just saw these images from the Art Panel on MMO-champion.com:
Using a freakin' huge cintiq to paint terrain, way to rub it in our faces, heh.
and some more sexy art:
From what i could tell from the art panel, they've added a lot of "new" stuff to the engine, like AO. Not that it's really needed with the awesome texture work
I'm really getting an artgasm from all the nice models and concepts I get to see on blizzcon. Even the 'ugly' concepts scribbled on napkins that were shown of. I really appreciate those as well. Most companies have them but probably wouldn't show them, let alone at a large conference. It says a lot about the quality of the 3d artists that translate these concepts into 3d and the skill they need to have to make them look snazzy ingame. Good stuff!
From what i could tell from the art panel, they've added a lot of "new" stuff to the engine, like AO. Not that it's really needed with the awesome texture work
I'm *pretty* sure that there is no AO, it's just handpainted in.
Yeah as soon as I read the title of this thread I was like 'Wtf'? Samwise has been drawing Pandarens for years, and they were indeed in Warcraft 3. Pandaren Brewmaster was a pretty sick DOTA character back in 2004.
It's not hard to arrive at anthropomorphizing them as a Chinese civilization. At all.
Its really frustrating see people taking limited information about the expansion pack and jumping to assumptions. Many people believe its just going to this cuddly happy place... its not... The purpose of the expansion is to express an arch between the Alliance and Horde along with the perpetual conflict between them. There is nothing nice and cuddly about two factions coming to a world and destroying it. Also all these panda's aren't happy... they are bad panda factions...
I'm a massive Blizzard fan and just find it frustrating that people hate on something when honestly putting aside your personal tastes for games. Blizzard have never failed to produce the highest quality experiences. Even if playing World of Warcraft isn't your thing, it is still a great game.
People are going to hate on anything is that is the best in any category. Look at the amount of people (probably here too) that hate on the iPhone. It sucks all you want it to, but they sold 4 million over a weekend. They must be doing something right. Everyone is going to nitpick every single step Blizzard makes with WOW. At the end of the day it's an awesome game and it's been the clear dominant game in the MMO space for almost a decade now. I doubt making another expansion chock full of awesome is going to change a thing there.
The only thing I'm hating on with Pandaria is that it's not out already.
Wow is indeed awesome game, I've been playing it since the start. But as the expanded, it started sucking. Now I dont own game studio yet but does it makes sense for one known brand to repeatedly fuck their own product side ways and rely on promotions such as, " if you commit to us that you stay and play wow for a year you will get diablo 3 for free and beta test the next exp of wow which sucks more than the one you play right now."
Wow is indeed awesome game, I've been playing it since the start. But as the expanded, it started sucking. Now I dont own game studio yet but does it makes sense for one known brand to repeatedly fuck their own product side ways and rely on promotions such as, " if you commit to us that you stay and play wow for a year you will get diablo 3 for free and beta test the next exp of wow which sucks more than the one you play right now."
that's not why they're doing it.
they're doing it because SWTOR is just around the corner and it scares the hell out of them. i can only imagine that they wanted to announce TITAN this year (with a fall season release for next year), but it was delayed and had to do this instead.
this is the only way they can "retain subs" against the mammoth that's coming their way. now... that's not to say that SWTOR will kill WoW (it won't) but it will probably make a sizeable dent.
so by offering people the opportunity to get D3 AND 12 months of WoW for the same price, what they're doing is effectively guaranteeing that in their next board review, they can say "hey we still have a good amount of subs".
it's a very smart business strategy. give people what they want, with the illusion of added value, in order to maintain healthy numbers to show to their shareholders.
Wow is indeed awesome game, I've been playing it since the start. But as the expanded, it started sucking. Now I dont own game studio yet but does it makes sense for one known brand to repeatedly fuck their own product side ways and rely on promotions such as, " if you commit to us that you stay and play wow for a year you will get diablo 3 for free and beta test the next exp of wow which sucks more than the one you play right now."
You can't be serious? What has blizzard removed that was in the game in vanilla? It didn't start sucking, you simply got bored. Nothing lasts forever.
I also don't understand how offering a long term payment plan for players to 'save' money is a bad thing. If you know your going to be playing the game for the long term it makes sense to save money from a large payment plan but also get $50-60 of free content.
Sounds to me like your simply growing tired of a game, it doesn't suck. You just need to move on.
