World of Warcraft: Current Year

Daidraco · Nov 22, 2020

Ukerric said:
And this is important because...?

Do you really think, one second, that people who are impacted by those decisions will suddenly, out of nothing, stop, smell the roses, "enjoy" reading lore, and stuff?

The answer is "no". The people most impacted by those are not going to enjoy that, for one single second. They are going to grumble, and endure, because they have no way to affect their gameplay whatsoever. These people are going to be 60 at the exact same time. The only difference is that, given the optimal use of their time, is that they will switch to one of their dozen alts required for mythic raiding (because guess what? High-end mythic raider bring the class AND the player, not just the player), and level it instead. They are going to spend as much time poopsocking as they would. Just on a different character.

The only reason those artificial "week one/two/three" blocks exist is to provide a fake sense of fairness to the "MUTHICK FURST" crowd clamoring for their poopsocking, because woe if some guild might get "Mythic First" one week earlier because they poopsock harder than the next guy (of course, they will. One way or another).

This is yet another example of the metric-driven game design. They are at the point where they need to curate the game for the 0.01% who may "play too much vs the 0.02%"!

(and this is yet another data point that comforts me in my position that I am not coming back for this expansion, for the first time in the entire WoW history, and presumably not ever. I still enjoy the abstraction of World of Warcraft, but the actual product leaves me flatlined in terms of interest)

Burns · Nov 22, 2020

Ukerric said:
And this is important because...?

Do you really think, one second, that people who are impacted by those decisions will suddenly, out of nothing, stop, smell the roses, "enjoy" reading lore, and stuff?

The answer is "no". The people most impacted by those are not going to enjoy that, for one single second. They are going to grumble, and endure, because they have no way to affect their gameplay whatsoever. These people are going to be 60 at the exact same time. The only difference is that, given the optimal use of their time, is that they will switch to one of their dozen alts required for mythic raiding (because guess what? High-end mythic raider bring the class AND the player, not just the player), and level it instead. They are going to spend as much time poopsocking as they would. Just on a different character.

The only reason those artificial "week one/two/three" blocks exist is to provide a fake sense of fairness to the "MUTHICK FURST" crowd clamoring for their poopsocking, because woe if some guild might get "Mythic First" one week earlier because they poopsock harder than the next guy (of course, they will. One way or another).

This is yet another example of the metric-driven game design. They are at the point where they need to curate the game for the 0.01% who may "play too much vs the 0.02%"!

(and this is yet another data point that comforts me in my position that I am not coming back for this expansion, for the first time in the entire WoW history, and presumably not ever. I still enjoy the abstraction of World of Warcraft, but the actual product leaves me flatlined in terms of interest)

*shrug* Out of the 10ish people I knew in the shitty #2 mythic guild, on my small server, about half were mad that they either had to work and couldn't stay up all night, or that they had to speed run and not "enjoy" the leveling process. There were plenty of people complaining on MMO-Champ about being a week behind. Especially in unlocking the 2 Suramar dungeons, or getting an extra emissary (in Legion, where all this really started with the reset making a difference).

Of course the top 25 guilds are going to do top 25 things and always speed run it. That's why I said it wasn't a top 100 guild issue but a medium and small mythic guild issue.

They have burnt the bridge with all the metric based design, and that's all people can see. If it was any other developer, would it be so difficult to imagine that a dev team would want the first weekly reward of an Xpac to be a week and not 16 hours?

jayrebb · Nov 22, 2020

What's the real talk with leveling?

How fast is the Autopilot quest glider? Is the Addon using the same method or similar method to the youtube speedrunners?

Don't really have a choice anyway. Autopilot is the best method if you don't have zone knowledge. The addon appears fairly similar to speedrunner videos-- looks like WoD path.

Kyougou · Nov 22, 2020

The early advice is: "just follow the main story quests up until revendreth (last zone) where you need to start doing side quests.
Probably the best advice to avoid the big wave... but if everyone that is aware of it is doing this maybe there is some wisdom in doing side quests elsewhere while leveling if you are somewhat ahead of the curve but want to avoid the first hardcore wave.

You do have to finish the campaign though... to get the covenant stuff... so keep that in mind.

