Listen to me. Ion in his genius was trying to bring world content in a whole new direction when he dreamed up the Maw. For the first time ever we got open world content where it was dangerous and you could actually die. Even more radical it was the first time the game implemented a death penalty and you could lose actual currency upon death. This risk creates a sense of exhilaration similar to Diablo 2 and the reason why hardcore Classic is so popular. Without risk there is no feeling of reward.
The ground-based gameplay also led to tons of world pvp happening in the zone. Some of the most memorable world pvp experiences are stalking players around the Maw, and then killing them before they could come back to pick up their corpse.
The zone was dark, gritty and beautiful. When you stepped into the Maw you could feel the hellish vibe right away. Compare that to the soulless low effort zones Blizzard is creating now. NO ONE is impressed by the new Emerald Dream zone, it looks like something that was released 15 years ago. Do people really prefer the snooze fest of these new zones where you instakill everything and the content is dead after one week?
Unfortunately this community is too full of complainers who canât contemplate anything new like actually challenging world content you donât just blow through and forget after the first week. The constant whining over the Maw means Blizzard is reverting back to boring world content with no risks, no rewards and nothing memorable.
Nah, it was utter crap. Everything is way better, even things like timerifts, dragonkeep siege and Emerald Dream stuff is massive improvement and on top of that you can fly everywhere. Nobody will ever miss that nonsense.
My âsense of exhilarationâ was so great that I went there once a week to collect the souls I needed for progression and then never set foot in the place again.
I think The Maw had a structured gameplay loop for solo content.
You picked up some quests, journeyed around The Maw doing the objectives, and participated in an event and killed some rares along the way.
Then you wrapped everything up, turned in your quests, emptied your bags, and tallied your spoils of war.
And that loop was actually quite well put-together and gave a fair effort to reward ratio.
It doesnât compare to todays events where you swoop in and see hundreds of players doing whack-a-mole, and then suddenly itâs over and rewards appear magically in your bags.
You werenât getting spoiled with instant gratification like that.
But for players who appreciated that solo gameplay loop where you actually had to run around and do stuff as an individual, it was a solid design.
It still left a lot to be desired, like a lot of things in WoW, but the notion that it was an indisputable 100% failure is a dense opinion to hold.
The whole thing about it was that it wasnât enjoyable.
It was content that was meant to feel like torture. The devs forgot that this is a game and itâs supposed to be fun.
The zone itself was also horribly designed, looked horrendous and just felt depressing.
So even IF the content there had been fun (which it wasnât), I still wouldnât want to spend my time there (and didnât - as a world content player who loves to be out and about I spend very, very little time in the Maw - not counting the Korthia part).
It was fun, and torghast was fun too. Itâs just not your style⌠They always should have different content and different visuals. I donât like any cutrent mounts, few cosmetics look nice⌠Everything is so Disney, while my style is like Maldraxxus, now itâs only Disneyland, even âscaryâ visuals are some orange Disneyland stuff. In SL thete was Disneyland, gothic, and hell/undead. That was a peak diversity.
No. In SL there was dark stuff and that was all. Light edgy, simply ugly, nature edgy and vampire edgy those were the covenant styles. And then there was depressingly edgy with the maw and torghast.
So now we have the opposite. Good!
I suffered for 2 years. Now its your turn to suffer.
Just think⌠in 15 years time those two kids will be multi millionaires dominating music everywhere and weâll be sitting in rocking chairs covering our ears muttering âwhy lord why?â
And I did? No.
It existed. And I hated it. I made it out the other side; and so can people who dislike DFâs themes and aesthetic.
I donât mind balanced themes. Iâm okay with beautiful, ugly, light, dark, pretty, scary etc.
But SL was NOT balanced.
So Iâm okay with DF not being balanced either.
I struggle to deal with these kind of sith-lord statements that deal in absolutes.
Are you saying that as a general observation? Because surely among millions of players, some would find it enjoyable, thus making the statement a falsehood.
Are you saying it from the perspective of your own personal and individual experience? If so, how is it relevant to a broader discussion on the zone? Again, the aforementioned point that there are millions of players, so thereâs always going to be those who very much liked something and those who very much didnât. That in itself is not insightful to point out.
Itâs content that revolves around playing your character. Thatâs the basic bread & butter experience of WoW. You run around and kill monsters with the abilities of your character. If thatâs torture, then this game is obviously not for you, because thatâs not a gameplay experience exclusive to The Maw.
Again, extreme comment, kind of silly to discuss. Your take is usually your own opinion which is black/white and portrayed as objective. Itâs a bit tiresome, especially when you donât argue the merit of the reasons for why you feel the way you do.
