Today's luxury car buyers are mostly pretentious pricks that are solely focused on how prestigious a brand of car maybe and how much personal wealth the car shows off to other drivers on the road. They care very little about what a car is really about and this trend has enabled luxury car makers to rake in millions by selling on badge alone while heavily cuttin back on quality (Mercedes-Benz).
Back in the day buying a luxury car meant buying a more luxurious, safer, and more tech advanced car than a normal car but with the change in attitude and general change in consumer needs that logic holds little truth. Not only does people not care about a car's quality anymore than the badge on the hood, the whole consumer base demand more from an everyday car. This resulted in everyday cars becoming more luxurious, safer, and more advanced than what we are used to see, and in some instance more so than a so called luxury car. For example you can buy real leather seats, cooled seats, panaramic glassroof and various other tech options on a Hyundai Sonota, which used to be a very cheap to own economy car. It now has more luxury and tech options than a BMW 5 series, which equally equiped costs 30 to 40 grand more than the Sonata. The Sonata has equally impressive if not better safty rating as well. But no a luxury buyer would never consider these but only care about that BMW badge. Is that badge really worth 40k more? I don't think a Financial Adviser would ever advice you to indulge 40k on a BMW badge.
Unbeknownst to most luxury car buyers today is also the fact that most luxury cars are rebadged version of a cheaper car. This is a trick that automotive makers have been doing for decades to reduce the research and development cost of a new car. What makes more money than putting a Porsche badge on a VW and sell it for 30k more? Nothing and VW knows people would pay more for that Porsche badge as long as they are kept in the dark about it really being a VW.
So who really plays the rebadge game today? Well it's probably more widespread than you think, but lets gain an understanding first about what auto critics mean when they say something is rebadged, shares the same chasis or shares the same platform. Rebaging is when a car company takes a car and put a different badge on the front just so they can charge more, both cars are about 90% identicle and its by far probably the most dispicable practice in the industry. Sharing the same chasis means that two cars share the underlying frame and construction, so about 70% are same. Companies do this to save money on researching and developing complete new engine and frame. Sharing the platform means that two cars are same in skeleton frame only, they look different on almost every level except when you strip everything away so about 30% are the same.
1. Acura: It is still shocking that a lot of car buyers today don't know that Acura was a brand that Honda created for North American only so they can import their high priced Honda models from Japan to the U.S. You can say that Honda was the first foreign company that figured out the shallow nature of American consumers. They know Americans would never buy an expensive Honda based on badge alone since Americans preceive Hondas to be cheap economy cars. So Honda cased in in the late 70s buy rebadging several their Japan only models to Acuras only to sell for 10s and thousands more than the Honda counterpart. Examples were Honda Integra, Legend, and NSX. Honda was so sucessful with the rebaging they made millions selling the exact same car with Acura badge in the front that Toyota and Nissan soon followed. Today models such as the Acura TSX is no more than a rebadged Honda Accord from Japan and Europe. Acura TL and RL shares the same chasis with American Accord. The Acura RDX shares platform with the Honda CRV and the best selling MDX used to be a rebadged Honda Pilot and now only shares the chasis with it.
2. Toyota: it did take long for Toyota to follow Honda's success with Acura and create their own luxury brand in North America. The Lexus brand is arguable much more successful today than Acura but it may be shocking how many rebadged models they have today. The best selling ES is no more than a rebadged Toyota Camry, even the real wheel drive GS is based on the same chasis as the Camry. No wonder that car drives like an old persons boat even with the persona of sporty. The flagship Sedan LS also shares the same chasis with the Toyota Avelon, no surprise there. The so called 3 series fight IS shares the same platform with the Toyota corolla and in their SUV lineup the GX is no more than the rebadged Toyota 4runner and the more expensive LX is rebadged Toyota Landcruiser, which is already a very luxurious and expensive.
3. Nissan: Nissan maybe late to the party but they are no strangers to rebadge engineering either. The wildly popular G series is rebadged Nissan Skyline, which itself is a very popular car in the import street racing scene. The M series is based on a luxury Nissan model for Japan only, and most of their crossovers are created for American market only.
4. Mercedes-Benz: The mighty Mercedes is probably the most recognizable luxury name in the world 20 years ago, and today they make some disgustingly low quality and unreliable cars. How the mighty has fallen, but at least they can still sell their grossly over priced cars based on their famed three star emblem and the tagline "we created the first car ever!" Let's forget for second how cheaply made the modern C and E classes are but take a look for second how rebadging has affected Mercedes as well. When the SUV/crossover market boomed in America during the 90s Mercedes wanted to join the fun but like other European car makers they had no experience making those SUVs. They then joined forces with Chyrsler primarily to rebabge popular American SUVs such as the Jeep grandcherokee into the now popular ML and GL class. Maybe that's why those Mercedes SUVs are so prone to break down since they are really Jeeps. Even today after the Merc and Chrysler split, the ML and GL still share chasis with many Chrysler vehicles.
5. Audi: When you wanted to buy a luxurious German sedan the choices used to be Mercedes or BMW, but now Audi has joined the party. VW capitalized Americans tendency to have short term memories, people knew Audi used to be no more than a rebadged VW and now since they are priced much more than before, they must be real luxury cars like BMW and Mercs right? Well the truth is many Audis still share the same platform or even chasis as their VW siblings. Even the famous Audi super car R8 is a rebadged Lamborghini Gallardo, doesn't Audi make any of their own cars?
