World of Warcraft: Dragon Desperation

[frajaq]

holy shit blizz when am I getting playable Nagas?!? its been 16 years

they better be in this expansion

 

[J1M]

10.2 coming in a couple weeks. Rumor is that it's going to be the last patch, since there were layoffs earlier this year and the devs said that content was cut, and 2 out of the 3 Primal Incarnates were written out as villains (Vyranoth becoming friendly and Iridkiron leaving through a portal). It would've been cool if the final fight had been a council encounter against the three Incarnates at once. Earth, fire, and ice.

I'll probably play, beat the raid, get the mythic dungeon mount, and then unsub.

Citation needed. It's obviously the last patch, but I think you are confusing 10 layoffs on the Hearthstone team with WoW. Which has more employees than ever before. They bought an entire studio to work on minor patches. They also have another team just for classic.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

If this guy thinks DE&I includes any tolerance for "diversity of thought" he's either clinically delusional or too stupid to breathe without regular reminders from his caretaker.

 

[Caim]

There's also been leaks about what may or may not be a new expansion, about a new continent to the west of Kalimdor.

Blizzcon next week, if they're going to reveal something like this that is the best time.

 

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

WoW has to be the most exhausted setting in fiction. How many "undiscovered" places in Azeroth are there gonna be? They literally had you exploring another planet in TBC but no one knew Pandaria or Dragon Isles existed?

 

[Caim]

How many "undiscovered" places in Azeroth are there gonna be?

Depends on how many expansions they need.

 

[Gandalf]

What WoW needs is more rock and roll.

 

[J1M]

WoW has to be the most exhausted setting in fiction. How many "undiscovered" places in Azeroth are there gonna be? They literally had you exploring another planet in TBC but no one knew Pandaria or Dragon Isles existed?

Haven't even gone to either moon yet.

 

[J1M]

This is probably referencing people who quit because they didn't want to stop working remotely.

That's not the same as layoffs.

 

[Dr1f7]

still don't know how we went from badass shadowlands to disney dragon world over night
it's like panda land all over again

 

[Caim]

badass shadowlands

You must've been playing a different expansion than the rest of us.

 

[Dr1f7]

badass shadowlands

You must've been playing a different expansion than the rest of us.

NO, shadowlands was cool
visually it was great, most of the dungeons were cool with one being one of my fav wow dungeons, raids were cool
the maw and torghast was like walking into mordor
badass all around except bastion was kinda lame zone but the necropolis dungeon in bastion was great

shadowlands gets hate from the usual two groups of degenerates:

1. people who play way too much and were butthurt over running out of things to do after a month
2. people who really care about the story in a game that has a history of writing chuck norris jokes into questlines

bfa was good too, despite getting all sorts of hate. and legion was also good.

dragonlands aesthetically is like a lame filler episode in the style of a disney show

 

[Myobi]

shadowlands was cool

LOL!

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This is probably referencing people who quit because they didn't want to stop working remotely.

That's not the same as layoffs.

I've seen this tactic before. Higherups make demands of their employees knowing that there is a good chance they will refuse and resign. It's an underhanded way to effectively lay people off without having to pay a severance package.

shadowlands was cool

I thought that the sky islands of Bastion with the golden fields and the blue anima tethers floating overhead and the hyperspace flightpaths looked cool. I also liked that the devs experimented with some fantasy weather conditions, like the rain of falling golden feathers in Bastion or the blood rain in Revendreth. The Sylvanas fight at the end of Sanctum Domination where you are chasing her across the chains was cool.

But the rest of the expansion was not. None of the four Covenants were appealing. Passive blue greek angels, washed down Scourge rehash, blue tumblr fairies, and generic gothic vampires. It is also hard to get invested in these new factions when most of their characters were unlikeable. Only the Venthyr characters were tolerable, but not endearing. The Mawsworn as the enemy faction were also generic. The four Covenant questlines were very long but overall boring or unenjoyable to go through.

Gameplay wise, Shadowlands was very unenjoyable to play. The game revolved around farming anima, which you needed in humongous quantities to buy anything (tens to hundreds of thousands of anima), but the anima came at an abysmal drip rate of 10s or 100s, usually from world quests or rares. Because there was no flying, and Blizzard began designing their environments to be as difficult to navigate as possible after MoP, the process of running from world quest to world quest to farm a drip amount of anima was horrendous. I could only be assed to max out the Kyrian Covenant, no way I would do that grind three more times.

