Warlords of Draenor Lands in Fourteen Hours

[BloatedGuppy]

I've already bought the expansion, I pre-ordered it the day they made that an option, based purely on that. I'm not angry with them for not catering to me, because it's my tastes that are changing. I'm willing to give it a chance, but if I cancel my subscription it's not going to be a rage quit. It's just going to be pragmatic; why pay a monthly subscription for a game that I'm not playing because I've moved on?

I've stopped playing WoW on three different occasions for basically those exact reasons, so I don't doubt both of us will get there again. Nothing lasts forever. The fact I'm still going to WoW for my MMO fix is a little aggravating, frankly, but I blame industry copycats and a lack of genre innovation for that.

I'm not entirely sure that it needed to be made. There certainly didn't seem to be much outcry about it.

Blizzard is going to have departure metrics on hand, and a better handle on what player feedback is than you or me. They don't make these changes in a vacuum. There's a large body of highly casual players that play these games, and Blizzard caters to them better than most, and it reflects in their population numbers.

Those situational abilities were what separated "skilled and useful" from "highly skilled and indispensable."

It rewarded a very particular type of skill, yes. A game like DOTA will have at maximum 9-10 buttons to push at any given time, yet is miles ahead of WoW in terms of skill floor for the average player. Lots of buttons =/= mechanical complexity. Ability and encounter design determine complexity. I'm not going to claim Blizzard does nothing but hit home runs in this department, just that ability bloat was genuinely becoming an issue.

Maybe I'm just a product of a different time. I grew up with RPGs that didn't hold your hand constantly.

Buddy, I'm almost 40. I grew up with even more arcane and less hand-holdy RPGs than you. I can understand rose colored glasses, I do it all the time. I sometimes yearn for complex, rule-heavy RPGs. But I also enjoy sleek, well designed RPGs with clean UIs and minimal input. I loved the original XCOM and I love The Walking Dead. Ultima was my favorite series of all time, but it doesn't prevent me from loving Skyrim or Mass Effect.

Blizzard is doing what they need to do to keep the game alive and profitable as long as possible. Given their track record, they probably merit the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Bravo Company]

I'm interested in the xpack, but I don't have any plans on playing it for a bit. I haven't pre-ordered because money is a bit tight right now. If money isn't tight then I'm working two jobs along with full time college, which gives me nearly zero time for gaming so there's no point in paying for a game that I don't have the time to sink into it.


Plus, Disc priest is nearly useless right now because of the changes to healing. Blizz nerfs absorbs and also nerfs smart heals at the same time. I'm ok with both of the changes, but both of the changes at the same time has made me feel a bit underpowered. Especially compared to all-mighty druid.

Also, I have a spot lined up in a guild for raiding, but with my limited time for gaming I'm not going to reach level 100 in a reasonable time. Plus they're playing horde, and while I already have 2 characters to level 90 on their server; it still doesn't feel like home to not be playing my Night Elf.



I'm not really disappointed that I won't really be able to check out the xpack for a bit.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

I've been considering getting back into WoW for a while, and I'm still trying to decide if I really want to. I recently installed a trial account to try to decide for sure, and now I'm leaning towards doing it. I think I'll wait until reviews/general impressions of the new Xpac come out before I decide for sure.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

The fact I'm still going to WoW for my MMO fix is a little aggravating, frankly, but I blame industry copycats and a lack of genre innovation for that.

/shrug. There have been other decent MMORPGs. I absolutely loved City of Heroes/City of Villains while they were still a thing. Rift was a lot of fun for a while. I still occasionally play Secret World.

For all of the flak it got, even Star Wars: The Old Republic had its moments. I played with two real-life friends. One was playing a Light-aligned Jedi Knight tank, the other was a Light-aligned Jedi Consular healer. I was a 100% Dark-aligned DPS Trooper (female version had Jennifer Hale as a voice actress, so I basically played Renegade Shepard). Every conversation my friends would be playing their goody-two-shoes Jedi parts, then out of nowhere I'd win a roll, shove them aside, and get shit done (while they /facepalm in the background).