You can't be serious? What has blizzard removed that was in the game in vanilla? It didn't start sucking, you simply got bored. Nothing lasts forever.
I also don't understand how offering a long term payment plan for players to 'save' money is a bad thing. If you know your going to be playing the game for the long term it makes sense to save money from a large payment plan but also get $50-60 of free content.
Sounds to me like your simply growing tired of a game, it doesn't suck. You just need to move on.
Well pvp is great doesnt mean it was golden because it hasnt been improved except for the map and pug system.
At the end game, there is no other choice but to raid to get epic gears which was hard, doesnt mean it was bad.
Anyways, leaving pvp and kungfu pandas aside, comparing vanilla to now, dont you see it the game got soo damn easier than before and they are fucking it up every new expansion?
My opinion of WoW started changing with 2 things, first was the gear scaling in TBC and then again when they nerfed the shit out of the heroic instances. There is a balance to be made between something being a rep grind on one hand (getting revered to get the keys to heroics) and becoming a freepass, and I think they missed the mark.
40 man raids were a lesson in nerd herding and I definitely dont think it was the best approach as there were people getting a free ride or it was just an overall clusterfuck at times but the thing that was awesome... Loot fucking meant something.
WoW in my eyes is a wellfare game, it rewards incredibly easily and often to the point it devalues what an epic once was... now everyones decked in purples and flying these "amazing" mounts. People today and their sense of entitlement, woe is me.
Whats the quote from the incredibles? If everyones super... no one will be.
vvvvvv So im not completely negative
The leveling experience for wow now must be pretty fucking amazing thats for sure, the worlds are amazingly well crafted and thats one part of the game that has (probably) only got a lot better and more streamlined. Havent played since WOTLK but there were chain quests in that that were a lot of fun. I stand by what i said earlier in that if you played WoW just to level as a COOP experience with friends its probably some of the most fun you can have.
Everyone has different golden ages, lots of them even had their golden age before world of warcraft, and wow is not a part of their mmo golden age.
For me I had the most fun when I first started playing, but my overall experience of wow as a game was just when cataclysm hit with the new world, lots of joy experiencing that content.
Well pvp is great doesnt mean it was golden because it hasnt been improved except for the map and pug system.
At the end game, there is no other choice but to raid to get epic gears which was hard, doesnt mean it was bad.
Anyways, leaving pvp and kungfu pandas aside, comparing vanilla to now, dont you see it the game got soo damn easier than before and they are fucking it up every new expansion?
The game is more accessible than ever before, but if anything with heroic raids and challenges the game is also harder than ever before. Arena and Battlegrounds separate casual and hardcore PVP players... Can you honestly justify an element of Vanilla's difficulty that doesn't exist today?
Well pvp is great doesnt mean it was golden because it hasnt been improved except for the map and pug system.
At the end game, there is no other choice but to raid to get epic gears which was hard, doesnt mean it was bad.
Anyways, leaving pvp and kungfu pandas aside, comparing vanilla to now, dont you see it the game got soo damn easier than before and they are fucking it up every new expansion?
Shit dude did we play the same game?
Raids in vanilla were a joke... the hardest part was finding 20+ idiots to fill the fodder spots in your 40 man that could install decursive and attack the right targets. There are no challenging encounters until Twin Emps and C'Thun ended up being more difficult than most of the fights in Naxx. BC raid content was more challenging and even most of the entry tier content in Cataclysm was harder than the final tier content in Vanilla wow.
And PVP hasn't been improved? LOL? EVERYTHING about PVP has been vastly improved since vanilla wow, from class balance, rewards systems, and queue times. PVP in vanilla wow was:
- The high warlord system, aka the dumbest thing anyone has ever thought of ever.
- Waiting an hour and a half in queue for an AV stalemate in the field of strife that has been going for 3 days
- 30 second CCs and trinkets that didn't remove all cc/stuns
- Blizzard not even attempting to balance classes
BC and the introduction of Arena changed everything about how Blizzard dealt with PVP and tried to address its issues.
I really don't see how you can claim the games getting easier, the only *really* easy expansion PVE wise was WotLK. People were quitting in droves at the start of Cataclysm because the entry raid content was too difficult and even heroics were practically unpuggable for the first two months.
Also Not to be that guy but if you want a challenge you probably shouldn't be fighting scripted encounters anyway...