Dalien · Nov 22, 2020

BoozeCube said:
This design philosophy of shitty story telling followed by cliffhanger until next patch only works if you are invested enough in the story to give a fuck about the cliffhanger and two if they don’t completely abandon the story line all the time.

I'm hoping that they use this expansion to tie up a bunch of these loose ends. There are some dead major characters that you bump into in the zones. I hate the cliffhangers because it's not like a show where you may have to wait a week, it's more like 6 months to possibly years before you get any closure on some of these story threads.

To answer a few of your story questions:

So I guess Heyla and the Maw or souls has zero bearing on this shit and it just a coincidence with the naming. Stupid but whatever.

The Helya and (Legion) Maw of Souls stuff makes no sense to me, but she does show up in the (Shadowlands) Maw briefly during the intro experience. She basically calls you an asshole for killing her and throws you off a bridge. According to the WoW wiki she's serving the Jailer now, so who knows.

We still have a giant gaping wound in Azeroth from Sagaras sword. Thrown away plot line.

If you join the Night Fae at 60 they bring up the sword so it's not completely forgotten. If I had to guess, this won't be resolved until the next expansion when we leave the Shadowlands and return to Azeroth. They've hinted in interviews and shit that time moves differently in the Shadowlands, so when we return it could be 5 minutes from now or it could be thousands of years later.

We killed all the old gods but since whatever dies on Azeroth shouldn’t that mean like all of the old gods are in shadowlands now? Or fallen aspects like Yahsera, or even Deathwing? Maybe Aundins dad can make an appearance.

Ysera is in Ardenweald, no sign of Deathwing so far. Andiun is in Torghast but the quest ends abruptly before you find him. No sign of his dad.

Qhue · Nov 22, 2020

Came *this* close to logging in since its T-day and I have the week off.... but it turns out I was so used to using Battle.Net to login that I don't remember my password and so can't toss any money at them since they do a secondary password check.

Guess that's a sign that I shouldn't bother.

Dalien · Nov 22, 2020

Kyougou said:
The early advice is: "just follow the main story quests up until revendreth (last zone) where you need to start doing side quests.
Probably the best advice to avoid the big wave... but if everyone that is aware of it is doing this maybe there is some wisdom in doing side quests elsewhere while leveling if you are somewhat ahead of the curve but want to avoid the first hardcore wave.

You do have to finish the campaign though... to get the covenant stuff... so keep that in mind.

If you're trying to stay ahead of the pack then yeah, I would skip side quests until you finish the story campaign in Revendreth. You'll likely end up at 59.25 or 59.5 and can do side quests there to make up the difference. If you run out you can go back to Ardenweald and do a few more to ding 60.

If you don't care about leveling fast then I'd probably just do them as you go, at least the ones you stumble over while doing the story. It really doesn't matter that much because as you said, you have to finish the campaign on your first character to access any of the endgame stuff. There's no real benefit to hitting 60 early unless you're racing for server first or something.

turbo · Nov 23, 2020

So been relearning the game abit on a shaman and decided last second to play a priest as i never played one back in the day. Used the lvl boost on him, do I have to do anything quest or prep wise for shadowlands? Or is there just a portal some where you go right out the gate when it hits and you nothing quest wise etc matters you just start the level grind in the new content? If so where is the starting point so i can log out there.

Also i assume all the new systems will be introduced as you go vs. be derivatives of old ones right so don't need to try and get something on this new char done before I dive into SL?

Dalien · Nov 23, 2020

The quest will pop up automatically in Stormwind/Org when it goes live. You talk to someone there and they will send you to Icecrown.

Nothing you really have to do to prepare, just make sure you have plenty of bag space. Get some Goblin Glider Kits off the AH if they're not too expensive; they are very useful for taking shortcuts in the new zones.

For anyone with engineering you should level Cataclysm Engineering to 70 if it's not too expensive, so you can use the Loot-A-Rang. It's really nice to have, especially in Torghast where you have to loot a million bodies.

jayrebb · Nov 23, 2020

Checking back in, lvl 20 atm. Azeroth autopilot isn't a speedrun in the same sense of what's been posted in this thread, its more of a "fast" quest run.

