Dominick

The ability to jump.

 

bland

Marks of the Illidari -- free flasks. I just worry they will stiff us and not extend it to Sunwell.

 

Vectage

I believe the throne room above Undercity is still one of the greatest areas ever created in any game. Hearing Arthas betray his father is great.

 

aleyro

Lately, I've been impressed by how many different audiences blizzard is capable of satisfying:

• Questing and instancing, the recent buffs to lower level items, and the xp curve change keep the game fun for new characters and for alts.
• professions are a reasonably fun, effective means for alternative progression- crafted items are top notch, and services revenue is pretty respectable.
• Dailys, Heroics, and BGs provide a reasonable progression path (badges, s1 gear, etc) for newly dinged 70s.
• for the "casual" crowd who can't neccisarily devote the time to 25m raiding, karazhan remains fun and challenging, and ZA represents a great alternative progression path.
• The "standard" raid progression path from t4-t6 flows relatively well, and provides months of entertainment for your average guild.
• Arena provides a suprisingly scalable, self-governed environment for appropriately balanced PVP. two complete scrubs can duke it out against two other complete scrubs in the <1300s, or 5 world class gladiators can find equally suitable opponents in the 2300+ stratosphere.

The game is fun in groups from 1 to 40, and just about everything in between. Dailys are great solo content, Arena allows 2, 3, and 5 man PVP, theres tons of 5m and 10m PVE, BGs introduce 15m PVE, raiding fills the 25m slot. I would actually enjoy some new 20 and 40 man content, for either PVE or PVP, but we'll have to see...

 

Enova

I've been a Blizz fan since War 1, so of course my opinion is rather influenced by that...

So, firstly, the attention to details, the perfection, all in all the 'when it's ready' attitude. Having the whole story of the game reveal itself step by step; for instance, the Defias Brotherhood story going from level 1, up until Theramore Isle, and basically seeing it unfold based on MY actions; then the Onyxia attunement quests (which were awesome, but don't remind me, I just finished the Horde version for an alt :/); then the mystery at Cenarion Thicket, and so on. The chains vary from funny (the new Zul'Aman chain), to epic (as I said, the old Onyxia attunement).

Then, there's the world, the landscapes. Personally, I find myself on various alts where I turn off the Interface and start taking screenshots. And there's a hell of a lot of places that could work well as wallpapers on my desktop: the elven ruins in Feralas, Theramore Isle, seen from the docks, the dam between Wetlands and Loch Modan, the large chunk of rock suported by giant chains in Blackrock Mountain, Dragons' End in BEM, and especially my favourite, Hellfire Peninsula; that place is simply epic.

Next up is the voice acting. Brilliant. Period. Especially worth mentioning: Anub'rekhan, Ragnaros, Sekram, Gruul, Aran and Teron Gorefiend. From what I hear 4 Horsemen and Kel were awesome too. Oh, and I don't know how much they're paying the guy that does Aran, but they should double it

Let's see, now would be the balance bit. WOW was never balanced. But it always tended towards a balance. Nothing is overpowered for long (Insert random Warlock joke here :P ), and there's always something new around the corner to keep everybody more or less equal. New spells, new talents, new seasonal gear, etc. It all tends to even out things that didn't go quite right the last time.

Guilty as charged ^

 

aleyro

This comment reminded me of how good I think kara, in general, was executed.

Many of the encounters are an excellent example of great integration between lore, encounter design, class mechanics, zone/instance progression, and just plain fun.

I understand why attumen is in the stables, and I understand what moroes is doing, and I understand why theres a kitchen between those 2 bosses. I love how the opera connects to the ballroom. I get that curator is a guard robot, and I understand what he's guarding, and it makes sense for him to be where he is.

Aran is just about perfect- The (already mentioned) voice acting, his placement in the instance, the frantic nature of the fight (which matches his current state of insanity), the unpredictable nature of the fight, the organic nature of the "phases" (elementals, sheeping, etc). The placement of illhoof is pretty slick as well.... I could see how having a demon's secret sacrificial pit in the middle of my library might drive me insane.

things fall apart a bit, imo, when it comes to netherspite and prince, but WOW, the nightbane event really makes up for it.

In short (hmmmm, too late), everything about kara was pretty awesome, from the (logical, from a lore perspective) attunement process to the base game mechanics required throughout the instance.

