Why is the WoW influence a bad thing?

[WhimsyTheFae]

The majority of my players were Hack-n-Slash before playing MMORPGs. Some never have played an MMORPG.

As far as WoW-style mechanics falling into my D&D, I am excited about the potential changes, as they appear to be changes that I will like and that will make my job easier.

 

[Rakin]

So, would you say that your hat of wow know no limit?

Did you mean hate? If not I'm confused, if so, I'm a little confused but not as much.

I actually play wow, currently and I have been for some time, although I'd really rather play table-top, wow does do a few good things.

First it lets me play with other people without having to leave my house, set up schedules (too much, except for raiding, but you an still do 5 mans easily on the spot with no schedule) or finding friends to play with.

It also allows me to do mindless boring gaming, just to pass the time away while I do something like watch a new tv show or listen to a CD.

It's really something I would not want out of Table-topping, due to all the prep work that is involved with getting together and getting all the meterials put together, those 2-5 hours a week or whatever, I would hope, need to full of excitement, as well as ups and downs.

Wow is where I go to relax, LA (Table-top) is where I go for fun.

I would (I won't be using 4e when it comes out) be scared to see this paradigm being shifted into my table top sessions, where it eventually just becomes the announcing of abilities and mindless rolling of dice, quite like how wow is just clicking abilities/spells non-stop.

 

[The Little Raven]

Did you mean hate? If not I'm confused, if so, I'm a little confused but not as much.

It's a 3rd Edition-based joke, which combines rabid unreasonable dislike with internet forum grammar humor. Many of the anti-d20 System complaints could easily be summed up with the simple statement...

my hat of d02 no know limit!

 

[The Little Raven]

They are basically creating AIs for monsters

No, they're focusing on relevant abilities for monsters, because honestly, you don't need to know that this celestial being has 12 ranks in Craft(Underwater Basketweaving).

setting up pre pathed abilities for players

Ever heard of "classes," those archetypes that send you down predetermined paths to particular abilities? I'm pretty sure you have, since they've existed as long as the game.

In fact, what they are doing is increasing the amount of customization of all character types, even more than 3rd edition had.

and telling everyone how there characters fit in a party.

Roles have always existed. Experienced players understand this, and usually know how to make characters to fill a role (3rd edition has an exception, as even an experienced player can build a character that is completely useless), but new players don't necessarily understand that kind of thing. They're just taking what already existed and making it visible to everyone, while making sure everyone has a function they can fill.

 

[Zurai]

I'm sorry, but go to www.wowwiki.com and look up (lessee) C'Thun, The Four Horsemen, Vaelestrasz the Corrupt, Nefarian, The Twin Emperors and sod it, I'll throw in Lady Vashj and the Reliquary of Souls for good measure. If I or any GM I've ever met was to try and run an encounter in D&D as complex as any of those fights are, the sounds of our heads exploding could be heard in Oslo. To say nothing of the logistics of trying to run a PnP for 10 people at once, let alone 25 or 40, which is the standard size for a WoW Raid.

Why should I look it up? I've beaten the majority of those encounters. The only ones I havn't even seen with my own eyes are Reliquary and The Four Horsemen.

Several of those fights aren't really that complex when you get down to it.

Nefarian? Every couple rounds he negates a certain ability for a couple rounds (healing magic is twisted, arrows fly wide, antimagic field, etc) - other than that he's a pretty standard tank & spank. His other abilities are absolutely nothing that weren't flat out stolen from D&D dragons in the first place. Damaging breath weapon? Check. Aura of fear? Check. Flight? Check. Plenty of mooks? Check.

Vaelastrasz? While the encounter wouldn't work in D&D because of the unpreventable death touch, it's a REALLY simple encounter. It's just tank & spank with the tanks dieing unpreventably every minute. Hell, he doesn't even have a fear or minions like the other dragons in the game.

The Twin Emperors? One's immune to magic, the other's immune to physical attacks. Every so often they cast a transposition spell. Their hitpoints are combined - if one dies, both dies. Pretty simple.

Seriously, there's nothing mechanically preventing you from playing any of these encounters in D&D. Nefarian is practically a standard D&D great wyrm dragon fight.

By the way - standard raid size is 10 or 25 now. There are no 40 man raids except old content that no one does. I have a DM that runs two different 9-10 man groups every other week. It doesn't take that much coordination.

Game time means nothing here. How long does it take you at the table? I'd wager that its a hell of a lot longer than 10 minutes.

I've had D&D boss fights take less than 10 minutes. However, the question is overall pacing - which is pretty much tied. A WoW raid usually runs for 3-4 hours (unless you're in Nihilum or one of the mega-cutting-edge guilds that run 8 hours a day 6 days a week). A D&D session usually runs for 3-4 hours. A WoW raid usually runs anywhere from 2-5 bosses per session (depending on how familiar with the content your raid is). A D&D session runs from 1-4 combat encounters per session. The pacing is pretty similar.

