So in Wildstar news, apparently Stephen Frost is moving on to other pastures. I’m trying to think of anyone of the devs that are left since launch…and I’m drawing blanks. It’s getting to a point where it just looks like the culture at Carbine isn’t enough to keep the lights on. Smart decisions need to be taken, or should have been taken many months ago and poof, nothing but people quitting. I’m sure this has resonated with the community. It really is quite a shift and I’m having a ton of trouble putting a finger on why.
Lots of conjecture mind you, but wow, I think this is one for the record books. There’s certainly still some hope that the game can come back if it makes the changes at a decent pace. SWTOR certainly showed that, and the flaws were very similar (remember a 90% server consolidation?).
In WoW news, the Brawler’s Guild is getting a re-vamp. Or is it? Let’s look at it
- No new bosses
- Change in the boss order/ranks
- No new achievements
- No new rewards
- No new challenge cards
And this merited a blog post? I tried the Brawler’s Guild. It was fun. Except Hexos, which never made any sense. Now the only difference is a re-shuffle of the bosses? I’m going to be honest here, I can’t see anything that WoW is bringing to the plate in WoD that would be considered progress or new. Sure, there’s a stat squish (2 years late) and a normalization of raid sizes (flex everything!) and the world’s shittiest housing implementation (garrisons). It’s stuff that could have been included in 2 content patches. And people have waited over 13 months since SoO (5.4) went out the door for this?
Leo's Life 
I respect the honest work Blizzard has put into this expansion, but it’s the little decisions like this that make me feel they are content with spinning their wheels. Admittedly, I’ve not ever tried the Brawler’s Guild, but it seems like the perfect feature to remix or alter more significantly from season to season.
Heck, anytime my friends and I ever dreamed of Arenas for PvE, it was the notion that new bosses would be added fairly regularly as a sort of testing ground for new mechanics. I’d hate to return to the classic MMO methods of palette swapping old models, but I don’t mind something like that for quickly generating new bosses with new mechanics to try out!
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Story/art are the big changes here. I know you don’t want baby and the bathwater our the door but at some point you need to look at the systems and improve upon them.
Flex is an improvement from nearly 2 years ago. Flex is honestly the best thing WoW has done in terms of social gamer design in 5 years. Every other item has been made to split people up. New post idea!
The odd LFG update is even older (and more or less a copy/paste of a mod). Stat squish was supposed to be in MoP.
The brawler’s guild and proving grounds are so full of potential. It’s one of those shake-your-fist things where you think it’s a lost opportunity. I is disappoint.
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