I thought that the soundtrack was forgettable. The only tracks I can recall are Bolvar's theme, and the violin at the Kyrian Hold.

shadowlands gets hate from the usual two groups of degenerates:

people who really care about the story in a game that has a history of writing chuck norris jokes into questlines

WoW did have good storytelling. Off of the top of my head:

• Death Knight intro (WotLK): you get to play as a legit bad guy working for the dark lord. You get to waltz into people's homes and slaughter them as they scream and beg for their lives. The Battle of Light's Hope Chapel is pretty immersive.
• Stonetalon Mountains (Cata, Horde). You enlist in Krom'gar's army and begin climbing up the ranks. You quickly become an officer and get to order peons around. Delivers on the experience of being a conqueror.
• The two part Invasion of Gilneas storyline. Part 1 is the Gilneas starting zone story, and the once you finish that you do part 2 the Silverpine Forest storyline as Horde and see that sameinvasion play out from a different PoV. Another good war story.
• Wandering Isle: again cast of likeable characters, fun quests, tension in the plot to keep me engaged and fast pacing.
• Isle of Thunder story was good. Threatening villains, fun quests, likeable cast and fast paced.
• The WoD levelling experience was overall the best expansion levelling storyline, particularly WoD Shadowmoon Valley and Talador. A tight cast of likeable characters, fun quests, and fast pacing.

And also several other storylines such as the the Jade Forest intro with Lorewalker Cho, the MoP legendary questline with Wrathion, the 5.1 faction war storyline, etc.

bfa was good too

I found BFA to be a major letdown. The prepatch War of Thorns questline and the Battle for Lordaeron scenario were great and got me very excited for more war questlines. Then the expansion launched... and you don't do any warfare. Instead, you're sent to Zandalar/Kul Tiras to run around do chores for the locals. I finished the Drustvar questline and never finished Vol'dun. I found the questing so tedious and unenjoyable that I just queued for Island Expeditions to reach levelcap.

Nazjatar looked cool with the The Ten Commandments-esque wall of water surrounding the map.

I thought that 8.3 was disappointing in that you didn't get to go to the N'zoth zone as was teased in the datamines. Revisiting Pandaria and reuniting with Lorewalker Cho, and getting introduced to a friendly Mogu clan was neat.

 

[Dr1f7]

shadowlands was cool

LOL!

yeah man aesthetically shadowlands was cool af pretty much all around

that's like four of probably hundreds of screenshots i could post of cool environments in shadowlands. xpac was metal af

 

[Dr1f7]

But the rest of the expansion was not. None of the four Covenants were appealing. Passive blue greek angels, washed down Scourge rehash, blue tumblr fairies, and generic gothic vampires. It is also hard to get invested in these new factions when most of their characters were unlikeable. Only the Venthyr characters were tolerable, but not endearing. The Mawsworn as the enemy faction were also generic. The four Covenant questlines were very long but overall boring or unenjoyable to go through.

Gameplay wise, Shadowlands was very unenjoyable to play. The game revolved around farming anima, which you needed in humongous quantities to buy anything (tens to hundreds of thousands of anima), but the anima came at an abysmal drip rate of 10s or 100s, usually from world quests or rares. Because there was no flying, and Blizzard began designing their environments to be as difficult to navigate as possible after MoP, the process of running from world quest to world quest to farm a drip amount of anima was horrendous. I could only be assed to max out the Kyrian Covenant, no way I would do that grind three more times.

I thought that the soundtrack was forgettable. The only tracks I can recall are Bolvar's theme, and the violin at the Kyrian Hold.

shadowlands gets hate from the usual two groups of degenerates:

people who really care about the story in a game that has a history of writing chuck norris jokes into questlines

WoW did have good storytelling. Off of the top of my head:

• Death Knight intro (WotLK): you get to play as a legit bad guy working for the dark lord. You get to waltz into people's homes and slaughter them as they scream and beg for their lives. The Battle of Light's Hope Chapel is pretty immersive.
• Stonetalon Mountains (Cata, Horde). You enlist in Krom'gar's army and begin climbing up the ranks. You quickly become an officer and get to order peons around. Delivers on the experience of being a conqueror.
• The two part Invasion of Gilneas storyline. Part 1 is the Gilneas starting zone story, and the once you finish that you do part 2 the Silverpine Forest storyline as Horde and see that sameinvasion play out from a different PoV. Another good war story.
• Wandering Isle: again cast of likeable characters, fun quests, tension in the plot to keep me engaged and fast pacing.
• Isle of Thunder story was good. Threatening villains, fun quests, likeable cast and fast paced.
• The WoD levelling experience was overall the best expansion levelling storyline, particularly WoD Shadowmoon Valley and Talador. A tight cast of likeable characters, fun quests, and fast pacing.

