Turning D&D into WoW?

[Mephistopheles]

--god forbid--Vaelastraz the Corrupt

Thank you *twitch* for bringing *twitch* that memory back *twitch*.

 

[Alnag]

Somehow I am sceptical about Ryan Dancey's opinion on this one. I like D&D, I like the preview and I am looking forward to play that way with my friends. And I am so NOT appealed by WOW or any other MMORPG... strange? Might be. But for me D&D 4e sounds like a cool game...

On the other hand... the games Ryan Dancey is currently hyped I have lot of negative experiences with. So here we are. On disagreement. I have a great respect for Ryan, but I think in this case he is simply wrong.

 

[Testament]

WoW's dragons have abilities involving breathing fire, biting, swiping people with claws, tail slaps, and flying.

D&D's dragons have abilities involving breathing fire, biting, swiping people with claws, tail slaps, and flying.

That seems reasonable to me. The thing about Onyxia is that she is designed as the archetypical dragon encounter. All the things she does are things that you expect a dragon to do. So naturally any description of a D&D dragon fight is going to resemble the Onyxia fight.

To quote myself the first time I led an Onyxia raid: "She's a freaking DRAGON! What do you think you're in for? Lots of sharp pointy appendages, flying and fire. Lots and lots and lots of fire."

Even the circumstance of Onyxia are pure dragonslaying archetype, a bunch of heroes get together to go into her lair, kill the dragon, and take its stuff. I'd be more worried if D&D's dragon fights, which have DEFINED the archetype for so long didn't resemble such a flagrant (and IMO, very fun) tribute to the source material.

As has been said, if the D&D dragon fight resembled the three minute madness of Vaelestrasz the Corrupt, or any of the Dragon bosses that AREN'T Onyxia, there might be an issue. Although come to think of it, with the amount of spellcasting 3E dragons do, many fights with them end up bearing more than a passing resemblance to Nefarian...

 

[ThirdWizard]

It's an example of combat, not an attack routine, ala the Balor in the 3.5 MM.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Thank you *twitch* for bringing *twitch* that memory back *twitch*.

Okay, there's clearly a story here, and multiple people have hinted at it. Despite my previous statement that I care nothing for WoW, I've gotten curious. What's the deal with this Vaelastraz character?

 

[Shadeydm]

Okay, there's clearly a story here, and multiple people have hinted at it. Despite my previous statement that I care nothing for WoW, I've gotten curious. What's the deal with this Vaelastraz character?

Second raid boss in the WoW instance called Black Wing Lair. It represented a big learning curve for a lot of guilds when the instance first went live. It all boiled down to aggro control good tank rotations and maxing out DPS towards the end of the fight. Its a really big red dragon that among other things blew up one member of the raid I guess you say per round except there really weren't rounds. You needed all 40 members to be on thier game to win (and for the servers not to be laggy).

 

[Nebulous]

For what it's worth...

I have no interest in WoW whatsoever. I'm sick of hearing about it.

And what I've heard of 4E appeals to me.

I'm sure there are some similarities, yes. WoW's popular, and it would be foolish to ignore that. But I'm also sure that there aren't as many as people are reading into it, since it's equally foolish for RPGs to compete with MMORPGs on the same field.

Yeah, i'm with Mouse. i've watched people play WoW and it bores me. Stand there and slash and heal and slash some more, etc. Of course, you can argue that D&D does the same thing, but from what i've seen, 4e is trying to make it more dynamic than that. Of course, i have seen very very little, and the game is still in the works.

 

[Driddle]

I may have missed this already, but what aspects revealed about 4th edition would suggest it's going to be more like Women of Wrestling?

 

[Njall]

New to the forums, hi all
Frankly, I've been playing WoW for about 2 years now, I've been farming Onyxia for about six months last year, and from my perspective ( off or main tank ) the fight described doesn't look as a WoW fight at all.
WoW is all about aggro control, healing the tank nonstop, dealing controlled dps and coordinating 10/25/40 people ( until TBC come out ).
The day I see a fight in D&D where the tank draws and keeps aggro, the healers spend 90% of their time in combat casting healing spells on the aforementioned tank and wizards and sorcerers only blast their opponent, maybe I'll see some similarities with WoW
As long as the DM doesn't become some kind of computer AI, I can't really think this will happen, though.

 

[satori01]

Since when can a dragon's tail slap knock someone 10 feet back?

Awesome Blow from the MM, Knockback feat, originally appearing in Sword & Fist I think

So now dragons apparently have the ability to spew a ball of fire which can ignite a person on fire. Again, cool new ability for 4E dragons, but look here again, the same WoW dragon has the same ability called Engulfing Flames. Yet another "coincidence", right?

Clinging Breath Metabreath Feat...from Draconomicon.

Dragons breath fire, whether they are D&D dragons or WoW dragons. Nothing new here. But the fact that it is now a Free Action just reeks of video "combo attacks".

See here I disagree, I think it reeks that most DM's feel a bit unsatisfied when running a monster that will never get to use all of their abilities, or use those abilities to the max.
That has been a big change in the design philosophy of monsters since 3.5, and only getting more prominent. W.O.W as a whole has done a good job of making Instance "Boss" battles very entertaining, seeming dynamic in terms of scripted events that alter the field of play, and engaging for everyone.

As a DM, I myself have been torn many times between using a Breath Weapon, and dealing a small amount of damage to the entire party, and thus letting everyone feel like they are involved....or doing the more expedient course which is have the dragon self buff to a huge AC, Hover just above a character and Full attack with Power Attack until he is dead....rinse & repeat.

All of the "new" dragon abilities we have seen in one form or another often as feats, ( 2 claws attacks as a standard action, some monsters can do that already, also see Whirlwind,). I do not think the 4E design is treading on sacred ground, or blatantly plagiarizing....people are being way to conspiracy theorist, and are ignoring the many different feats, spells, and classes in D&D that allow for "special" things to happen in 3.5.

For the record I will say this: I do not care where good ideas come from. D&D will never become like W.o.W. because of the human element, but W.o.W. is a fun game, and in terms of any MMORPG that I have played, stays the most fun the longest. Drawing on the lessons of a success is a good thing.