6. BMW: BMW is probably the only luxury car maker in the world that you can truly say that make absolutely every single model with their own unique design. But they are also the most guilty when it comes to over charging their cars based on their badge. BMWs are arguablly the worst when it comes to standard luxury options and conviences on their cars and yet their pricing seem to increase about 100 times faster than the current inflation rate, they are probably the company that have capitalized the most with the American consumers pretentious nature by selling awefully equiped cars for 3 or 4 times as much as a car that is much better than their own. What's funny is in Europe BMW's are just like a Ford in America, in it's most basica form it has absolutely nothing. They come with cloth seats, manuel seating, and some of them don't even have cruise control. But as soon as Americans see the BMW badge they are ready to mortgage their future to buy one.
7. American brands: now you may ask why group all of them together. Well by now hopefully everyone realizes that Americans are probably the pioneers when it comes rebadging, all the our luxury brands such as Cadillac, Lincoln and Buick and rebadged version of their cheaper siblings like Ford or Chevy. These models are also rebaged into European brands when sold in Europe since Ford and GM owns a lot of European car makers, people just don't know that.
8. Jaguar: well British cars certainly has a very tumaltous history. They were never luxurious enough to compete with the Germans, they were never reliable enough to compete with the Japanese and they were certainly never cheap enough to compete with the Americans. Jaguar had so many different ownerships during its existence that it's cars own rebadged so many different times. It's true they make a lot of their own cars but some of their more popular ones were rebadged from Ford, GM and other car makers. Now they are owned by Indians, the future doesn't look exactly bright.
9. Land Rover: true to its British nature, the Land Rover cars are way worse than they are preceived to be. They are said to be elegent yet many German and Italian cars are much more stylish and luxurious. They are said to be tough off roaders yet most American SUVs such as Jeep are much better and tougher off road than any Range Rovers out there. They are said to built with such quality that will last forever, well this is a complete joke since Land Rover has never ranked higher than dead last or 2nd to last in any of the reliability rating systems. I guess they have one thing going for them which is they don't rebadge any cars but that's easy to do if you only make a new car every 20 years. In its 100 year history Land Rover only introduced 5 new Range Rovers ever. To compare most companies come out with a new car every 5 to 6 years. And even so they don't rebadge, Land Rover has never created their own engine as they have always borrowed engine from Jaguar, BMW, Ford or GM.
9. Porsche: Porsche is known for making small sporty cars such as the 911 but they can't escape the rebadge job either. Never mind that 911 was just the VW beetle when it first started, but Cayenne is no more than a rebadged VW Toureg. Porsche is not exactly known for its SUV making so they consulted their parent company VW to rebadge.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Random thoughts part 3: back from the city of brotherly love
Driving across the state for 6 hours straight is never easy, especially after you stay home and sleep on your own bed for 2 weeks. Even though this will be my final trip for the time being it was still hard to get in the mood of driving and staying in a hotel for 2 weeks again.
-When the weather is nice it's always an uneventful drive, but when it start snowing it can be real bad. Especially if you are driving at night on an interstate highway used mostly by truck drivers and there is a blizzard. With the combination of asshole truck drivers and hellish road condition it was almost the end for me...by about 2 inches.
-The city of Philadelphia is very weird to me as it one of the largest metropolitan in the U.S., but I am just not used to the grid set up with the tiny narrow roads with cars parked on both sides and people riding bicycles on it. I was waiting all night for us to hit someone or some car parked on the street.
-A night in Philadelphia China town, one of the oldest China towns in North America. However half the people on the street were not Asian but Blacks. Overall it was a good night fun that involved clubs, spicy squid and Ox penis soup...hmmm maybe that was club "Woody" at the Gayborhood, not really sure.
-Now for the real random thoughts of the day. I keep on seeing the what can Toyota's innovation do for you commercials and it made me think, who are some of the LEAST innovative car makers in recent memories?
1. Honda/Acura
Honda and Toyota used to be like flavor of ice creams, whoever you pick is the same at the core. But last 10 years Toyota has really differentiated itself from Honda as it really made a huge push for their luxury brand Lexus, a huge push for technology and all these has helped Toyota become one of the largest car maker in the world, leaving Honda in the dust. Buy a Honda today you will realize a few things, they either really believe the motto if it aint break don't fix it or they are just that conservative. Did you know that my 2008 highest trim Civc doesn't even have any kind of stability control? Neither did I, and you will not believe it either when I tell you Honda is about to make an Insight w/o cruise control. Honda is really starting to wear thin that reputation for reliability and the once mystical V-tech engine. But Honda wasn't always this way, here is a list that will shock you.
-Honda is one of the first to develop the stability control system in the early 90s, yet it is one of the last to adopt it on all of its car line ups.
-Honda is the first to differentiate their brand by inventing Acura for the North American market. Shocking because you will never know it if I ask you which one is more well known, Lexus or Acura.
-While Lexus used to be re-badged Toyota cars, it is no longer the case as Lexus is making more and more luxurious cars with very high techs. Acura on the other hand still plays the same hand since the introduction in early 80s. The Acura TSX is still a re-badged Honda Accord, in fact it's the Honda Accord in the rest of the world and in every sense of the car too. For example it still doesn't have keyless start/stop while Ford Fiesta has it.