The only reason I keep going back to World of Warcraft is because that's where the most people are. Honestly the game's felt stale for a while, but these days I mostly play it to have something to do with my friends. Despite having more fun in Secret World these days, there just aren't as many of my friends playing it.

Blizzard is going to have departure metrics on hand, and a better handle on what player feedback is than you or me. They don't make these changes in a vacuum. There's a large body of highly casual players that play these games, and Blizzard caters to them better than most, and it reflects in their population numbers.

Perhaps, but Blizzard is also a company that is willing to make design choices for artistic reasons regardless of player feelings (not that there's really a problem with that).

It rewarded a very particular type of skill, yes. A game like DOTA will have at maximum 9-10 buttons to push at any given time, yet is miles ahead of WoW in terms of skill floor for the average player. Lots of buttons =/= mechanical complexity. Ability and encounter design determine complexity. I'm not going to claim Blizzard does nothing but hit home runs in this department, just that ability bloat was genuinely becoming an issue.

A particular skill that no longer exists in the game. I believe ability bloat was an issue, yes. But I still maintain that they overshot their mark pretty significantly, as per usual with Blizzard.

Buddy, I'm almost 40. I grew up with even more arcane and less hand-holdy RPGs than you. I can understand rose colored glasses, I do it all the time. I sometimes yearn for complex, rule-heavy RPGs. But I also enjoy sleek, well designed RPGs with clean UIs and minimal input. I loved the original XCOM and I love The Walking Dead. Ultima was my favorite series of all time, but it doesn't prevent me from loving Skyrim or Mass Effect.

Blizzard is doing what they need to do to keep the game alive and profitable as long as possible. Given their track record, they probably merit the benefit of the doubt.

I was a retro gamer even as a little kid, so we probably played some of the same games, actually. I still remember the odd looks I got on the school bus way back when I excitedly mentioned playing my parents' Atari 2600 while everyone else was bragging about the N64's they got for Christmas. And text adventures were great for covert gaming during class.

But it's not so much rose-colored lenses, because I actually still do play those games, regularly, and enjoy them. I freaking love the original XCOM, and no it doesn't stop me from loving Mass Effect. But it also doesn't mean I love everything about the game either. Constantly feeling like the game is holding my hand is one of those things I don't love.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

/shrug. There have been other decent MMORPGs. I absolutely loved City of Heroes/City of Villains while they were still a thing. Rift was a lot of fun for a while. I still occasionally play Secret World.

Oh I liked all those games too, except for that phenomenal turd TSW, but I'm getting tired of Blizzard's formula getting aped. I feel like I've been playing mild iterations on the same goddam game for a decade now. The genre used to have more ambition.

For all of the flak it got, even Star Wars: The Old Republic had its moments.

SWTOR was a good game. People were just ready to shit on both Bioware and EA at that time, and were eager to see a failure. The narrative is still that it was a crashing disaster, despite the fact it's one of the most profitable games in the world.

The only reason I keep going back to World of Warcraft is because that's where the most people are.

My WoW-playin' friends are long departed...I keep coming back for content and feature breadth. It gets tiresome booting up Ye Olde New MMO only to find myself thinking "This is a lot like WoW, only missing XYZ".

A particular skill that no longer exists in the game. I believe ability bloat was an issue, yes. But I still maintain that they overshot their mark pretty significantly, as per usual with Blizzard.

I think leaving in one or two mechanically complex classes might've been a better choice than an across the board purge. Blizzard has long seemed aware of a need to cater to a variety of different play styles. This might be a situation that needs revisiting in a few months.

I was a retro gamer even as a little kid, so we probably played some of the same games, actually. I still remember the odd looks I got on the school bus way back when I excitedly mentioned playing my parents' Atari 2600 while everyone else was bragging about the N64's they got for Christmas. And text adventures were great for covert gaming during class.

But it's not so much rose-colored lenses, because I actually still do play those games, regularly, and enjoy them. I freaking love the original XCOM, and no it doesn't stop me from loving Mass Effect. But it also doesn't mean I love everything about the game either. Constantly feeling like the game is holding my hand is one of those things I don't love.

