I see the pandaren as a piece of history

They even have a Pokemon style pet system. Why? :sadvaultboy:

One of the things that just makes me think why as well...I don't see how this even became in ideal. I like that blizzard listens to fans but I feel like this expac has been influenced entirely on people crying for Pandaren over the years on the forums. Pandarens and the Monk class are something people have been crying about forever.

Yes, but it's similar to people wanting guns (boomsticks, if you will) and other technology from not that far after the middle ages in TES. Only a few want it and keep whining about it while the rest of the community tells them to shut the hell up.

About the Pokémon thing. I really think Blizzard are just milking WoW for as long as they can, to finance their new projects or something. I mean look at their "great" Diablo III deal, buy a 12 month long subscription to a dying game and get Diablo for free. Whooptifreakingdoo.
This pet battle thingie just makes the pet collectors cling on a bit longer before they want to abandon their collection and move on in their gaming lives.

It sure as hell was hard for me to give up all my rare mounts which I've farmed such a long time for, but so be it. It was pretty much the only reason why I kept on playing Cataclysm for 1 month or so during patch 4.2.

I played WoW for a whole 5 months then got bored of it. Tried getting back into it but I just cant.

Guess it's time to try out Lord of the Rings Online. It's a shame that buying content is so confusing as I really have no idea what do I really get for every purchase.

I briefly played that myself, but I refuse to pay for it. The game isn't good enough for that in my opinion.

There was a LotRO thread around here at one point...if you dig it up and post there (or start a new one), I'm sure people can get it sorted. Or just shoot me a PM if you want (I've been playing for about a year--not a subscriber, but I have paid actual cash for a few things, like Moria and the new Isengard expansion--so yeah, I know how confusing some of that stuff is.). It'll save hauling this thread off-topic.

So I did do myself a great favor by never playing WoW..

I don't care about the new race being pandaren. One of the things that sounds like laziness is that they are on both sides. Going to be a pain sorting them out in pvp. How the hell are you supposed to see a skin color swap from a distance?

Pet battles sounds like a joke as well. There's also the fact that this is the second expansion in a row that only has five levels to gain. No real big bad villain either.

Actually WoW was a pretty good game for a long while...

... then Activision & Bobby Kotick came.

Their revamped talents are actually looking very nice. Have you all seen the preview for it? it's completely different than ANYTHING they've ever done with talents, it's more Diablo style. Looks really nice.

Instead of having a talent tree, you get one talent to pick out of 3 every 15 levels, getting away from the "cookie cutter" builds. Looks pretty neat.

I took a look, it's just more stupid streamlining like in Cataclysm. Getting a new talent point is why I looked forward to every level, and then they made you wait a few levels in Cata, and now you have to wait 15 levels?

I'm with Narmy. What do you get the other 14 levels? The only thing that ever made me want to suffer through WoW leveling is the talent point every level. You felt like every level mattered. I wish LOTRO made me feel like that.

I don't really see how getting a talent point every level is something to look forward to nor do I see how it matters; the end result is going to be the same, max level is what you're pushing forward to. :shrug: Seems like you're arguing over nothing but semantics and what you're trying to cover up and nothing more than personal preference

I mean afterall; the entire point of this homoginization and streamlining is to make it so every build isn't "you have to get this this and this no matter what or your DPS will lack" but make it so the choices are fun, easier, and no constant mathematical equations you have to do to figure it out. That's not fun to 90% of the player base

I don't only care about max level. I enjoy the leveling content a lot better than the endgame content... well at least I did until they made it so you could gain 10+ levels in a day.

If the end result only matters then why start at level 1? Actually, why play the game at all if you only care about a small percentage of it?

I don't play MMOs (or any RPGs) to get to max level. I play them because I enjoy watching my character grow. I like the excitement when I level up and finally get that talent I've been wanting, or that new skill that turns me into a demigod, or meet the requirements for the awesome new weapon I just found. The last level is boring to me. End game content isn't interesting.

Dang Narmy, we've got a hive mind thing going on.

Caring about leveling has nothing to do with that IMO.

I love leveling; leveling is the only thing fun in WoW right now, since ALL you do is sit in SW/ORG. So leveling is all you have really. But the talents? I don't even notice them. I find pleasure in actually reading quest dialogue, doing the quest, etc. Roaming through the game world. That's fun. I find talents pretty insignificant in that context. But that's just me I guess. >_> I don't make a new character and say "I CAN'T WAIT TO GET TO LEVEL 10 TO FILL OUT THAT TALENT POINT OMG SUCH A RUSH" lol, I do it to actually quest and experience the game world.

Getting stronger is just a bonus to make you ignore how inherently boring an MMO really is. If I don't feel like I'm advancing with each level, I don't really see the point of leveling up. MMO quests have no depth, not even with Cata.

I simply disagree with that; the questing in Cata is the best questing in any MMO I've ever played. The dynamics, the zone phasing, the quest are simply fun. That's the point. to be fun. if I wanted absurd depth I'd play Morrowind, but it's an MMO, not a single player RPG. you can only get "so deep" with an MMO of this magnitude. I honestly don't see how you can even say that. But to each his own I guess.

Opinions rock.

Ugh the revamped quests.
They tried to get the world more active with Cata, then they make the leveling revolve around phasing, which makes sure you can't even see half of the people in the freaking zone.

And the talent trees didn't even need a revamp if they kept it in Pre-TBC/TBC style, there was a lot of room for personal preference back then. During WotLK and Cataclysm everyone had the same spec...

They can be fun, I agree. But it's not the same without a reason for questing in first place... and that goal for me isn't to get to max level, it's to get to the next level. :shrug:

Same, and it was always fun to collect some equipment during.
They heavily screwed up my leveling fun in Cataclysm. Leveling became way too fast and convenient, the quests gave you bloody carriages/flights to your next location - lazy much? All the items in the 20-30 range looked the same; all items in the 30-40 range looked the same. Phasing made sure you never actually met anyone while questing, it felt more like a single player RPG, minus the fun quests.

Needless to say the only fun I had in Cataclysm was PvP (which was heavily unbalanced, Blood DKs being able to solo 2k+ rating in 2s) and mount/item collecting.

If I ever choose to play an MMO it would either be Warhammer online or The Old Republic...and that's a VERY big if.