2. BMW.
-Speaking of wearing that reputation very very thin. BMW used to represent the pinnacle of automotive engineering, from that mystical 50/50 weight distribution to the world renowned straight 6 engine. Every part of each BMW makes the ultimate driving machine come alive, and then it decided to join the luxury market and battle it out with Mercedes. It's all good but race cars are usually light and nimble, while luxury cars are big and lazy, so something has to give. Well unfortunately for all the car enthusiasts out there the cars are getting bigger and heavier, and to make up for the weight gains, the engines are getting bigger too. So now that unique bimmer experience is almost no more than a big muscle car.
-Another problem with BMW is using their their reputation to sell cars. They charge a hefty premium on their cars because they know people want that advanced German engineering and the luxury branding. But did you know BMW still live in 1990 when it comes to the definition of luxury? Here is a list of things that are not standard on the best selling BMW 3 series that starts at $34000, be warned this could be so shocking it could cause potential blindness.
a. Leather is not standard. This is truly a WTF moment, seeing as you can get leather standard on a 20000 dollar VW Jetta. I have no idea why it's not on a Bimmer.
b. Fake plastic wood. If I wanted those I could get them on a 18000 dollar Toyota Corolla and not a 3 series that can cost as much as 52000 dollars and not have real wood trims.
c. other seemingly minor things that are not standard on a BMW 3 series. Moonroof, Xenon headlights, heated seats, keyless entry, keyless start, the list just goes on and on. Now you may say not having these are not as bad but when you realize that these are standard on a Hyundai Sonata then it doesn't look particularly good for BMW when the cheapest 3 series is about 15000 dollars more than said Sonata and with all these options equipped, you could easily add another 10000 dollars to that price tag. What's more to this embarrassment is the lack of power in the 3 series, because the said Sonata also has way more power and speed than the world renowned 3 liter straight six engine, the ultimate driving machine indeed.
-When the weather is nice it's always an uneventful drive, but when it start snowing it can be real bad. Especially if you are driving at night on an interstate highway used mostly by truck drivers and there is a blizzard. With the combination of asshole truck drivers and hellish road condition it was almost the end for me...by about 2 inches.
-The city of Philadelphia is very weird to me as it one of the largest metropolitan in the U.S., but I am just not used to the grid set up with the tiny narrow roads with cars parked on both sides and people riding bicycles on it. I was waiting all night for us to hit someone or some car parked on the street.
-A night in Philadelphia China town, one of the oldest China towns in North America. However half the people on the street were not Asian but Blacks. Overall it was a good night fun that involved clubs, spicy squid and Ox penis soup...hmmm maybe that was club "Woody" at the Gayborhood, not really sure.
-Now for the real random thoughts of the day. I keep on seeing the what can Toyota's innovation do for you commercials and it made me think, who are some of the LEAST innovative car makers in recent memories?
1. Honda/Acura
Honda and Toyota used to be like flavor of ice creams, whoever you pick is the same at the core. But last 10 years Toyota has really differentiated itself from Honda as it really made a huge push for their luxury brand Lexus, a huge push for technology and all these has helped Toyota become one of the largest car maker in the world, leaving Honda in the dust. Buy a Honda today you will realize a few things, they either really believe the motto if it aint break don't fix it or they are just that conservative. Did you know that my 2008 highest trim Civc doesn't even have any kind of stability control? Neither did I, and you will not believe it either when I tell you Honda is about to make an Insight w/o cruise control. Honda is really starting to wear thin that reputation for reliability and the once mystical V-tech engine. But Honda wasn't always this way, here is a list that will shock you.
-Honda is one of the first to develop the stability control system in the early 90s, yet it is one of the last to adopt it on all of its car line ups.
-Honda is the first to differentiate their brand by inventing Acura for the North American market. Shocking because you will never know it if I ask you which one is more well known, Lexus or Acura.
-While Lexus used to be re-badged Toyota cars, it is no longer the case as Lexus is making more and more luxurious cars with very high techs. Acura on the other hand still plays the same hand since the introduction in early 80s. The Acura TSX is still a re-badged Honda Accord, in fact it's the Honda Accord in the rest of the world and in every sense of the car too. For example it still doesn't have keyless start/stop while Ford Fiesta has it.
2. BMW.
-Speaking of wearing that reputation very very thin. BMW used to represent the pinnacle of automotive engineering, from that mystical 50/50 weight distribution to the world renowned straight 6 engine. Every part of each BMW makes the ultimate driving machine come alive, and then it decided to join the luxury market and battle it out with Mercedes. It's all good but race cars are usually light and nimble, while luxury cars are big and lazy, so something has to give. Well unfortunately for all the car enthusiasts out there the cars are getting bigger and heavier, and to make up for the weight gains, the engines are getting bigger too. So now that unique bimmer experience is almost no more than a big muscle car.
-Another problem with BMW is using their their reputation to sell cars. They charge a hefty premium on their cars because they know people want that advanced German engineering and the luxury branding. But did you know BMW still live in 1990 when it comes to the definition of luxury? Here is a list of things that are not standard on the best selling BMW 3 series that starts at $34000, be warned this could be so shocking it could cause potential blindness.
a. Leather is not standard. This is truly a WTF moment, seeing as you can get leather standard on a 20000 dollar VW Jetta. I have no idea why it's not on a Bimmer.
b. Fake plastic wood. If I wanted those I could get them on a 18000 dollar Toyota Corolla and not a 3 series that can cost as much as 52000 dollars and not have real wood trims.
c. other seemingly minor things that are not standard on a BMW 3 series. Moonroof, Xenon headlights, heated seats, keyless entry, keyless start, the list just goes on and on. Now you may say not having these are not as bad but when you realize that these are standard on a Hyundai Sonata then it doesn't look particularly good for BMW when the cheapest 3 series is about 15000 dollars more than said Sonata and with all these options equipped, you could easily add another 10000 dollars to that price tag. What's more to this embarrassment is the lack of power in the 3 series, because the said Sonata also has way more power and speed than the world renowned 3 liter straight six engine, the ultimate driving machine indeed.
