[1.Local]: Pondering the evolution of mechanics and classes

Tanks, Wrath and crushing blows
MMORPGs aren't the new kids on the block anymore-and neither are their players. Readers gathered in a number of posts this week to toy with the topic of WoW's continuing evolution as a game. This philosophical bent was sparked an insightful analysis from Allison Robert on the state of end-game tanking.

Readers are gobbling up the fresh perspectives. Ghostcrawler clattered in from the surf to dub Allison's post "a pretty good article." Here on WI, Blizzard forum regular Karilyn added, "Karilyn approves the message in this post. I personally vote for either buffing DK physical mitigation and nerfing their magical mitigation though, as opposed to your suggestion. It personally seems easier to rebalance 1 tank to be in line with the other 3, as opposed to trying to bring 3 tanks to be in like with Death Knights."

Plenty more comments where these came from. Be sure to read the full analysis and let us know where you think tanking should be heading.

Hearthstones down to 30-minute cooldown
Is gameplay becoming too streamlined? Does the recent downpour of convenience-oriented tweaks bring a breath of fresh air to stale, unnecessary game mechanics, or does it simply dumb the game down to snoozeworthy levels? Do changes like shortening hearthstone cooldowns to 30 minutes show that Blizzard is now prone to caving to QQs and customer rants?

Plastic Rat: "The complaints are more due to the fact that Blizzard caved to a bunch of enraged QQers on the forums. A 30-minute reduction on hearthstone cooldown is not going to have that big an effect on the game. Getting into the habit of listening every time the kiddies throw a tempter tantrum is very bad.

"Additionally, a lot of the changes are making the game 'less' like an MMO. Think about it ... How much of the game is actually completely necessary to gameplay? How about flight paths? You've seen it once, you've seen it a million times. Why have to sit through that rollercoaster every time you want to go somewhere? Why not just make it so you can click and teleport to any FP on the map?

"Note: If this is seeming like a great idea to you, you're missing the point... bigtime."

Jason: "As far as I'm concerned, they should just make the game more streamlined. Just bring up a list of instances/raids/BGs, form a group with any player from any server, and go play. All the traveling is meant to keep you playing longer and paying more, of course."

Plastic Rat: "Then it really wouldn't be an MMORPG, which it appears is exactly what most of the players want anyway."

Too simple now-or too much of a pain in the Pygmy Pants? What do you think?

The success of bring the player, not the class
We've talked at length about how Bring the Player, Not the Class is affecting raiding guilds. But what about the growing number of players who play through endgame content in PUGs?

"... I have found 25-man content to be much, much more forgiving of group makeup than 10-man," notes srhall. "It seems interesting to me that the designers would have group composition in mind especially for heroic content. When you've only got 10 slots, it seems choosing those players to be all the more crucial.

"Personal experience with bring-the-player-not-the-class? I think it's obvious that it's working within the confines of guild runs, but PUGs will (necessarily?) often rely on the dreaded equipment checks. My newly-80 healadin healed one of our guild tanks through 10-man OS and the spider wing of 10-man Naxx with blues and greens ... only to get booted from heroic Vault for bad equipment. That same healer healed another guild tank with blues and only a couple of epics (and unbuffed 24K life) through heroic HoL without much trouble."

Have you had an easier time getting into the raids you want on your server?

Time is money, friend
In case you've missed Time is Money, our new weekly guide to making gold in game, don't miss the helpful hints from readers after every column. The comments are proving to be a great place to get help and share experiences.

Ferarro: "Being an enchanter just from 70 - 80 will net you at least 5k gold, easy."

TyKell: "I'm curious, is it better value to disenchant these rewards than to just vendor them?"

Ferarro: "It's almost always better to disenchant them. Servers vary, but a single Greater Cosmic Essence goes for about 15g+ in AH."

TyKell: "Thanks for the info Ferarro, I'll have to get busy leveling my enchanter then; I'm running out of room for all my greens!"

Do you have any trademark strategies for offloading your daily take?

The state of twinking
max_bmw took the time to post a fairly lengthy outline of why he doesn't think twinking deserves to be looked down upon or even called cheating. "Many, not all, but many of the complaints about twinks simply don't hold water," he noted. "Take many of the complaints about twinks and attempt to apply it to level 80 PvP, and you will see what I mean.

"1. Some players (twinks) out gear other players – Unfair; or similarly, some players have obtained the best gear and enchants the Blizzard has made available to them - Exploit. Enter a lvl 80 BG in greens with no enchants and you stand a high chance of getting two shot. This is the case at any level of PvP. Everyone at level 80 is 'twinking', i.e. attempting to get the best items and enchants available. However, when this is done at level 80, it is often referred to as skill.

"2. Low-level twinks have no skill. It doesn't take much skill to press a button, no matter what level your character is. What most players do not have (twink or not, level 10 or 80) is a concept of teamwork, coordination, or achieving BG objectives. One of the most effective players I have seen was a level 12 warrior in a BG who simply stayed on the enemy flag carrier and kept them hamstrung all the way across the field.

"3. Twinks are just jerks who want to pwn noobs. Well, unfortunately, some are. However, these are the same people who take their level 80 to corpse camp lowbies in Darkshire and who sit in Trade acting like fools all day. This is really a people problem as opposed to a twink problem.

"4. Twinks take too much gold/time to create, or you have to have high level characters help you, or new players can not create twinks. Not true. As a personal challenge, I created a lone character on a new server to see if I could make him into an effective 19 twink, and I did. I ran with at level groups for the few instance drops needed and generated all the gold needed though mining copper and selling it in the AH. It took less than a week.

"5. Twinks are dumb/a waste of time. Endgame raiders and PvPers are dumb. They spent all that time getting the character to level 80. Then they do the same thing every week to get the best gear and enchants and then just replace it all a month later when the next patch comes out. Wow, see how easy that is. "WoW is a RPG. One of the core concepts of RPGs is raising one's stats to provide a relative advantage. No matter what level of play, some player/class will have some item or ability that provides them an advantage. I view this as a challenge rather than a problem. If you do view this as a problem, then perhaps a game such as Call of Duty which has no levels/gear/stats would be more to your liking or more palatable to your gaming philosophy."