 

xiaoxin21

One of the best things Blizzard implemented is Character Transfers to different realms. This allows players a second choice (your current server is dead/close to dying/no guilds raiding your timezone/your best friend on the other server wants you to join/your company posted you to Australia/your new girlfriend plays on Dragonmaw and will delete your character if you don't join her).

I would imagine this has saved quite a bit of customers for Blizzard which would have otherwise quited.Also allow guilds to have a much much bigger base to recruit players.

 

Bekah

I have to join the crowd in giving praise for Dailies. Not only did it cut down on the average player interaction with farmers stealing spawns, it also breathed life into the ability for some of the lowest dps specs to stay financially solvent while raiding- without requiring a friend to kill things for you. But there's also no real penalty for taking a healer along for your dailies if you feel inclined. (I do mine healbotting a warlock. Nice and fast)

Flexibility of the user interface allows people to adapt as the game and their abilities increase. Had I been given my current UI when I started playing- I would have been bewildered. Had I been forced to play with the default UI at my current level- I would be very frustrated. Mods are perfect to take it from basics to custom.

The lore. I wasn't a Warcraft fan before WoW. WC3 didn't make me care about the lore. WoW makes me care. It's so immersing and yet light (never preachy) that it always leaves you yearning to learn more- and there's always more to learn and more being released. I'm waiting for Wrath for the lore. All the other stuff is wonderful and great- but really I want more scourge/forsaken lore! there's a good story, and it's well illustrated.

Art. It's difficult to strike the balance between high quality and high performance. By taking the game to the more cartoonish side and working all of the artwork int he game into the same style you wind up with a stylistic look that will outlast the "trying to be real" graphics. It's like the difference between a Tim burton movie and a blockbuster action flick. Sure the blockbuster is going to be flashy and very up to the moment "real" but they're also going to look dated in 5 years and fade to memory whereas Legend of Sleepy Hollow is going to great as long as the recording media quality is unchanged because it leaned so heavily on it's own style. If WoW retains it's style- it'll outlast the flashier games as long as there are minor updates to resolution to keep it current (See: the difference between blood elf and human textures- Belf is slightly richer)

 

Metrosexuelf

Adapt dynamically to customer feedback/suggetions.

 

Belzebutinov

Bloodfang set and Judgement set. Two of the most beautiful things ever seen in this game.

 

Vaccine

I love how they continue to rework areas of the game. I mean the addition of ! and ? markers to the minimap is such a simple move yet it makes questing, and especially talking of leveling here, so much more of a joy. I wouldn't have said it possible if I'd read it on paper, but in practice I can waltz into a new town, glance at the mini map, ensure I've got all my quests and away I go. Its also allowed me to discover new quests I never knew existed.

The changing of many creatures from Elites to non-Elite was also good, I got to experience the DWM dragon quest chain that I'd never bothered doing before due to never being able to get a group and not having enough interest to do it on a higher level. Also the changes to items in leveling dungeons, and the change to thin the brackets of those dungeons, has made leveling a lot more fun. Whereas in the past I've rarely if ever bothered with an instance, since the patch I ran them tons on my alts and its been great fun.

 

Viator

Combat. I know it was touched on but unless you've played a lot of MMOs you won't see how good WoW's is in comparison. At base it's still the autoattack/press '1' when cooldown is up style that's been done but the animations, art and power of some of the combat abilities is such that you feel like a badass. Compare with LOTRO where it feels like you're moving in mud or EQ2, with its bigger, deeper world, amazing crafting... and hideous combat.

The art style dovetails with that. There's simply not another game like it. While it's chic in nerd circles nowadays to make fun of WoW's cartoony graphics I'm convinced that a large part of its lasting appeal is that bright color palette, the way everything is larger than life; incidentally, I think the same thing about TF2. The best graphics in the world can't replace a good art team.

The variety of play offered will be the most lasting contribution this game makes to MMO gaming. We're mostly raiders here of some variety but the vast majority of players aren't. The fact that people can craft, pvp, raid, small instance, heroic instance, quest, grind, socialize all to their own tastes is amazing

 

• Falk

Although I can understand why questing was "streamlined" in TBC, I do miss some of the epic roam-around-the-world questlines from pre-TBC. I'm probably one of the only people who enjoyed doing the Dungeon questline just to see 'what happens next' (at 70, soloed most of it).

Speaking of awesome questlines, there's so many little ones out there with a strong emotional attachment that deserve specific props to Blizzard. Mor'ladim, the wife of the Ironforge soldier who died, saving Sharpbeak (haha, go ahead and laugh ), Fordring... I believe there was a thread on EJ dedicated to amazing questlines some time back.

