Grimblast wrote:First government bailouts and now Warcraft ones too! Sounds like a desperate plea to get some of their subscribers back. Kind of takes the fun out of leveling to get to the content. Plus Cataclysm really isn't all that great. It's why most of us quit WOW, hah!
Yeah, exactly this.
Seems like they're pretty desperate for subscribers. I especially find it interesting that they're doing free realm/faction transfers for people who might have friends elsewhere, in addition to a free copy of Cataclysm.
There's a few things that turned me off, but I think the real straw that broke the camel's back when I had considered giving it a try for a month or so was some of the stuff Josh told me with regards to basic game mechanics that have been part of the core game model since very early beta. I nearly died when he told me that the threat mechanics were all but completely torn out, and that it's basically just become a button smashing free-for-all. I really liked WotLK, because when we were playing it, raids would get you killed if so much as one person did something insanely dumb or bit off way more than they could chew (because they had more "stamina;" BTW, hi Hashel!). Sure, dungeons were becoming somewhat monotonous for the only purpose of getting badges, but I'd blame that on the gear design. You didn't really have much of a choice if you were already saved to a raid or were trying to get up so you could join one. Dumbing down game mechanics doesn't fix gearing issues (nor does gear fix problems people have with mechanics). It's just an act of desperation from the development team of a company's cash cow that's watching that cash cow grow older and less relevant.