WoW Pic post
As Promised before, I am posting pictures I took while I did my review for Cataclysm since I did not post them on the review post. Here they are.
-The world Tree of Hyjal is now here for everyone to see.
-Here is the World Tree in the distance while in Orgrimmar.
-Starting Zone Vasj'er puts a whole new perspective in underwater adventures.
-Someone order a Seahorse ride?
-Everyone knows about the new water graphics, but check out this sweet lighting.
-There are no new classes in Cata, but new class/race combos like this troll druid.
-Goblin starting quests involve a lot of getting blown into the air, rocket boots, oh and Goblin engineering at it's best, rocket mounted laser shark.
-Pain. Agony. My hatred burns through the cavernous deeps. The world heaves with my torment. Its wretched kingdoms quake beneath my rage. But at last, the whole of Azeroth will break! And all will burn beneath the shadow of my wings!
-And lastly you can always count on Blizzard to put in a subtle pop culture reference like they have done in the past 6 years.
-The world Tree of Hyjal is now here for everyone to see.
-Here is the World Tree in the distance while in Orgrimmar.
-Starting Zone Vasj'er puts a whole new perspective in underwater adventures.
-Someone order a Seahorse ride?
-Everyone knows about the new water graphics, but check out this sweet lighting.
-There are no new classes in Cata, but new class/race combos like this troll druid.
-Goblin starting quests involve a lot of getting blown into the air, rocket boots, oh and Goblin engineering at it's best, rocket mounted laser shark.
-Pain. Agony. My hatred burns through the cavernous deeps. The world heaves with my torment. Its wretched kingdoms quake beneath my rage. But at last, the whole of Azeroth will break! And all will burn beneath the shadow of my wings!
-And lastly you can always count on Blizzard to put in a subtle pop culture reference like they have done in the past 6 years.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Going Green?
With the gas price continues to climb toward the 5 dollar a gallon mark that is supposed to be by the end of this year, the once unthinkable mass hybrid cars is not so far fetched in the U.S. anymore. There was a time that when you talked about hybrid vehicles the only car that popped in one's head would be the Toyota Prius, and the only people that drove those cars were the extremists that wanted to make a statement. In another words they were as rare as a Ferrari on a regular U.S. road. But with the oil crisis upon us once again we are starting to see more and more manufacturers show casing their hybrid vehicles, and we are seeing them on the roads regularly now as well. It seems that every auto journalist is raving about the new hybrid or even true electric cars, about the insane gas milage they get. Drastic time calls for drastic measures, even some of the performance orientated car makers such as Porsche are making hyrids, and you know we are really in a shit now.
BMW has been known for making all around performance cars that are not so gas effient for the best part of last 50 years. But even they can not escape the current situation, however in true BMW fashion they will not just make another hybrid cars like everyone else is doing, they are making a BMW first and foremost.
Since 2009 BMW has been working on their next gen hybrid vehicles code named "Vision Efficient Dynamics". So what is it exactly other than the extremely long name? Well it will start with a very small 1.3 liter 3 cylinder turbo charged diesle engine, which is the engine of choice in Europe to save gas instead of regular gas engines or electric engines. It is then mated with 2 electric motors on each drive axl, and all these 3 engines will then be routed to all 4 wheels producing approximately 360 horse power thus making the vehicle going from 0-60 in less than 3.9 seconds. In another word instead making another boring hybrid BMW basically made a super car, but how good is the miage? BMW recently test it out in Dubai and got around 63 mpg average, and that is damn impressive for this what I think is ridiculous car and totally not one would have anticipated when they heard a hybrid. So yeah if you have 200 grand laying around and wanted to make a green statement, check this car out which is due in 2013.
BMW has been known for making all around performance cars that are not so gas effient for the best part of last 50 years. But even they can not escape the current situation, however in true BMW fashion they will not just make another hybrid cars like everyone else is doing, they are making a BMW first and foremost.
Since 2009 BMW has been working on their next gen hybrid vehicles code named "Vision Efficient Dynamics". So what is it exactly other than the extremely long name? Well it will start with a very small 1.3 liter 3 cylinder turbo charged diesle engine, which is the engine of choice in Europe to save gas instead of regular gas engines or electric engines. It is then mated with 2 electric motors on each drive axl, and all these 3 engines will then be routed to all 4 wheels producing approximately 360 horse power thus making the vehicle going from 0-60 in less than 3.9 seconds. In another word instead making another boring hybrid BMW basically made a super car, but how good is the miage? BMW recently test it out in Dubai and got around 63 mpg average, and that is damn impressive for this what I think is ridiculous car and totally not one would have anticipated when they heard a hybrid. So yeah if you have 200 grand laying around and wanted to make a green statement, check this car out which is due in 2013.
Monday, January 3, 2011
My review on WoW: Cataclysm
Disclaimer: This is in no way a representation of the end game experience with current end game raids and other level 85 contents, this is just my initial impression of the game. Also there will be no pictures in this presentation as they were mistakenly stored on a different computer.
