The crack...gets stronger.
Good - Questing. 100 percent more enjoyable AND memorable. This time not only are you poisioning the aldor party punch you are hosting the party, setting up the tables and calling the cops in to end it. Your role is almost one of a hero as you fit into the story and development of the game, especially in dragonblight and the Wrath Gate event. They did fall back into old habits in Grizzly Hills and parts of Sholazar Basin with kill 20 things but you do need this in a mmo with 1.5 million xp. Questing is not rewarded enough. The zones are amazing looking and the music almost as good with one exception. Howling Fjord. It’s a 20 second clip on repeat. I have a 8600 256 mb video card,1650×1050 resolution and noticed a 10 frames per second drop. It’s the silent but much needed addition to the game that no one has yet to touch on. Achievements are wonderful but too many in quantity. Everyone cant be a Rock Star but you can Bind on Equip epic your way to the top now. For the solo player this is a HUGE plus. The new battleground Strand of the Ancients is beyond wonderful. It’s balanced really well so that there is no built in advantage. There is good use of seige weapons and turrets. I love this and run for them every time. There is a bug which has yet to be fixed that starts horde on D every time though. Badge gear is really easy to get and mix and match with other things but this was added at the tail end of Burning Crusade.
Bad - Raid content. Naxx was a wonderful idea at the time and I was in support of it but it’s execution and dumbing down was surprising. I went in 3 times and have no interest or, need to go back (see boe epics), It is still a whole afternoon’s commitment to the normal player and I don’t care to do that anymore. This is just age, i’m sure there are green ear’d 15 year old’s ready to leap in and take my place. Arena is still a mini game that continues to affect the rest of the game and the new maps leave something to be desired. Heroics are still the same with only a more hp or a extra move. It’s the 5 level 82 elite trash banging on you that make it really hard. Nothing changed in that respect but if it aient broke don’t fix it? I’ll buy it.
Ugly – The gear. Sure I didn’t like the clown suit but to swing the exact opposite way and make ONE set look for leveling for each class is showing you’ve got a lack of ideas for gear. We’re 3 xpac’s in, and the gear does look very cool but c’mon, Really? Professions are so vanilla that I just cant bring myself to get into them. Almost all of it is BOE, black smithing has no specialities same as leather working (you can sell all of it so why spec into it?). Talents and professions and classes all bring essentially the same thing now with debuffs so the idea that everyone can do everything is great but are the downsides worse than what was before? I’m glad that I dont have to not go to something because you HAVE to have a shadow priest but it was the differences that made this game really unique. It’s yet to be really seen though and we are only a few months in but it has changed the overzealous players outlook on the game.