From experience i can say that the difficulty has got easy, although im only really going on heroics from WOTLK.
Ichii3D did you play TBC and do heroics when they required the keys from revered reputation? If you didn't its going to be hard to really know if youre on the same page. Shattered Halls / Shadow labs required a lot of CC the felguards would MS for~ 15k and back then it'd almost oneshot.
From experience i can say that the difficulty has got easy, although im only really going on heroics from WOTLK.
Ichii3D did you play TBC and do heroics when they required the keys from revered reputation? If you didn't its going to be hard to really know if youre on the same page. Shattered Halls / Shadow labs required a lot of CC the felguards would MS for~ 15k and back then it'd almost oneshot.
Wrath of the Lich King was a lot easier as people had complained about entry level and Blizzard tried to make them more accessible. To some degree this was the beginnings of making the game more accessible to entry level players while at the same time providing difficult content for raiders.
In contrast to that Cataclysm tried to have both entry level and difficult content for dungeons and raids. Although honestly I thought The Burning Crusade had some great dungeons, the only one which was really CC heavy was Magisters Terrace.
I have played since the first beta, I used to raid heavily although I'm very casual these days I still like to stay on top of what's happening.
Just one thing to add, people seem to forget about where World of Warcraft has come from and the definition of vanilla, I remember the days when we didn't even have battlegrounds.
The Arena system only came into place during The Burning Crusade.
There wasn't even an achievement system until Wrath of the Lich King.
Guild achievements where a great addition to Cataclysm.
Do you remember the days when the only two level 60 dungeons where Upper and Lower Black Rock Spire? With the possibility Dire Maul been classed as one
Comparing that to today.
(It has been what, seven years but I'm fairly sure it happened in that order... lol)
i dont see that as being a rip off even if pandarens were a new thing, they are just pandas, aparently you cant poop in china without hitting one of those little bastards. fucking pandas everywhere, up in vending machines, chess in the park. now if the wow pandas were goofy bumbling farting pandas then maybe.
Do you remember the days where you first stepped into the game excited and young and all. Enjoying the questing, first guild interaction, raiding and all that jazz. It was great! I know some of you are players from the first WoW (aka Vanilla). It worries me that absolutely no one thinks twice about the sanity a new expansion should have to satisfy players who are in this game for quite a while.
People get used to things faster and faster. I believe blizzard is taking WoW into a great direction for new players and new audiences. Starcraft II and Diablo III are truly masterpieces both hard-core competitive and casual. Just like WoW was for me years ago. And I still play from time to time.
I have to be honest and say I'm slightly disappointed in you guys while reading this thread.
Pandas being from China, I don't think it's a stretch to imagine them being a "Kung-fu" style of culture. If we had some sort of techno-viking panda, I think it might be more out of place. While Northrend wasn't ice and zombies all the time I can't imagine Pandaren looking exactly the same throughout. Also, am I the only one excited to see some Horde vs Alliance war going all out. It feels like they were building up to it in Cata but if it goes full blown that could be pretty exciting.
What really surprised me about their implementation of the Pandaren is how flat their culture seems compared to the old art. My impression was that they were much more unique. Like how the Tauren are inspired by native-american imagery, and then changed to fit Tauren lore. It's not straight-up native-american. Or the Nightelves were a combination of ancient civilizations (Rome/Greek and Japanese) with all night-elf themes on top (purple color scheme, moon symbols, etc).
Those end up feeling like just NightElf, not straight-up Roman or Japanese. Tauren feel like just Tauren, not native-americans. Likewise for the Pandaren in the old art. It was an ancient Japanese/Chinese combination with Panda themes to tie it together. But now it seems like it's just straight-up Chinese. I don't see the Pandaren in there.
Actualy, it is SSAO. It was in one of the videos I found, I will try to post it here later
Ohh okay, I thought everything was baked in order to make it run on slower computers. But I guess SSAO makes alot of sense when thinking about all the other post effects they've added.
They mentioned it was influenced by lights and the sun so I thought it was SSDO, its basically the same as SSAO but instead of just using the depth buffer and all that jibba jabba it is also effected by lights in the area, not just as a primitive mask. But to physically change the direction and collection of screen space occlusion.