Six year after initial launch and the game has been dramatically changed, but was all this worth it for someone that has stopped playing after that disastrous Wrath of the Lich King? At first look Cataclysm is definitely Blizzard's most ambitious expansion pack for WoW yet, it contains so many game changing fixes that it could very well be it's own game. I took a closer look at what all these changes mean to a game in many ways need a jolt to reinvigorate millions of its loyal fans.
-vs. WotLK
Any veteran WoW player will be able to tell you, Wrath of the Lich King started on a good note as it featured one of the the most dramatic story line in the Warcraft history with the fall of Arthas. However as all these players will be able to tell you that all that good didn't last as WotLK ended on a sour note with many can not wait for the arrival of Cataclysm. Wrath did add many good features but in the mean time took away quite a few very important things that made vanilla and The Burning Crusade great. Wrath continued the transition of making the game more and more accessible to more players meaning it has gotten easier. To many this was the main complaint as it got so ridiculous by the end that you can literally hit level 80 and be decked out in epics in two weeks. Everyone in the game had a chance to kill the Lich King, a very good chance too. On the other hand PvP continues the imbalance of classes through more emphasis on arena. By all it feels like it has lost everything that made WoW a unique and perfectly polished MMO into a browser game that anyone that knows how to turn on a computer can play, and kill the Lich King on top of that. Arena titles like Gladiator meant nothing as well since anyone that plays a Warlock and have a cat can get the title.
But not all is bad though. Wrath did introduce some new game plays and techniques that were welcome in this aging game. Blizzard experimented phasing with the Death Knight and other key events through out Wrath that really made story telling in an MMO much better, and they also made looking for group easier with the queue system that was much much better that the dreaded hour long search for a tank on top of the Orgrimmar bank. One thing you will notice when you first play Cataclysm is all these welcome features are back and more heavily used. You will see phasing right away in the starting zones in Cataclysm as you progress in quests the landmarks and things around you will change. The LFG queue is back as well as you can queue for Catacylm dungeons right away provided that you have discovered the instance entrance. As for the bad things, this is what makes Blizzard one of the greatest developer in the industry. They listen to the community and change what is not right accordingly. It has been known for a year now Blizzard intend to fix everything that is wrong with Wrath by increasing the difficulty level of the game and making epic gear and epic end game bosses truly epic again. Meanwhile they will reinvest in battlegrounds again in hope of lessening the importance of arena game play. All these sounds good at Blizzcon but can they really deliver since it contridicts to what they wanted to do which is make the game more accessible and more casual?
-Changes for the good?
Cataclysm features two starting zones just like Wrath and immediately you will realize that the difficulty has been kicked up a notch. The mobs have alot more health than you and hits like a truck espcially if you are poorly geared to start with. Even classes that feature extreme ease in leveling such as Warlock or Death Knight have to stay awake this time around as if not careful you can easily die on one of the first quests. This will be more evident if you play a class that can not take a hit or in poor gear as you will die a lot. So in a way the game is more difficult right off the bat even though this is probably not exactly what people were complaining about. So what are the dungeons and raids like? espcially the heroic versions? Well I couldn't really comment on those since in the limited time I had to spend with Cataclysm I really didn't get a chance to try them out. I did however tried various normal version of different dungeons while leveling but they were nothing special in terms of difficulty. I did have a chance to tank in one of the heroics in beta and it was quite difficult, I wouldn't call it TBC difficult but it was still hard. It's a step in the right direction although you will still question Blizzard's intention after guilds have finished raids within 2 weeks of the release of Cataclysm. It definitely puts the wrong messages out there and slowly the epic gears are starting to make it's way into the game and all the blue gear lasted all but 2 weeks of the game. As far as PvP goes battlegrounds are more important now but arena still plays a big role for people that want to earn PvP gear quickly, the way I see it the only way to fix this problem completely is to remove arena entirely.
For the noobs and casual players that started playing in Wrath and still want to feel superior with all their easy kills and easy gears, what does all these changes mean? It means the game is more chanlleging to play and you might actually need your brain now, but it is still not nearly as hard as Vanilla or TBC ever was. As far as accessibilty goes it has gotten more so in a different way. You see for the person that is just getting into the game now the level 1-60 quests are much easier to do and make much more sense while doing them, you get quests that lead you to the next zone and quest rewards that are actually useful. It also features mount service to zones so lower level noobs don't have to wonder around for hours looking for the next town and getting killed in the wilderness and eventually get frustrated into rage quitting. The story line involved with questing make much more sense too if anyone still cares about story plot. And if questing and exploring the vast land of Azeroth is not for you then queue for random dungeon not only gives you superior experience to leveling it also gives you blue gear as reward for doing it. It also helps that majority of dungeon quest givers now are inside of the dungeon rather than making noobs going all over Azeroth collecting them thus further confusing said noobs. To test the accessibilty of the new leveling system I personally make a new hunter and through mixure of questing and random dungeons I was able to get all good blue gear and level to 35 in roughly 2 days of playing.
After all I can safely say all the changes are for the better even though it's not quite on par to what everyone hoped.