 

[Zurai]

That all being said, I don't think it'd be neccesarily wise to port any of the WoW bosses or general WoW combat mechanics to D&D. I'm just pointing out that there's nothing mechanical in WoW that could not be done in D&D, and very little that wasn't stolen from PnP RPGs in general.

It's rather silly to whine about the "WoWization" of D&D when WoW stole about half its gameplay from D&D directly.

 

[The Little Raven]

Every couple rounds he negates a certain ability for a couple rounds (healing magic is twisted, arrows fly wide, antimagic field, etc) - other than that he's a pretty standard tank & spank.

I've never seen a D&D encounter that makes it downright lethal for the cleric to continue healing his party (priest). Nor an encounter that causes a class to use it's defensive ability to protect an enemy (paladin). Nor forcing me to randomly polymorph an ally every few seconds (mage). Or causes your primary source of attack to become useless (hunter). Or that causes you to summon beings that will turn and fight you and your friends (warlock). Or that forces you into using abilities that increase the damage you take (warrior).

Yeah, when you strip away the unique aspects of things, they do start to look like everything else.

His other abilities are absolutely nothing that weren't flat out stolen from D&D dragons in the first place. Damaging breath weapon? Check. Aura of fear? Check. Flight? Check. Plenty of mooks? Check.

And most of these were flat out stolen from Tolkein and other sources. Is there a point to this statement?

Vaelastrasz? While the encounter wouldn't work in D&D because of the unpreventable death touch, it's a REALLY simple encounter. It's just tank & spank with the tanks dieing unpreventably every minute. Hell, he doesn't even have a fear or minions like the other dragons in the game.

It's way more than just a tank-and-spank with exploding tanks. It requires far more defensive-versus-offensive thinking (is damage more important than resistances?) than many fights, and keeps everyone focused on what they're doing (if someone isn't paying attention to their debuffs, the raid wipes) rather than just spamming Fireball the whole time.

Seriously, there's nothing mechanically preventing you from playing any of these encounters in D&D.

...wait a minute. You just said Vael wouldn't work in D&D.

Nefarian is practically a standard D&D great wyrm dragon fight.

With a huge, unique difference.

By the way - standard raid size is 10 or 25 now. There are no 40 man raids except old content that no one does.

All of the encounters discussed are 40-man raid encounters.

I have a DM that runs two different 9-10 man groups every other week. It doesn't take that much coordination.

If it didn't take that much coordination, then more people would be doing it. The fact that it doesn't happen often shows that it requires more coordination than you believe.

 

[Zurai]

I've never seen a D&D encounter that ... causes your primary source of attack to become useless (hunter).

Really? You've never seen a D&D encounter with flying enemies or antimagic fields? Ever? I find that hard to believe.

Yeah, when you strip away the unique aspects of things, they do start to look like everything else.

I did nothing of the sort. I even listed a few alternatives that would work in D&D. You can't translate it literally because - get this! - none of the WoW classes exist in D&D. What a concept. You have to adapt, and there is - once more, with feeling! - nothing mechanically preventing you from doing so.

And most of these were flat out stolen from Tolkein and other sources. Is there a point to this statement?

Yes. The point that I've already stated three times now, and you've apparantly ignored three times now.

...wait a minute. You just said Vael wouldn't work in D&D.

I said Vael wouldn't work in D&D because of the unpreventable death touches. You can do those in D&D mechanically, but no players would ever let you get away with it.

All of the encounters discussed are 40-man raid encounters.

Vashj and Reliquary of Souls are 40-man? Wow, who knew? I'll have to let my guild leader know that we've been working on Vashj with 15 fewer people than we should be!




Now that we're done being snarky to each other, could you please read and attempt to comprehend my follow up post? Or the original post, for that matter.

 

[Rakin]

I thought the argument was that by incorperating wow like mechanics (not boss content) you're promoting the downfall of use of the things that you CAN NOT do in wow. Like, I dunno, cast grease on the floor and have your half-orc (or I prefer oaf ) slide a giant piece of statue at the charging goblins.

Why try and stuff all the things that don't make tabletop unique in the game and leave little room for what does make it stand out from computer ran games?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

IMHO, looking at improving a system without looking at other related, and successful, systems is bad policy. Do MMORG's have a different feel and conceit? Of course. But that doesn't mean aspect of game design or actual mechanics are not good enough to plagarize.

In messageboards, however, too many times the extremes of opinion tend to drown out the more moderate {and IMO realistic} opinions. As such discussions about 4E and MMORGs will inevitably wind into overblown, unproductive conflict as two sides scream 'but MY way of gaming is better' like kids on a playground.

On the table, I think player inventiveness will always over-rule any 'scripted' system rules.