Wow is so tightly packed with awesome art, wish I could just hop in and run around in those environments. Mmorpgs require too much commitment unfortunately :poly124:
Raids in vanilla were a joke... the hardest part was finding 20+ idiots to fill the fodder spots in your 40 man that could install decursive and attack the right targets. There are no challenging encounters until Twin Emps and C'Thun ended up being more difficult than most of the fights in Naxx. BC raid content was more challenging and even most of the entry tier content in Cataclysm was harder than the final tier content in Vanilla wow.
And PVP hasn't been improved? LOL? EVERYTHING about PVP has been vastly improved since vanilla wow, from class balance, rewards systems, and queue times. PVP in vanilla wow was:
- The high warlord system, aka the dumbest thing anyone has ever thought of ever.
- Waiting an hour and a half in queue for an AV stalemate in the field of strife that has been going for 3 days
- 30 second CCs and trinkets that didn't remove all cc/stuns
- Blizzard not even attempting to balance classes
BC and the introduction of Arena changed everything about how Blizzard dealt with PVP and tried to address its issues.
I really don't see how you can claim the games getting easier, the only *really* easy expansion PVE wise was WotLK. People were quitting in droves at the start of Cataclysm because the entry raid content was too difficult and even heroics were practically unpuggable for the first two months.
Also Not to be that guy but if you want a challenge you probably shouldn't be fighting scripted encounters anyway...
Ok, I havent played Cata till the end, and I am still farming the reps and all so I dont know how are the raids actually in there.
For the rest of the stuff, I think you had a very bad guild or no guild thats why you thoroughly seen that stuff. Because from start I used to register for the guild raids and there were many guild members for me to get the instances done and heroic instances for the later expansions. So practically we didnt have to wait for anything unless we didnt register for the raid runs with the guild. You also forgot to state that you actually had to fly to the dungeon or the raiding dungeon to get in to it instead of just standing in a town and just teleporting which they introduced in Wotlk. BC content could've been unlocked if and only if you are maxed out on the reps and have keys for the instance.
So yes, I play the same game as you do, I just have different or less things to complain than you. =\ And Guild!!
Ok seriously as much as I enjoy playing WOW, I seriously hate the idea of a well known brand in the game industry, mildly ripping off one's concept completely in front of public and claiming as their own. :poly118:
Didn't Samwise sketch out a Chinese panda years (2003?) before Kung Fu panda came out in 2008? It might have even been the inspiration for the movie, heh...
Haven't WoW nerds been crying for a Pandarian race since WoW was in Alpha?
Didn't Samwise sketch out a Chinese panda years (2003?) before Kung Fu panda came out in 2008? It might have even been the inspiration for the movie, heh...
This sketch from Samwise is from 99 (sorry couldn't find a better version)
For the rest of the stuff, I think you had a very bad guild or no guild thats why you thoroughly seen that stuff. Because from start I used to register for the guild raids and there were many guild members for me to get the instances done and heroic instances for the later expansions. So practically we didnt have to wait for anything unless we didnt register for the raid runs with the guild. You also forgot to state that you actually had to fly to the dungeon or the raiding dungeon to get in to it instead of just standing in a town and just teleporting which they introduced in Wotlk. BC content could've been unlocked if and only if you are maxed out on the reps and have keys for the instance.
I dunno how to make sense of this paragraph? I saw all the content in WoW and thought it was easy, so my guild must have been bad?
And traveling to dungeons? I think you're mistaking difficulty for inconvenience... Grinding forever for a key isn't hard, it's time consuming...
Yes it really is too bad you don't have to spend a week grinding rep, in order to grind heroics for gear.... Such a shame, those extra progress bars really added a lot to the game.
The bottom line is this: Classes are much more balanced, PVP is better, PVE raids and encounters are as good as they're ever going to be, abilities and gameplay is much more interesting all around, and there's less tedious bullshit in the game.
As far as I'm concerned those are all signs the game has gotten better over the years. Yeah if tedious bullshit is your thing and the most fun you ever had in WoW was running to a dungeon and grinding rep is your idea of "difficulty" then it probably does seem like the games going downhill and catering to noobs.
In my day we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow while carrying a full inventory of fire resistance gear to get to Molten Core...
Replies
Using a freakin' huge cintiq to paint terrain, way to rub it in our faces, heh.
and some more sexy art:
let's..
play the game!
From what i could tell from the art panel, they've added a lot of "new" stuff to the engine, like AO. Not that it's really needed with the awesome texture work
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/world-of-warcrafts-samwise-didier-talks-about-finally-bringing/
I'm *pretty* sure that there is no AO, it's just handpainted in.