Deserving of additional special mention is the line from Blasted Lands which takes you to Aszhara to dig around for Giant manure, which leads to an easter-eggish letter from a victim-shaped deposit.

 

CaveCanen

Theorycrafting!

That's what brought me to this forum in the first place and i really love it: the mechanics behind the game! How everything is balanced and how it all affects gameplay.
Big thumbs up for all the "number-crunchers" at Blizzard, they are the ones with the really hard job: making it all work! Without it, no amount of artwork, UI modding, music or emotes would save WoW...

CC

 

Bubba

This was the single biggest issue I had with LOTR (and lets face it, there were many) - the combat felt laggy and disconnected. The response time, sound effects and animations in WoW all combine to make combat feel far more immediate and natural than most games. I think it's one of the most absolutely crucial aspects of getting an mmo right - if the combat feels slow or unresponsive, very few things will overcome that. Take WAR for example - if the combat doesn't feel right, it won't get off the ground.

 

Beaglemage

One of Blizzard's more recent very smart moves was to simply add badges to the KZ bosses. That was a terrific idea. In guilds that have a real mix of players in terms of gear, it gives a lot more incentive for the well-geared player to go back and help their guildmates or alts gear up and have some extra incentive to do so. Plus these same lesser geared toons get to accumulate badges and gear up that much more quickly by getting to buy rewards on top of whatever drops they can get. Just pretty much win-win.

 

Ozzmar

Great thread idea! I'll definitely second a lot of what's been said thusfar.

One thing I have always loved are the subtle pop-culture references in the game. For example...

• Beastial Wrath's reference to The Terminator.
• A sandworm quest NPC named after a character from Dune.
• A flimsy, blonde, BE chick named Haris Pilton, <Socialite>.
• The flavor text on Delicate Green Poncho referring to Clint Eastwood movies when he wore a green poncho.
• The frozen villain Kel'Thuzad's pet cat Mr. Bigglesworth (Austin Powers).
• The Commander Sarannis quoting John Paul Jones as she dies.

The list goes on and on. I love it!

 

Mjollnir

I forgot one:
Discussions with GMs. From the start until now- the personability and (relative) timeliness is fresh and enjoyable. Not to mention some of the crazy things they sometimes do/say.

 

Illundai

The AQ40 Scepter questline was probably the greatest thing ever in this game, close second with the amazing graphics of Naxxramas and the boss designs in that instance.

 

Belzebutinov

The race to opening the gates was pretty fun as well. It was one of those rare moments when the entire server had a chance to make itself a name, and not just the top guilds. Ahh, the nights spent on farming, what was it again? Silk, in Razorfen Downs, with the summoners that would summon skeletons to no end. Spend a night farming those, turn them in, and see how far yourrealm got.
God that race was one of the best things ever done by Blizzard

 

Melnor

Blizzard has done a good job of satisfying a lot of different types of gamers into one game. Whether you like to solo, be social, or pvp, you can do it in one game. Also they did a good job of making the game run on Windows and Mac and on 6 year old pc's. They also did a good job of dumbing down the RPG bulkiness to help entry-level gamers get aquanted to the semantics of RPGaming. They also have done a great job with making the game as obscure or as clear as you want it to be. Do you not care about theorycrafting and doing a shot rotation? Ok, that's fine, you can still play your character and not have to worry about it. Or you could be the total opposite. That's what I really like about the game, is the abstraction. You choose your level of involvement so to speak. I also think they did a good job with the leveling process where you can "feel" the effect of gaining a level. I also think they did a good job with the leveling revamp to address the lack of groups for old world content. And that leads me to probably the best thing Blizzard has done well is that they listen to player feedback. When you send feedback to Blizzard via forums or other channels you can be assured that it's not going into some spam email box and that it's a 2 way street, they will often respond to your feedback as well. They don't keep their players in the dark too much and that's what I like about Blizzard.

 

Calencia

The one thing Blizzard has done well more than any other MMOG I've ever played--you get to feel like a badass from the get-go. When you first zone in, you're not naked. You're not armed with a sponge bat and dressed in paper underwear. You don't spend your first hour stomping on cockroaches and stabbing rats and other non-heroic tasks.

No, in WoW, from the first moment you're taking on bandits or zombies or pony-sized animals or demons. You feel heroic, even though at level 1 you're the farthest thing from it.