This is something that is really starting to grate on my nerves.

I was considering putting this rant in the Istaria section, but you know, it really doesn't apply to JUST Istaria, it also applies to WoW, and FFXI, and probably every other MMORPG out there.

People who act like Masochists... what is with this phenomenon anyways?

You see it all the time: Some poorly designed area of the game (like RoP) exists for a good amount of time, and later on, a revamp is done, and it is "streamlined" or "tweaked" or whatever caused it to be "poorly" designed is tweaked to make it smoother, or maybe even slightly easier, and suddenly these ... _people_ ... pop up and say "OMG YOU'RE MAKING IT TOO EASY!!!!111oneoneone!"

Istaria... just like WoW... just like FFXI...

Are GAMES..

They are meant to be FUN.

They are not meant to force you into hair-pulling frustration. I get enough of that with my IRL job. When I come home from work, I want to sit down in front of my computer, relax and have some fun.

But when you have a near-required questline like RoP in the game, where people are pretty much forced to do it to enjoy their race decision (face it, a dragon who can't fly might as well be a biped, as that is probably 80% of the reason you'd play a dragon, gold rage being the other 10% and maybe lairs being the rest), such questline should not be almost impossible except for super-elite players who devote every waking second to calculating the exact best ways to do everything and/or players who don't mind trying several dozen times to try and do something successfully, and/or players who don't mind trying to gather 10+ people to do something.

SOME of us don't want that hair-pulling frustration. Okay, so some people enjoy pain, frustration, and hardship. There are ways to get that even with the new changes. Unequip all of your armor. Go in at Level 30. Try to fight everything between you and your destination. There -are- ways to get more challenge out of the new RoP. Don't punish the rest of us who just want to relax and have fun, please.

Before Amon closed the thread in General, I made a comment that said, basically, this:

"One should not feel like "OMG YES FINALLY" after completing something in a game"

To which, was replied:

"That's what makes a game feel EPIC".

I feel that my statement was taken entirely wrong, so I'll rephrase that:

"One should not feel like 'OMG FINALLY, NOW I DON'T HAVE TO DO THAT STUPID CRAP EVER AGAIN!" is more like the sensation I felt when I (err, well, the level 100+ bipeds) finally killed Lem, Kaa, and the Shadow Dragon and when the rest of it was easy solo stuff.

The first thing that came through my mind?

"OMG YES. Now I don't ever have to do THAT again. Thank God."

It was VERY difficult to put together the peeps I needed to finish my RoP, and I would have preferred the ability to just solo the stupid thing myself, without having to rely on other people who may or may not be around and/or have time to do it.

There are good people in the game, don't get me wrong, but it is that a lot of them are busy at times, or they have conflicting time schedules, and a lot of time they just plain aren't online when I am.

Having the ability to solo very important, almost-required quests is a must. Leave the Group Questing to Endgame stuff, optional content.

/rant