Actually I think it's just baked into the lightning maps
It's not hard to arrive at anthropomorphizing them as a Chinese civilization. At all.
I'm a massive Blizzard fan and just find it frustrating that people hate on something when honestly putting aside your personal tastes for games. Blizzard have never failed to produce the highest quality experiences. Even if playing World of Warcraft isn't your thing, it is still a great game.
we're seriously considering this to be a rip off of kung fu panda?
wow, polycount sure went casual over the years
hey, lets argue about maya vs max next week!
The only thing I'm hating on with Pandaria is that it's not out already.
that's not why they're doing it.
they're doing it because SWTOR is just around the corner and it scares the hell out of them. i can only imagine that they wanted to announce TITAN this year (with a fall season release for next year), but it was delayed and had to do this instead.
this is the only way they can "retain subs" against the mammoth that's coming their way. now... that's not to say that SWTOR will kill WoW (it won't) but it will probably make a sizeable dent.
so by offering people the opportunity to get D3 AND 12 months of WoW for the same price, what they're doing is effectively guaranteeing that in their next board review, they can say "hey we still have a good amount of subs".
it's a very smart business strategy. give people what they want, with the illusion of added value, in order to maintain healthy numbers to show to their shareholders.
You can't be serious? What has blizzard removed that was in the game in vanilla? It didn't start sucking, you simply got bored. Nothing lasts forever.
I also don't understand how offering a long term payment plan for players to 'save' money is a bad thing. If you know your going to be playing the game for the long term it makes sense to save money from a large payment plan but also get $50-60 of free content.
Sounds to me like your simply growing tired of a game, it doesn't suck. You just need to move on.
I assume you dont play wow...
Why would you assume that?
At the end game, there is no other choice but to raid to get epic gears which was hard, doesnt mean it was bad.
Anyways, leaving pvp and kungfu pandas aside, comparing vanilla to now, dont you see it the game got soo damn easier than before and they are fucking it up every new expansion?
40 man raids were a lesson in nerd herding and I definitely dont think it was the best approach as there were people getting a free ride or it was just an overall clusterfuck at times but the thing that was awesome... Loot fucking meant something.
WoW in my eyes is a wellfare game, it rewards incredibly easily and often to the point it devalues what an epic once was... now everyones decked in purples and flying these "amazing" mounts. People today and their sense of entitlement, woe is me.
Whats the quote from the incredibles? If everyones super... no one will be.
vvvvvv So im not completely negative
The leveling experience for wow now must be pretty fucking amazing thats for sure, the worlds are amazingly well crafted and thats one part of the game that has (probably) only got a lot better and more streamlined. Havent played since WOTLK but there were chain quests in that that were a lot of fun. I stand by what i said earlier in that if you played WoW just to level as a COOP experience with friends its probably some of the most fun you can have.
For me I had the most fun when I first started playing, but my overall experience of wow as a game was just when cataclysm hit with the new world, lots of joy experiencing that content.
The game is more accessible than ever before, but if anything with heroic raids and challenges the game is also harder than ever before. Arena and Battlegrounds separate casual and hardcore PVP players... Can you honestly justify an element of Vanilla's difficulty that doesn't exist today?
Raids in vanilla were a joke... the hardest part was finding 20+ idiots to fill the fodder spots in your 40 man that could install decursive and attack the right targets. There are no challenging encounters until Twin Emps and C'Thun ended up being more difficult than most of the fights in Naxx. BC raid content was more challenging and even most of the entry tier content in Cataclysm was harder than the final tier content in Vanilla wow.
And PVP hasn't been improved? LOL? EVERYTHING about PVP has been vastly improved since vanilla wow, from class balance, rewards systems, and queue times. PVP in vanilla wow was:
- The high warlord system, aka the dumbest thing anyone has ever thought of ever.
- Waiting an hour and a half in queue for an AV stalemate in the field of strife that has been going for 3 days
- 30 second CCs and trinkets that didn't remove all cc/stuns
- Blizzard not even attempting to balance classes
BC and the introduction of Arena changed everything about how Blizzard dealt with PVP and tried to address its issues.
I really don't see how you can claim the games getting easier, the only *really* easy expansion PVE wise was WotLK. People were quitting in droves at the start of Cataclysm because the entry raid content was too difficult and even heroics were practically unpuggable for the first two months.