It's not like I can't go out and play Dwarf Fortress or something if I feel the need to have my hand aggressively thrown back in my face. There are plenty of games out there that cater to my desire for byzantine mechanics. It's just not the ONLY kind of game I like. So while a few grognards who enjoyed the games I grew up with are baying at the moon about the over-simplification of gaming, I'm just playing a lot of games and having a good time. Fuck the Skyrim vs Dark Souls nonsense, I played both and enjoyed both! I'm a whore! I'll give it up for any game!

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I'm getting tired of Blizzard's formula getting aped. I feel like I've been playing mild iterations on the same goddam game for a decade now. The genre used to have more ambition.

Ehh... sorta? I mean, keep in mind that Blizzard ripped off those that had come before it in making World of WarCraft. Their only real ambition was making Everquest but with broader appeal. Sure the game has evolved since then... but the game wasn't really all that original from the get-go. So I'm really not sure how much ambition the genre really had beyond seeing who could build the best Skinner Box, not necessarily the game with the most fun experience. I blame that more on corporate oversight than the developers themselves, though. MMORPGs are ludicrously expensive to make.

My WoW-playin' friends are long departed...I keep coming back for content and feature breadth. It gets tiresome booting up Ye Olde New MMO only to find myself thinking "This is a lot like WoW, only missing XYZ".

Unfortunately that's probably going to be a common experience until someone comes along and does something radically different. Or until we get World of WarCraft 2 or World of StarCraft. I'm actually kind of curious what the future of the genre holds, because right now no one's going to make anything too radically different because of the cost and risk. But when the day comes that WoW does finally die... who knows? Something will have to fill the void, right?

I think leaving in one or two mechanically complex classes might've been a better choice than an across the board purge. Blizzard has long seemed aware of a need to cater to a variety of different play styles. This might be a situation that needs revisiting in a few months.

I'd call that a reasonable compromise. I was also toying with the idea of making one spec for each class be the harsh learning curve/high reward build.

It's not like I can't go out and play Dwarf Fortress or something if I feel the need to have my hand aggressively thrown back in my face. There are plenty of games out there that cater to my desire for byzantine mechanics. It's just not the ONLY kind of game I like. So while a few grognards who enjoyed the games I grew up with are baying at the moon about the over-simplification of gaming, I'm just playing a lot of games and having a good time. Fuck the Skyrim vs Dark Souls nonsense, I played both and enjoyed both! I'm a whore! I'll give it up for any game!

It's not that I won't enjoy games of varying types. I just tend to prefer some stuff. Like in Skyrim, I admit that I disliked the magic abilities because they felt so completely watered down and garbage compared to the more complex spell crafting system that the older games had. But I still had fun with the game (though I admit it's not a favorite).

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I'm ready and fairly excited. I enjoy the hell out of WoW and being able to solo Cataclysm content is reason enough since I missed a ton of that stuff due to a guild implosion and poor PuGs.
Can't wait to play with the garrison feature and such. No new classes or races is nice to me, tired of re-rolling a character every expansion.

 

[Fappy]

Not bad, not bad. No legendary cloak though? Lolnub!

The last time I stopped playing was near the beginning of Cata. By the time I came back SoO had already been out for quite some time. I got to the Secrets stage of the Legendary questline, looked at the calendar and said, "fuck it"

How did you find flex/normal raiding in MoP? Last time I raided (outside of LFR, which shouldn't count) was Naxx in WOTLK. Quit the game right as Ulduar came out. 25 man raiding with what was essentially a weekly pick-up raid burned me out. Too much screeching and bickering. Felt like a job.

LFR is a nice way to get to know the content, but it's so dumbed down that there's no reason to do it once you have the extra gear you need. As for Flex/Normal... it's hard to say, really. Most the groups I have encountered had a radical mix of gear levels, so I am not entirely sure how difficult it is intended to be at the moment. I am hoping the difficulty is somewhere between Naxx and Ulduar for the intro raids in WoD.

