World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
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Blood and Gore,Suggestive Themes,Use of Alcohol,Violence
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment Genre(s): MMORPG Home Page: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wra...
Okay, The Flaws...No game is perfect. Blizzard gets damn close, but I have to dig up some dirt as well. The itemization before level 80 has some holes. For example, there is absolutely zero tanking plate available from the opening zones and Dragonblight. While you strictly speaking do not need any, or even have to be in tanking spec to tank the first 5-man instances, it's still somewhat disappointing for anyone who decides to level as a tank to support groups. I'm sure the design went something like "everything in the early zones can be tanked in DPS gear anyway, so why provide redundant items?". Still a flaw in my books. Level 80 itemization has more holes. With the new, more unified item design, some specific classes may find only slightly sub-optimal loot for some slots. Most of the loot seems to be designed for four archetypes - healer, damage dealing caster, damage dealing melee and tank. These types are further divided up to cloth (caster stuff only), leather (all types), mail (all types) and plate (no damage dealing casters). All leather and mail for melee types is agility-based, as is to be expected considering the classes that can use these armor types. Melee plate is strength based because plate classes value strength way more than agility. Problem is, melee gear for jewelry slots - rings, necklaces, cloaks - is filled with agility while plate wearing melee classes would like to have strength. In the same way, some classes have no need for Expertise, some may not really need Crit that much while others absolutely want to stack it. The "role-oriented" loot design has left some holes, especially in slots shared by all specs of that archetype. So far the development team has responded with just a shrug; "Not every loot has to be perfect for everyone". Compulsive min-maxers are not amused. Phasing, while amazing, is not 100% perfect. You may end up unable to assist your lower level friend with some of the later quests simply because you can't enter the same phase with him any more. The counterargument is that any class in any spec can solo all the phasing-related quests, so there is no need to group. A minor flaw, but by the time you and your friends are 80, it's a moot point. Most of the time Phasing is incredibly useful, well used and completely seamless. There are also some outstanding technical issues. Some low end configurations have experienced major performance issues in some specific new areas, the city of Dalaran being the major culprit. Some configurations (like mine) can also end up crashing to desktop after playing for a very long time - there appears to be a memory leak that can cause a WoW Error crash due to out of memory error. Sure, it can take 7-8 hours of continuous play with a lot of zoning to occur, but it's still a bug. The Biggest Flaw - It's Too EasyThen to the biggest issue... Blizzard has publicly stated that their design goal with Wrath of the Lich King has been to make the game even more accessible. For those who have been playing for years, this translates to "easy". No, sorry, it translates to "utterly, ridiculously easy". Granted, it fulfills the goal of accessibility, but it also takes some fun out of the equation. You can level up in any spec with any gear without any real possibility of facing something you can't do. Quests indicating they are designed for 2 or 3 players can be soloed without any real trouble. Quests asking for a group of 5 players may be soloable with suitable spec and gear, and in worst cases require 2-3 players. Everything is consistently easy, so it must be all exactly the way Blizzard wanted it to be.
Normal five-man instances designed for level 70-79 follow the same pattern. The only reason why a level 70 character with old level 70 epics shouldn't do a level 74 instance straight away is that you need to be level 73 to get the related quests, and going in without them is a waste of good experience and vendorable quest rewards. Similarily a level 70 in good gear could easily skip the first three zones as far as the monsters go - except that you can't get any quests outside the starting zones before 71, and you need to be 73 before you can get quests outside Dragonblight. This forces you to complete the content in the intended way, even if your character could take on harder opponents. For the leveling phase of the expansion, this is not a big deal. The whole leveling phase is just a short transition anyway. Those who know the game can dash trough the levels in a week or two, and those hardcore players (like, um... me) who took time off and decided to skip sleep for a couple of nights could hit 80 in less than three days. The rest may end up spending a good bit more, but sooner or later everyone will be 80 and nobody really cares if the road there was challenging or not. Blizzard's developers have indicated that future raids should ramp up the difficulty - it remains to be seen by how much. Current raids, ignoring any achievement-related extra goals, can be burned through in weeks by any serious guilds - in fact, my own guild is already showing signs of disinterest after just two weeks of raiding. "Seen it all, got plenty of loot, might stick around for a few additional weeks to ensure that my gear is in top shape for future content.". This is bad news in the long run and may lead into problems as guilds start to disintegrate without any challenging goals left in the game.
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