-New Content
All the changes to the old world is great for attracting new players but is there enough new content for vetern players? That is a very important question since the biggest problem with Wrath was at times it felt like Blizzard was only concerned with attracting new/casual players and they don't really care about all the die hard vetern players. From what I have heard that there is actually less new zones in Cataclysm than WotLK but they all vary greatly in terms of landmark and quests they feel a lot more fresh than Wrath zones. For example many player seems to prefer leveling in mount Hyjal but I found that Vasj'er was a lot more original and overall cooler zone. It's starts with a movie with your boat sinking along the shore of Eastern Kingdom and the whole zone then is under water, with you getting your seahorse mount shortly afterwards. It doesn't give you as much gear rewards as Hyjal quests so if you are not already decked out in ICC epics then it might be better for you to level in Hyjal, other than that every single aspect of Vasj'er is supperior to Hyjal. Also the game ships with 4 end game raids compare to the 1 that was in Wrath, and none of these raids are recycled like Naxx was for Wrath. Other changes such as game mechanics are no strangers to WoW as Blizzard constantly fine tunes game play through each patch, however I can not comment on them too much as I didn't reach end game to really know how each class plays different. What I can say is some more evident changes are welcome while some are not. The changes to the talent tree are welcome in my opinion as the old talent tree was getting too bloated with a lot of pointless talents. Now it's more concise and most of neccessary passive talents and some more important ones that everyone gets such as mortal strike, everyone will get them depending on the tree you go for. Some of the less welcome changes to me include changes to Orgrimmar, I really hated it at first and while I am slowly getting used to it now I still enjoy the less confusing design of the original Orgrimmar. Others include the deletion of Portals in major cities, and here I thought Blizzard is trying to make the game more accessible to noobs.
With Cataclysm Blizzard also introduces 2 new races but no new classes. Both Goblin and Worgen are cool race in their own right with Worgen more so for obvious reasons. But what makes them cooler is their starting zones. Both feature heavy phasing especially Worgen. The city of Gilneas is a dark gothic city along the coast of Eastern Kingdom, and the starting quests will take you through out the city and the vast lands around it. As you progress through the quest line you will slowly see the changes within Gilneas as the city slowly decays and eventually falls into ruins with the invading Forsakens. Goblin starting zone is at a much lighter note with the upbeat music even though the island of Kezan is getting destroyed by Deathwing but the lack of seriousness is apparent in the Goblin's solution of blowing everything up. This includes putting rockets up monkeys' asses and chickens while setting bombs off on everything you touch. Overall Blizzard really out done themselves on these 2 starting zone in terms of showing off the new phasing tech and story telling. It translates well for the rest of the game too and that's what makes Cataclysm leveling less tedious.
-Conclusion
All these are great but is Cataclysm enough to bring excitement to a 6 year old game? Blizzard always make great trailers to hype people up but at the end of the day as you play in Cataclysm you realize it's still the same old WoW, you get to 85, you grind all the rep, you get gear in heroics and you do raids. Nothing more nothing less it's just the road to that goal might be more enjoyable now than Wrath. For me all the changes are great but Blizzard needs to do a lot more than this to convice me, therefore Cataclysm is not quite that earth shattering event I am looking for.
-Final Score: 8/10
Six year after initial launch and the game has been dramatically changed, but was all this worth it for someone that has stopped playing after that disastrous Wrath of the Lich King? At first look Cataclysm is definitely Blizzard's most ambitious expansion pack for WoW yet, it contains so many game changing fixes that it could very well be it's own game. I took a closer look at what all these changes mean to a game in many ways need a jolt to reinvigorate millions of its loyal fans.
-vs. WotLK
Any veteran WoW player will be able to tell you, Wrath of the Lich King started on a good note as it featured one of the the most dramatic story line in the Warcraft history with the fall of Arthas. However as all these players will be able to tell you that all that good didn't last as WotLK ended on a sour note with many can not wait for the arrival of Cataclysm. Wrath did add many good features but in the mean time took away quite a few very important things that made vanilla and The Burning Crusade great. Wrath continued the transition of making the game more and more accessible to more players meaning it has gotten easier. To many this was the main complaint as it got so ridiculous by the end that you can literally hit level 80 and be decked out in epics in two weeks. Everyone in the game had a chance to kill the Lich King, a very good chance too. On the other hand PvP continues the imbalance of classes through more emphasis on arena. By all it feels like it has lost everything that made WoW a unique and perfectly polished MMO into a browser game that anyone that knows how to turn on a computer can play, and kill the Lich King on top of that. Arena titles like Gladiator meant nothing as well since anyone that plays a Warlock and have a cat can get the title.
But not all is bad though. Wrath did introduce some new game plays and techniques that were welcome in this aging game. Blizzard experimented phasing with the Death Knight and other key events through out Wrath that really made story telling in an MMO much better, and they also made looking for group easier with the queue system that was much much better that the dreaded hour long search for a tank on top of the Orgrimmar bank. One thing you will notice when you first play Cataclysm is all these welcome features are back and more heavily used. You will see phasing right away in the starting zones in Cataclysm as you progress in quests the landmarks and things around you will change. The LFG queue is back as well as you can queue for Catacylm dungeons right away provided that you have discovered the instance entrance. As for the bad things, this is what makes Blizzard one of the greatest developer in the industry. They listen to the community and change what is not right accordingly. It has been known for a year now Blizzard intend to fix everything that is wrong with Wrath by increasing the difficulty level of the game and making epic gear and epic end game bosses truly epic again. Meanwhile they will reinvest in battlegrounds again in hope of lessening the importance of arena game play. All these sounds good at Blizzcon but can they really deliver since it contridicts to what they wanted to do which is make the game more accessible and more casual?
-Changes for the good?