And I totally get where you're coming from in regards to WotLK raiding. I quit about a month into the Ulduar patch because 3-drake Sarth and the weekly Naxx grind had totally burned me out. Ironically Ulduar is my favorite WoW raid next to Kara.

 

[sneakypenguin]

I'm excited for it but devastated at the shammy changes. Seriously PVP as an elemental shaman is so brutal now hate the new mastery. Shaman everywhere "we hate eq" Blizz "okay well with the ability trim it would be good to remove the most situational and normally useless aoe in the game" JK mofo's we want it to be part of your rotation so your mastery now buffs it. Also your mastery breaks CC Breaks on LoS, breaks on range, and it will do 40% of your damage. Oh and btw your main nuke now hits for less than a ME shard and LB crits way harder than LvB. Also fulmination gets 15 stacks but good luck getting that many cause you can't hardcast worth shit. Tstorm back to its 45 sec cooldown (its at 17.5 w/ set bonus atm) AS doesn't work with hex (your 45sec cc that your mastery will break)

Also your one good cc breaker tremor totem isn't usable in fear... So now you have to guess when those instant cast fears are coming.

Shammy's always been a little clunky but they got hit bad. All classes cry about nerfs and changes but idt i've seen a more hated change to gameplay than shaman at the moment.

 

[t0ss]

Launches tonight, will be playable next week.

 

[VanQ]

For those of us who are still playing this old dinosaur or who have recently returned to the game; are you ready? Is it coming too soon? Not soon enough?

It's not nearly soon enough! Ever since my guild got its Heroic Garrosh kill pre-patch 6.0 we've been idling the time waiting for the launch to hit. We've spent the last month since 6.0 selling Heroic kills for 5k a piece to get people their heirlooms and to boost the guild's coffers for Mythic Raiding in WoD.

Anything you're particularly excited for or disappointed by? Plan to power level or take your time? Feel free to say what server(s) you play on and whatnot.

I'm mainly excited for the raiding. Blizzard has turned the spectacle up to 11 and the boss encounters look like the kind of bosses you expect in the most modern RPGs except with 20 people each setting off their own light shows. One boss looks like the Tiny the Tiger fights from Crash 2 and 3 combined! And everyone knows Tiny's boss battles were the best! Plus there's an entire 5 man instance on a speeding train! How cool is that!

My main's on Thrall right now, but I'm also playing a bit on Ursin (Horde).

I also play on US-Thrall Horde. If you want a great, active guild that raids Mythic on weekdays and runs non-commital Heroic raids on weekends that you can drop in on a week to week basis depending on if it suits you, plus a roster of top tier players that are really helpful, drop me a line and I can give you an invite. VanQ#1831 is my bnet tag.
I also have all the classes at level cap and happily teach anyone that asks about how to best play their class and what addons they can use to get the most out of WoW.

Personally, I am a little pissed off that it launches at 3:00am EST. It used to be that I'd go to a local Gamestop and pick up the newest expansion at midnight! Considering I have an early morning meeting now I can't play on launch night at all!

This works out just perfectly for me. It's launching at 6pm my local time. For once it's a bonus to be an aussie!

This is basically just a general pre-launch thread for WoD, so feel free to discuss anything related to it![/quote]

EDIT: Blizzard is having a lot of fun with this launch. Looks like Grommash invaded Times Square, NY.


And the players are having fun in their own way. Blizzard made it so you can't mount near the WoD quest giver to troll, but the players found another way. The players always find a way...

Spoiler

 

[Teoes]

It's a funny one but I'm sure everyone in here will understand. I rejoined WoW back in February, started from scratch. Was enjoying the hell out of it but late summer our Guild just became a bit of a ghost town in the end of expac lull, so I just sorted of drifted off myself. Now I'm almost (almost) resenting going back as I've been having fun playing other games; even though I expect this to be a damn good expansion and I'll go back to really enjoying the game again. Eh, I'll just need to find a balance that feels right.

