ~20 seconds, wiping all aggro.

When you're micromanaging damage to such an extent as doing as much possible damage in every 20 second period to ensure you kill him in time, threatmeters are less of a "crutch" and more of a tool to maximize damage as much as possible. Our rogues could do just fine without them, it just allows us to reach the absolute cap so shit dies.

On older content, I certainly use it as a laziness tool just because I don't really care to try that hard on dated shit. The fact is a lot of the newer encounters have to be designed with mod capability in mind because it is so powerful - at some point it's almost a handicap NOT to use mods designed to ease raiding as you can't create a challenging encounter without keeping them in mind anymore. Sort of a sucky situation, but they do make some pretty fun and challenging encounters nonetheless.

miir · Post by **miir** » September 7, 2006, 10:48 am

a lot of the newer encounters have to be designed with mod capability in mind because it is so powerful

The fact that mods can make such drastic changes to gameplay only proves that they are unbalancing. Why would any MMOG developer design and tune encounters based on 3rd party modifications?

It's asinine.

murr · Post by **murr** » September 7, 2006, 12:16 pm

miir wrote:
a lot of the newer encounters have to be designed with mod capability in mind because it is so powerful

The fact that mods can make such drastic changes to gameplay only proves that they are unbalancing. Why would any MMOG developer design and tune encounters based on 3rd party modifications?

It's asinine.

I'm not saying they aren't unbalancing, but until Blizzard does something about it to some extent they're necessary, not just crutches for retards.

Psyloche · Post by **Psyloche** » September 7, 2006, 12:25 pm

murr wrote:but until Blizzard does something about it to some extent they're necessary, not just crutches for retards.

BIND RUSH VOX, GO GO GO!

I don't know why, that line just reminded me of that.

miir · Post by **miir** » September 7, 2006, 12:27 pm

I can understand allowing mods to ease some of the tedium in MMOGs, but mods that give players unfair advantages in PvP or mods that perform tasks faster than humanly possible (decursive) only serve to gimp players who don't use them.
Blizzard are essentially making these mods mandatory for players who wish to raid or pvp.

It sets a bad precedent for all other MMOGs, in my opinion.