The Burning Crusade: More of the same for casual gamers.

<casual MMORPG gamer rant>

I’ll define a casual gamer as a 58th or below level gamer. Why? Because it takes a lot of time to get 60th level, even in WoW if you aren’t a catasser. And at about 40th level, the level of quests and fun things that you can do solo drops off rapidly.

So if you’re getting Burning Crusade, Blizzard’s expansion to WoW (as if you didn’t know), and you’re a casual gamer, Blizzard pretty much turned their noise up to you. What did you get? New races and about the first 20 levels of starting content for each new race in new lands. After that? You still need to get to 58th level in the content that’s been there this whole time to reach the rest of the new stuff added with TBC. Great.

I made it to 45th last time. That’s all I could take without needing to stop for a few months, which became a few more months. Why?

Lack of progression. Wait you say, WoW is 60 levels of juicy, nectar-full goodness. I say no. I say it has about 20 levels of new stuff, then another 20 levels of exploring to do, then you need to group to do most of anything. Or grind. And grinding being the most evil thing in the world for us casual MMORPG players, we don’t like to do it.

The First Twenty Levels (1-20):

Here’s the honey moon. You get new things all the time. You get new skills, new abilities, new armor/weapon abilities, new things you can do with your crafting skills that make them seem useful (they aren’t), etc. They are fun to play. Heck, they are fun to play over and over. I think I got 6 or 7 different characters to around 20th level. You have all kinds of lands to explore after you reach the middle of these levels. You have multiple quests in different places and you’re directed to explore the lands through those quests.

The Second Twenty Levels (21-40):

Not quite as good for character development. Most of what you get is bigger versions of your current abilities. If you had Healing Wave that healed for say 50 points, you’ll get a 100 point version and so on. Now this was the case in the previous level set too, but you were getting other stuff, so it wasn’t a big deal. Now the only way you’re developing your character is with gear. Oh, and saving for the big reward at 40th level. Your mount. The quests aren’t as plentiful, but they are still around, though spread further out (you can go to this zone way over there or that zone over there). With the way WoW is laid out, you want to pick a place and stay with it, for the most part, because most quests are chains of other quests. So it doesn’t pay off to explore other lands unless you want to start the chains in those lands too. On the plus side, you’re stronger, you’ve got some cool stuff, you’ve maybe been into an instance or two and the world is still pretty new and fresh, if not a little boring at points.

The Third Twenty Levels (41-60):

Here’s the point where it gets REALLY good and really bad for me, the explorer type. Finally, I can explore almost with impunity. I now have a mount which means I can out run most any NPC as long as I don’t get too close. First thing I did? See all kinds of places I had never been to. Get new flight points. Check out the scenery in places I really wasn’t high enough level to be. The downside? A few levels in the quests you can do without a mostly full group start to dry up. This is a killer. What do I get for grouping beyond being able to complete quests I couldn’t without my groupmates? Nothing. That’s annoying to say the least. I’m now being forced to group to progress. And that’s plain evil. And we all know griding is out.

The Ten New BC Levels (61-70):

I have no idea. And I probably never will. I have to reach 58th level to even explore the new places. I don’t know. Maybe my wife will convince me to slog through to 60th. But I’m not thinking so.

Conclusion:

I made it 45th level with my Dwarven Paladin before having to hang my sword up. What drove me away from the game? As I mentioned above, I now really needed to group to play. Not always, but most quests required that. Crafting skills became useless some number of levels ago (I can craft this spiffy sword that requires these rare drops, or I can just sell my ore and by a sword that is better in every way. I wonder what I’ll do). The AH was a lot of fun, but even that grew boring after awhile. And BGs were fun, but getting people to work together in that is like pulling teeth. Or maybe not that fun.

And what did TBC do to help out with that? Allow me to play 20 levels, the quick ones, in new lands to explore (with admitedly fun quests) and with new clas…oh wait. I didn’t get any new classes because as Blizzard said, “that’s hard.” Ugh. But, I can play a shaman/paladin on the wrong side! Yay! Oh…not quit that cool. Hmmm…

Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m done with WoW. Maybe it I shouldn’t have purchased TBC (nah, I’ll have fun for at least a month, if not for the new lands I can see at the least). But I really hoped for more from Blizzard for me, the casual MMORPG player. I don’t have hours of time to put in each time I sit down (which makes grouping a real PTA), I don’t care to play for days on end straight to see the new content. Oh well, maybe Warhammer will be fun. Or maybe I can replay the entire system in LOTR (cheap shot, I admit :P ).

</casual MMORPG gamer rant>

What Would Matt Do: Wonder when game companies are going to give me a game that makes me want to group instead of forcing me to.