Cataclysm features two starting zones just like Wrath and immediately you will realize that the difficulty has been kicked up a notch. The mobs have alot more health than you and hits like a truck espcially if you are poorly geared to start with. Even classes that feature extreme ease in leveling such as Warlock or Death Knight have to stay awake this time around as if not careful you can easily die on one of the first quests. This will be more evident if you play a class that can not take a hit or in poor gear as you will die a lot. So in a way the game is more difficult right off the bat even though this is probably not exactly what people were complaining about. So what are the dungeons and raids like? espcially the heroic versions? Well I couldn't really comment on those since in the limited time I had to spend with Cataclysm I really didn't get a chance to try them out. I did however tried various normal version of different dungeons while leveling but they were nothing special in terms of difficulty. I did have a chance to tank in one of the heroics in beta and it was quite difficult, I wouldn't call it TBC difficult but it was still hard. It's a step in the right direction although you will still question Blizzard's intention after guilds have finished raids within 2 weeks of the release of Cataclysm. It definitely puts the wrong messages out there and slowly the epic gears are starting to make it's way into the game and all the blue gear lasted all but 2 weeks of the game. As far as PvP goes battlegrounds are more important now but arena still plays a big role for people that want to earn PvP gear quickly, the way I see it the only way to fix this problem completely is to remove arena entirely.
For the noobs and casual players that started playing in Wrath and still want to feel superior with all their easy kills and easy gears, what does all these changes mean? It means the game is more chanlleging to play and you might actually need your brain now, but it is still not nearly as hard as Vanilla or TBC ever was. As far as accessibilty goes it has gotten more so in a different way. You see for the person that is just getting into the game now the level 1-60 quests are much easier to do and make much more sense while doing them, you get quests that lead you to the next zone and quest rewards that are actually useful. It also features mount service to zones so lower level noobs don't have to wonder around for hours looking for the next town and getting killed in the wilderness and eventually get frustrated into rage quitting. The story line involved with questing make much more sense too if anyone still cares about story plot. And if questing and exploring the vast land of Azeroth is not for you then queue for random dungeon not only gives you superior experience to leveling it also gives you blue gear as reward for doing it. It also helps that majority of dungeon quest givers now are inside of the dungeon rather than making noobs going all over Azeroth collecting them thus further confusing said noobs. To test the accessibilty of the new leveling system I personally make a new hunter and through mixure of questing and random dungeons I was able to get all good blue gear and level to 35 in roughly 2 days of playing.
After all I can safely say all the changes are for the better even though it's not quite on par to what everyone hoped.
-New Content
All the changes to the old world is great for attracting new players but is there enough new content for vetern players? That is a very important question since the biggest problem with Wrath was at times it felt like Blizzard was only concerned with attracting new/casual players and they don't really care about all the die hard vetern players. From what I have heard that there is actually less new zones in Cataclysm than WotLK but they all vary greatly in terms of landmark and quests they feel a lot more fresh than Wrath zones. For example many player seems to prefer leveling in mount Hyjal but I found that Vasj'er was a lot more original and overall cooler zone. It's starts with a movie with your boat sinking along the shore of Eastern Kingdom and the whole zone then is under water, with you getting your seahorse mount shortly afterwards. It doesn't give you as much gear rewards as Hyjal quests so if you are not already decked out in ICC epics then it might be better for you to level in Hyjal, other than that every single aspect of Vasj'er is supperior to Hyjal. Also the game ships with 4 end game raids compare to the 1 that was in Wrath, and none of these raids are recycled like Naxx was for Wrath. Other changes such as game mechanics are no strangers to WoW as Blizzard constantly fine tunes game play through each patch, however I can not comment on them too much as I didn't reach end game to really know how each class plays different. What I can say is some more evident changes are welcome while some are not. The changes to the talent tree are welcome in my opinion as the old talent tree was getting too bloated with a lot of pointless talents. Now it's more concise and most of neccessary passive talents and some more important ones that everyone gets such as mortal strike, everyone will get them depending on the tree you go for. Some of the less welcome changes to me include changes to Orgrimmar, I really hated it at first and while I am slowly getting used to it now I still enjoy the less confusing design of the original Orgrimmar. Others include the deletion of Portals in major cities, and here I thought Blizzard is trying to make the game more accessible to noobs.
With Cataclysm Blizzard also introduces 2 new races but no new classes. Both Goblin and Worgen are cool race in their own right with Worgen more so for obvious reasons. But what makes them cooler is their starting zones. Both feature heavy phasing especially Worgen. The city of Gilneas is a dark gothic city along the coast of Eastern Kingdom, and the starting quests will take you through out the city and the vast lands around it. As you progress through the quest line you will slowly see the changes within Gilneas as the city slowly decays and eventually falls into ruins with the invading Forsakens. Goblin starting zone is at a much lighter note with the upbeat music even though the island of Kezan is getting destroyed by Deathwing but the lack of seriousness is apparent in the Goblin's solution of blowing everything up. This includes putting rockets up monkeys' asses and chickens while setting bombs off on everything you touch. Overall Blizzard really out done themselves on these 2 starting zone in terms of showing off the new phasing tech and story telling. It translates well for the rest of the game too and that's what makes Cataclysm leveling less tedious.
