So with the most recent patch to our beloved World of Warcraft comes the inevitable problems and resets that have come with every patch Blizzard has put out.
Here are just a few of the wonders you can expect when you log onto WoW after updating.
Your talents are all reset
None of your addons will work correctly
Your spells don’t do what they did before.
Stat changes are in place (no more spell hit or defense, etc)
Your gems are all different (and will almost certainly need to be replaced)
I must confess that I am excited for Cataclysm, and I am sure that the undertaking of changing the entire WoW world is far larger then I can even imagine, but does every patch require me to update, redo, or reinstall everything that helps me play the game?
I see things rather differently, which is probably not a surprise. Feel free to ignore if you wish.
@1 – Because the talents and spells are changing so much (which I am generally happy about) giving us a free respec is a *feature* not a bug. I’m pleased that I get to re-do my primary and secondary talents without having to pay the gold. This also pretty normal. When they have made major changes in the past, they refund talent points. What else should they do? If they made major changes, and then require *us* to pay to adapt, that wouldn’t be very fair…
@2 That is a pain, but these are third party add-ons. Blizzard has said from day 1 that will happen, as does every major software company I’m aware of. What’s the alternative? Blizzard pay the third parties to update content Blizzard doesn’t own? Have Blizzard adopt popular add-ons to the WoW Core? Well, they have done that in many cases (Quest Helper as an example). I’m pleased Blizzard opens up so many 3rd party dev opportunities to let good ideas crowd source. It is a pain waiting for the updates, but is this Blizzards fault? No. It’s part of earth life.
@3 True, and bravo. Unless we expect a perfect game out of the box, things are going to change. Particularly because this is a player driven game. I say this a Palladin and Druid, which are two classes that have been so radically respecced so many times, that it is a running joke in Wow. I’m glad Blizzard is investing so much in trying to keep things tuned and balanced. In my experience they do far better than other MMO companies, althought not a perfect job by any means. Warlocks have benefitted from this immensely through the years.
@4 Yeah, stats are changing. The new stats make it more staight forward to understand the relationship between the number and the effect. No more of hunters thinking every piece of gear in the game should go to them. =) It’s a simpler system, and judging from community feedback, that’s what people want. Why should I be upset about a popular improvement that makes the game easier to play?
@5 How can you have a game which continually scales up without obsoleting old content? Anyway, are you really affected by this? I thought your only caster would be a somewhat young warlock? Do you actually have gemmed items? My 80 Palladin does have several hundred gold in gems, but these are all going in the trash anyway when the 80-85 content comes out. I know it can be painful in a game that is about item acquisition to see purple gear we sweated to obtain replaced by green quest qear, but how else can we Blizzard keep providing new content but not retire old gear?
If retiring old gear really bothers you, go ahead and get heirloom gear. I’ve specced out my druid with it, and it’s great. I never have to throw it away, it scales with level and gives XP bonus to boot.
I for one welcome our new cataclysmic overlords, even though it will take me a week to pull down the patch through my pathetic connection. I’m really excited about the new changes, particular to Holy Palladins, and from what I’ve read in the interwebs we are getting a great new game.
Well said Matt. Good points to consider.
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