What's not helping is that tonight I'm going to be busy packing and sorting shit out for a weekend away, so it's going to be a few days before I get actually pick it up and start trying to catch up with my mates again.

I'll not be trying too hard to power level or anything, just so long as I'm up in time for the Molten Core relaunch so I can get the pet and mount. Dunno if I'll bother leveling alts? I might turn previous "alt-time" into just playing other games so I don't feel like I'm neglecting the rest of my library too much.

Troll Druid, Restoration main, on EU-Chamber of Aspects.. if anyone cares!

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I'm tempted to fire it up again and see my old characters with their shiny new models. I've never played an xpac around launch, the earliest I've hopped into one was Cata a couple months after release, by which time it had lost some of the 'newness'.

They're saying that Heroic dungeons are going to be tough again, which was always my favourite thing.


Buuuut then I can't be asked to pay the cost of WoD + a sub when I'm getting infinite hours out of DOTA2 and it's free.

 

[Jandau]

I did my WoW comeback earlier this year, had my fill of it. In hindsight, I did happen to pick a particularly terrible time to rejoin the game, during the long content drought of Siege of Orgrimmar. Perhaps I would have stayed longer if I came in now, during the WoD release when the game is fresh, instead of so late in an expansion. I've since migrated to Final Fantasy 14 and don't plan on moving any time soon.

However, WoD does look pretty cool. I hope it turns out better than Pandaria and that you all have tons of fun with it. For my part, I'll be keeping tabs on how it's going, mostly through Youtube videos and Twitch streams (mostly Preach's stuff), but I doubt I'll be coming back in the foreseeable future. Best of luck in Draenor, everyone!

 

[thetoddo]

Just did a couple of hours before I went to work.

1. The opening quest chain is amazing. The first thing you see after going through the portal literally made me say "oh, S#it!" out loud, and there were some familiar faces bound up in the first few missions that were really cool. (avoiding spoilers) And it just gets better from there. Introduces you to the major players in an organic manner and lets you feel like a total superhero who nonetheless is completely outgunned by the sheer number of mooks chasing you.

2. Spoiler Warning: The music is AWESOME. Like, Grizzly Hills zone music good.

3. I'm at the very beginning of the garrison quests and I think I'm really gonna like it.

 

[thetoddo]

I'll probably level to max and dick around a little bit with old raids to see what I can manage to solo nowadays. Maybe RP with friends a bit until the orc focus drives me away again. Though I hope they put more thought into stuff this time around as I don't want to see another Hillsbrad(the updated one) or that bone road in Hellfire Peninsula. Those are some nasty Fridge Horrors.

I think you'll like the new Path of Glory. Going through the Dark Portal this time was actually even cooler than when you do it in BC because of *SPOILERS REDACTED*. Only seen the intro chain (bout an hour to an hour and a half of really good stuff) and the horde "starter" zone thus far (which is so different but creepily familiar if you know what BC zone you're in) and the world design thus far is visually impressing me on the same "this is really cool looking" level as the first time I took flight in Deepholm.

 

[thetoddo]

I'll probably level to max and dick around a little bit with old raids to see what I can manage to solo nowadays. Maybe RP with friends a bit until the orc focus drives me away again. Though I hope they put more thought into stuff this time around as I don't want to see another Hillsbrad(the updated one) or that bone road in Hellfire Peninsula. Those are some nasty Fridge Horrors.

I think you'll like the new Path of Glory. Going through the Dark Portal this time was actually even cooler than when you do it in BC because of *SPOILERS REDACTED*. Only seen the intro chain (bout an hour to an hour and a half of really good stuff) and the horde "starter" zone thus far (which is so different but creepily familiar if you know what BC zone you're in) and the world design thus far is visually impressing me on the same "this is really cool looking" level as the first time I took flight in Deepholm.

Not if its still made out of draenei bones given how many dead is needed to make a road that big and long. If it's a regular road(as made out of anything but peoples bones) it's fine though.

It's... not like that anymore. Don't want to go into spoiler territory, but the point in the timeline you're jumping into is before the fall of Kalibor. The road is a road, but the environment around it is radically different.