-Conclusion
All these are great but is Cataclysm enough to bring excitement to a 6 year old game? Blizzard always make great trailers to hype people up but at the end of the day as you play in Cataclysm you realize it's still the same old WoW, you get to 85, you grind all the rep, you get gear in heroics and you do raids. Nothing more nothing less it's just the road to that goal might be more enjoyable now than Wrath. For me all the changes are great but Blizzard needs to do a lot more than this to convice me, therefore Cataclysm is not quite that earth shattering event I am looking for.
-Final Score: 8/10
Sunday, December 19, 2010
nostalgia part 3 (a World of Warcraft special)
Many things have changed in WoW over the past 6 years. Class mechanics have changed numerous times that classes today plays nothing like when the game originally came out. The game itself has changed not just the cosmetic change with Cataclysm but the game mechanic itself. This is what makes WoW the best MMO out there because it's constantly evolving, for better or worse. I can sit here and say that the game is always evolving toward mainstream audience since it's getting easier and easier, but at the mean time it's not such a bad thing all together seeing as it's becoming more and more accessible.
One thing that has never changed is the epic music in WoW. With whatever changes it may deliver with each content patch or each expansion pack, WoW has always had that glorious music. Long after the game is dead, many other MMOs will learn from many things that made WoW great, the lore, the classes, the game play, the smallest detail, the constant updates and many more. I will always remember the game that has some of the production values and music that we have ever seen in the game industry. The epic music starts right away at your log in screen and here is some nostalgia to the past WoW log in screens.
-World of Warcraft (Vanilla)
-The Burning Crusade
-Wrath of the Lich King (my personal favorite)
-Cataclysm
One thing that has never changed is the epic music in WoW. With whatever changes it may deliver with each content patch or each expansion pack, WoW has always had that glorious music. Long after the game is dead, many other MMOs will learn from many things that made WoW great, the lore, the classes, the game play, the smallest detail, the constant updates and many more. I will always remember the game that has some of the production values and music that we have ever seen in the game industry. The epic music starts right away at your log in screen and here is some nostalgia to the past WoW log in screens.
-World of Warcraft (Vanilla)
-The Burning Crusade
-Wrath of the Lich King (my personal favorite)
-Cataclysm
nostalgia part 2 (a World of Warcraft special)
Cataclysm is here and the world of Azeroth as we know it is no longer the same. There are many things I personally will miss about the game, yes I don't play the game anymore but it was part of my life for the better part of last 6 years and whether good or bad it will be missed.
Blizzard usually don't screw up very often and when they do they almost address it immediately in the form of a content patch. People that plays WoW know what I am talking about as we have see endless changes with raids in term of difficulties and how the encounter works. People have also moaned and groaned whenever Blizzard changes how fundamentally a class works through buffs and nerfs. But after all It's Blizzard's way of tweaking the game mechanics in response to the community, they are trying to fix the game through each patch whether you believe it or not. One glaring omission however still remains in the game. Blizzard introduced pvp arena with the release of the Burning Crusade and it has been a total failure, even Blizzard themselves have admitted so. But guess what, arena is still in the game. Personally I feel like it destroyed pvp in WoW, the old battleground was not skill based but neither is arena. It was the purpose of arena but with the game so unbalanced around certain classes and gear sets, it turned into a faceroll competition of who has the best geared warlocks, rogues and healers. Don't get me wrong I played in arena as a gimp shadow priest in 3v3 and got to top 5 in the battle group, it was a real feat considering that if I kept on playing at the time I would have been one of the few Gladiators in that season that wasn't a warlock, rogue, warrior or some type of healer.
To be honest I miss the good old battlegrounds of large group pvp, that was WoW at its best. With Cataclysm Blizzard again is not removing arena in fear of warlock uprising since the warlock community seems to believe it takes true skill to play a warlock and the best place to display such skill is in arena. However Blizzard is making Battlegrounds relevant again now that you can gain pvp points from doing battlegrounds vs just in arena. I am really looking forward to getting the old pvp titles back too, now it's time to enjoy the old battleground music while one gets pumped up to slay thy alliance scum!
Blizzard usually don't screw up very often and when they do they almost address it immediately in the form of a content patch. People that plays WoW know what I am talking about as we have see endless changes with raids in term of difficulties and how the encounter works. People have also moaned and groaned whenever Blizzard changes how fundamentally a class works through buffs and nerfs. But after all It's Blizzard's way of tweaking the game mechanics in response to the community, they are trying to fix the game through each patch whether you believe it or not. One glaring omission however still remains in the game. Blizzard introduced pvp arena with the release of the Burning Crusade and it has been a total failure, even Blizzard themselves have admitted so. But guess what, arena is still in the game. Personally I feel like it destroyed pvp in WoW, the old battleground was not skill based but neither is arena. It was the purpose of arena but with the game so unbalanced around certain classes and gear sets, it turned into a faceroll competition of who has the best geared warlocks, rogues and healers. Don't get me wrong I played in arena as a gimp shadow priest in 3v3 and got to top 5 in the battle group, it was a real feat considering that if I kept on playing at the time I would have been one of the few Gladiators in that season that wasn't a warlock, rogue, warrior or some type of healer.
To be honest I miss the good old battlegrounds of large group pvp, that was WoW at its best. With Cataclysm Blizzard again is not removing arena in fear of warlock uprising since the warlock community seems to believe it takes true skill to play a warlock and the best place to display such skill is in arena. However Blizzard is making Battlegrounds relevant again now that you can gain pvp points from doing battlegrounds vs just in arena. I am really looking forward to getting the old pvp titles back too, now it's time to enjoy the old battleground music while one gets pumped up to slay thy alliance scum!
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