Author Topic: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!  (Read 13020 times)

Offline caelic

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Re: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!
« Reply #20 on: July 16, 2012, 11:17:49 PM »
Y'know, apart from the chainmail bikinis...


The chainmail bikinis were stupid and impractical, but still looked believable, if that makes sense.  I could see someone wearing one.  I just couldn't imagine WHY you'd do so.

Offline bhu

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Re: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!
« Reply #21 on: July 16, 2012, 11:32:37 PM »
I always hated chainmail bikinis. Many things on the net manage to offend me but few make me nerdrage quite like a stripper with a sword.
How else are strippers supposed to protect themselves?

fellatio

Offline bhu

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Re: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!
« Reply #22 on: July 16, 2012, 11:33:00 PM »
Y'know, apart from the chainmail bikinis...


The chainmail bikinis were stupid and impractical, but still looked believable, if that makes sense.  I could see someone wearing one.  I just couldn't imagine WHY you'd do so.


Im told if poorly made they chafe like a mother fucker.

Offline Keldar

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Re: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!
« Reply #23 on: July 17, 2012, 02:07:12 AM »
I always hated chainmail bikinis. Many things on the net manage to offend me but few make me nerdrage quite like a stripper with a sword.
How else are strippers supposed to protect themselves?
Mage Armor.  The mail bikini is just for show.

Offline LordBlades

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Re: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!
« Reply #24 on: July 17, 2012, 04:02:48 AM »
Another area in which not WOW in particular but computer games in general might have 'ruined' tabletop RPGs is regarding the expectations from something called 'RPG'. Many (successful games) are branded as RPGs when their main focus is hack&slash.

Look at WOW: you have a character that advances, and that's about where the RPG element ends. 90% of the game consists of killing monsters&players for XP, better gear and/or rank. There's very little incentive/possibility to interact much with the world, get 'in character' and even advance on a path that makes sense from a RP point of view (rather than providing the highest mechanical gain).

Understandably, many people carry these assumptions regarding what a RPG is about to the gaming table.

Offline SneeR

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Re: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!
« Reply #25 on: July 17, 2012, 11:39:00 AM »
I don't like the 4E art style. To me, tieflings are red dranei.

4E deals with instand gratification. WoW deals with instant gratification, too. People who deny that need to second-guess their decision. That grinding is not what WoW players think about; they think of how great their character is. That's because at earlier levels there is no grinding, and Blizzard was smart enough to realize that nobody likes dead levels. This combines together to mean that you can go threough the first 10 levels in a day easily before any grinding needs to start, with each level providing a game-changing ability for you to try out. By the time the grinding sets in, you are hooked. Players know that the next level holds a cool new ability for them, and are subconsciously willing to waste their time to get there.

It starts as instant gratification, but then the gratification is spread farther and farther apart.

4E always felt like a game based on hotkey powers without cooldown. Instead, the game is wracked by dissociated mechancis and the previously mentioned basis upon combat. Instead of cooldown times, there are instead limited uses per day. Why can't mundane abilities be used more than three times per day? Once per day? I dunno; you figure it out.

There were occasional anomalies in 3.5, but this is the CORE MECHANIC of 4e!
Why can't you multiclass? WoW doesn't let you either, so don't complain

I use to have feel guilty about having w problem with these things, because Tome of Battle was the prototype for 4E, and I think that ToB is a fantastic fundament for a system! Well, I had to realize that the primary difference between the two is that 4E strives against dissociated mechanics and limits per enocunter with recharge mechanics rathert than just expecting you to go all day. In fact, ToB cuts down on the 15-minute Adventuring Day! From what I've seen, 4E just encourages novas all the more...


I also think 4e took a huge step in the wrong direction for base setting, but I don't know if this is due to WoW or not. Remember how people got up at arms about how everyone plays a Warforged all of the time? Well, I never got that sense, even gaming with Warforged PCs. Warforged are either from a setting, or the end of a random Monster Manual.

What gets me, though, is that the basic 4E PHB had something like 11 races, meaning that the average gaming group could only play one of those races, just like 3E. The fact that Tieflings and Dragonborn are there just fills my head with "What?" Having such exotic races in the PHB means that average adventurers can be assumed to have at least a 1/11 chance of being a demon or a Dragon-man. That gnomes were included in an expansion means that there will be more demonic adventurers and dragon-people in most 4E games than there will ever be sly midgets.
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Offline Soda

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Re: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!
« Reply #26 on: July 17, 2012, 02:12:41 PM »
That's because at earlier levels there is no grinding
I have to disagree with this. I played WoW for about 3 hours and it was entirely grinding, to the tune of: "go get me 10 wolf meats" then "go get me 10 troll hides".
While not technically level grinding, it was still mindless garbage. It's not instant gratification. It's instant bored-uninstall-ification.

Offline SneeR

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Re: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!
« Reply #27 on: July 17, 2012, 02:44:28 PM »
That's because at earlier levels there is no grinding
I have to disagree with this. I played WoW for about 3 hours and it was entirely grinding, to the tune of: "go get me 10 wolf meats" then "go get me 10 troll hides".
While not technically level grinding, it was still mindless garbage. It's not instant gratification. It's instant bored-uninstall-ification.
That is "farming" not "grinding." Grinding is doing something over and over to level up.

The thrill of getting a new ability at the next level outweighs the bore of farming, grinding, and farming to grind for some people. I personally dislike the game, but I see why my cousin, for example, is enamored by it (at least until recent overhauls that he thinks will send Blizzard to ruin). There is in-battle strategy, and there is definitely reward for system mastery (know when and where to get good gear).
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Offline Soda

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Re: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!
« Reply #28 on: July 17, 2012, 03:21:04 PM »
Grinding is doing something over and over to level up.
That could easily be changed to "doing something over and over to get to the next awful fetch quest."

You can't have fun raiding with your friends until you do this fetch quest and this one and this one.

WoW isn't install -> have fun. After hooours of tedious filler junk, you can start playing with your friends. That's all I'm saying.

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: World of Warcraft ruined D&D!
« Reply #29 on: July 17, 2012, 07:21:24 PM »
Again, I think the "instant gratification" that grognards refer to in WoW is that your character starts off being able to throw fire or bash with extreme vigor, or ... whatever.  I actually don't know, but Blizzard tends to give fairly impressive-looking abilities pretty out of the box.  That clashes with the "old-school" notion that 1st level heroes are less effective than unnamed Redshirts in Star Trek.