Also Not to be that guy but if you want a challenge you probably shouldn't be fighting scripted encounters anyway...
Ichii3D did you play TBC and do heroics when they required the keys from revered reputation? If you didn't its going to be hard to really know if youre on the same page. Shattered Halls / Shadow labs required a lot of CC the felguards would MS for~ 15k and back then it'd almost oneshot.
Wrath of the Lich King was a lot easier as people had complained about entry level and Blizzard tried to make them more accessible. To some degree this was the beginnings of making the game more accessible to entry level players while at the same time providing difficult content for raiders.
In contrast to that Cataclysm tried to have both entry level and difficult content for dungeons and raids. Although honestly I thought The Burning Crusade had some great dungeons, the only one which was really CC heavy was Magisters Terrace.
I have played since the first beta, I used to raid heavily although I'm very casual these days I still like to stay on top of what's happening.
The Arena system only came into place during The Burning Crusade.
There wasn't even an achievement system until Wrath of the Lich King.
Guild achievements where a great addition to Cataclysm.
Do you remember the days when the only two level 60 dungeons where Upper and Lower Black Rock Spire? With the possibility Dire Maul been classed as one
Comparing that to today.
(It has been what, seven years but I'm fairly sure it happened in that order... lol)
if you want a rip, heres CHOP KICK PANDA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTld0BzGips&feature=related
also i remember seeing a bootleg kung fu panda back pack in wallmart that had weird art and the translation "HARD WORK PANDA"
People get used to things faster and faster. I believe blizzard is taking WoW into a great direction for new players and new audiences. Starcraft II and Diablo III are truly masterpieces both hard-core competitive and casual. Just like WoW was for me years ago. And I still play from time to time.
I have to be honest and say I'm slightly disappointed in you guys while reading this thread.
All in all, I think this from Reddit sums it up.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2522-Blizzcon-2011-World-of-Warcraft-Art-Panel
Those end up feeling like just NightElf, not straight-up Roman or Japanese. Tauren feel like just Tauren, not native-americans. Likewise for the Pandaren in the old art. It was an ancient Japanese/Chinese combination with Panda themes to tie it together. But now it seems like it's just straight-up Chinese. I don't see the Pandaren in there.
Actualy, it is SSAO. It was in one of the videos I found, I will try to post it here later
[ame="
Ohh okay, I thought everything was baked in order to make it run on slower computers. But I guess SSAO makes alot of sense when thinking about all the other post effects they've added.
Its in Crysis 2
Ok, I havent played Cata till the end, and I am still farming the reps and all so I dont know how are the raids actually in there.
For the rest of the stuff, I think you had a very bad guild or no guild thats why you thoroughly seen that stuff. Because from start I used to register for the guild raids and there were many guild members for me to get the instances done and heroic instances for the later expansions. So practically we didnt have to wait for anything unless we didnt register for the raid runs with the guild. You also forgot to state that you actually had to fly to the dungeon or the raiding dungeon to get in to it instead of just standing in a town and just teleporting which they introduced in Wotlk. BC content could've been unlocked if and only if you are maxed out on the reps and have keys for the instance.
So yes, I play the same game as you do, I just have different or less things to complain than you. =\ And Guild!!
Didn't Samwise sketch out a Chinese panda years (2003?) before Kung Fu panda came out in 2008? It might have even been the inspiration for the movie, heh...
Haven't WoW nerds been crying for a Pandarian race since WoW was in Alpha?
This sketch from Samwise is from 99 (sorry couldn't find a better version)
And traveling to dungeons? I think you're mistaking difficulty for inconvenience... Grinding forever for a key isn't hard, it's time consuming...
Yes it really is too bad you don't have to spend a week grinding rep, in order to grind heroics for gear.... Such a shame, those extra progress bars really added a lot to the game.
The bottom line is this: Classes are much more balanced, PVP is better, PVE raids and encounters are as good as they're ever going to be, abilities and gameplay is much more interesting all around, and there's less tedious bullshit in the game.
As far as I'm concerned those are all signs the game has gotten better over the years. Yeah if tedious bullshit is your thing and the most fun you ever had in WoW was running to a dungeon and grinding rep is your idea of "difficulty" then it probably does seem like the games going downhill and catering to noobs.
In my day we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow while carrying a full inventory of fire resistance gear to get to Molten Core...