old-grumpy
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Ol' Grumpy and the dumbing down debate
Hey, boys and girls, it's your old pal Ol' Grumpy. I haven't been around that often lately, partially because I haven't really found all that much to complain about lately. Luckily (or unluckily) there are always other people, who will do that kind of thing for you. Recently, I've seen the dread beast rear its ugly head again. What am I talking about? Well, I'm talking about the old canard "Why did you dumb the game down" that pops up on the forums from time to time. It is almost always incredibly subjective and drags out 'examples' that are, at best, arguable. It usually shows more about the person making it than the game itself, and it always makes all the hair (and I have a lot of hair) stand up in irritation. I really dislike this argument. Every single time I've seen or heard it, it's been used not to actually protest a decline in game complexity but to argue 'the game was better/harder/more fun when we had to do X" in some kind of demented paean to nostalgia and obstructionism. Frankly, I don't understand this mindset. "Back when I started the game, we had weapon skill, but then you dumbed it down" seems insane to me. How did weapon skill require any thought, exactly?
Ol' Grumpy and the crushing disappointment of roles
There are no pure DPS classes in World of Warcraft that use two-handed melee weapons to deal damage and only one pure DPS class that can even equip them. There are literally hundreds of two-handed melee weapons in this game. This has always annoyed me, because I love big weapons. I know you know this about me. One of the reasons I hate the argument that pure DPS classes should have dibs on top DPS weapons is that in order for me to play a character that uses a two-hander, I have no choice but to play a hybrid. In fact, in order to play as melee DPSer at all, I either have to play a rogue (all three rogue trees dual wield small, fast weapons) or a hybrid. Those are my options. If I wanted to play ranged DPS, I could pick from one of three possible pure classes, but if I want to melee, I'm forced to either give up the weapons I enjoy and take up a playstyle I don't like or accept that I will be forced to DPS at a penalty and be expected and/or pressured to tank. This to me is asking me to pay twice, and it's unacceptable. Last week, Ghostcrawler posted an excellent discussion on class and role that I highly recommend everyone check out, and it seriously has me pondering what design I'd prefer for World of Warcraft and indeed how I feel about classes and roles entirely.