Don't follow or use this autopilot if already intimately familiar with WoD et al.

jayrebb · Nov 23, 2020

Ended session at 27. Seems wrong for what I heard about WoD.

Going to Chromie to BFA or some zone I know better and follow main questlines I guess. This pace won't get me 50 before launch.

Chersk · Nov 23, 2020

Dalien said:
The quest will pop up automatically in Stormwind/Org when it goes live. You talk to someone there and they will send you to Icecrown.

Nothing you really have to do to prepare, just make sure you have plenty of bag space. Get some Goblin Glider Kits off the AH if they're not too expensive; they are very useful for taking shortcuts in the new zones.

For anyone with engineering you should level Cataclysm Engineering to 70 if it's not too expensive, so you can use the Loot-A-Rang. It's really nice to have, especially in Torghast where you have to loot a million bodies.

Damn I want a loot a rang but I don’t want to be an engineer

Braen · Nov 23, 2020

Well another WoW expansion, another Mistwalkers respawn?, rebirth? refail?

The Mistwalkers lives on Hyjal for those Alliance inclined. Of course, Horde has FoH on there as well.

The social community is Mistwalkers if you call one person in the community right now social...

Message Narlathotep or Nyarlathotep or post here if you need a casual home for Shadowlands. Or not.

a_skeleton_05 · Nov 23, 2020

Sucks that they haven't made guilds work cross-server. All my characters are on Thrall and Stormrage.

Braen · Nov 23, 2020

You are welcome to fart around on Hyjal if you are bored.

a_skeleton_05 · Nov 23, 2020

Having decided to jump in, I've put some effort into looking at what they're going for with the expansion and I begrudgingly have to say that there is some promising stuff. Specifically, having a fair amount of varied content with only a small portion of it being mandatory. Legion and BFA were full of shitty soul-draining chores and grinds. They might have learned some lessons.

Burns · Nov 23, 2020

jayrebb said:
Ended session at 27. Seems wrong for what I heard about WoD.

Going to Chromie to BFA or some zone I know better and follow main questlines I guess. This pace won't get me 50 before launch.

I keep reading ~10 hours to go from 1 to 50 and 6-7 hours to go from 50 to 60. What were you expecting?

The really fast WoD leveling was nerfed shortly before (I think it was before) the prepatch was released, when they destroyed bonus objective XP.

jayrebb · Nov 23, 2020

Burns said:
I keep reading ~10 hours to go from 1 to 50 and 6-7 hours to go from 50 to 60. What were you expecting?

The really fast WoD leveling was nerfed shortly before (I think it was before) the prepatch was released, when they destroyed bonus objective XP.

I continued to try to quest through WoD beyond the intro.

Oct 27th speedrun expert said that's incorrect despite popular belief. Listening to him now for the new route.

Cynical · Nov 23, 2020

I won't be starting until Tues/Wed. I'll either go DH or mage, looks like DH 50, and mage 45 on armory.

Seeing all my characters below 60 is fucking weird.

Koushirou · Nov 23, 2020

Still trying to decide if I want to get this. Made enough gold to buy the basic edition with tokens, so that's not an issue. IDK, just seems like there's too many fucking systems and I guess they all kind of seem mandatory to me for meaningful progress? I won't be in a raid group and I have no idea if I'll have anyone to do M+ stuff with, so I'm not sure if there's really much else I'm interested in. I've been enjoying the gold making game as of late, though, so I guess I'd want to level characters to at least get professions going and keep doing that side of things. There anything else with this expansion I'm missing that could be fun?

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World of Warcraft: Current Year

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer

Burns

Avatar of War Slayer

jayrebb

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Kyougou

Dalien

Registered Hodor

Qhue

Tranny Chaser

Dalien

Registered Hodor

turbo

Molten Core Raider

Dalien

Registered Hodor

jayrebb

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

jayrebb

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Chersk

Trakanon Raider

Braen

a_skeleton_05

Braen

a_skeleton_05

Burns

Avatar of War Slayer

jayrebb

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Cynical

Canuckistani Terrorist

Koushirou

Log Wizard