And also several other storylines such as the the Jade Forest intro with Lorewalker Cho, the MoP legendary questline with Wrathion, the 5.1 faction war storyline, etc.

bfa was good too

I found BFA to be a major letdown. The prepatch War of Thorns questline and the Battle for Lordaeron scenario were great and got me very excited for more war questlines. Then the expansion launched... and you don't do any warfare. Instead, you're sent to Zandalar/Kul Tiras to run around do chores for the locals. I finished the Drustvar questline and never finished Vol'dun. I found the questing so tedious and unenjoyable that I just queued for Island Expeditions to reach levelcap.

Nazjatar looked cool with the The Ten Commandments-esque wall of water surrounding the map.

I thought that 8.3 was disappointing in that you didn't get to go to the N'zoth zone as was teased in the datamines. Revisiting Pandaria and reuniting with Lorewalker Cho, and getting introduced to a friendly Mogu clan was neat.

idk you seem to think about the game much more than i do. which is fine but we're just going to disagree on a lot

my experience with the game is literally logging in and run a couple random dungeons or a raid finder or run around collecting pets.. never read any of the quest dialogue, not bothered by keeping up with progression or whatever thousand currencies the game has, I just ignore all that crap. the only time i engage with any of the 'systems' is if it's something i actually find fun. then whenever i'm bored i unsub for 6 months. i will say and have said though that the systems have gotten better and better every xpac since legion

anyway shadowlands had good vibes, bfa had good vibes, legion had good vibes. dragonflight is OK and still playable but i get pandaland disney filler expansion vibes from it

 

[Myobi]

yeah man aesthetically shadowlands was cool

Yeah, no, I don't think "aesthetics" is what people are thinking about when they say the expansion was shit.

 

[mediocrepoet]

yeah man aesthetically shadowlands was cool

Yeah, no, I don't think "aesthetics" is what people are thinking about when they say the expansion was shit.

WoW was aesthetically awesome. 20 years ago.

 

[Talby]

Reject modernity, embrace tradition.

 

[Reever]

WoW has to be the most exhausted setting in fiction. How many "undiscovered" places in Azeroth are there gonna be? They literally had you exploring another planet in TBC but no one knew Pandaria or Dragon Isles existed?

Which is weird because you have a lot of discovered locations from earlier lore that either Blizzard forgot or is never going to add because it doesn't fit the grand scale needed for new content.
And on a somewhat related note I've seen so many people praise Dragonflight's story for being more low stakes yet the whole expansion is based around dragons, time-travel, titans and so on. That is not low-stake for me. Than again, at the start of Shadowlands I've also seen people praise that for "going back to WoW's roots"

 

[Late Bloomer]

Reminds me of this

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

After hitting Valdrakken renown level 30 on my main, I went to the rep vendor to buy the dragon taming manual to mail it to my hunter alt, only to find out that I can't do that. Instead, I had to do this whole rep grind all over again on my hunter alt. I did get double rep on my alt until renown level 20, but still... that was frustrating. And perhaps a waste of time too. I got the dragon taming manual, and... there are only two dragon models that you can tame. And one of them, the Veilwing, doesn't even fly like the NPC mobs. The tamed pet version walks on the ground. It's a dog with wings. So the only real dragon pet you can get is the Fey Dragon. There is also the Cloud Serpent, but I already got that from the Cloud Serpent rep I reached exalted on my main over 10 years ago, and it's bigger than the Fey Dragon. It would've been cool if you could have tamed one of those big proto-drakes, or those Draenor Fey Dragons. and they flew rather than walked.

I did the Time Rift and Dreamsurge events. They still suffer from the same flaws that plagued the Primalist Future and Tuskurr soup events, in that they are nonstop high intensity for too long and with no breaks. You're furiously bursting down mobs for 10 minutes straight. The Time Rift event is probably the "best" one thus far given that it has you flying around (though the Researchers Under Fire event also did that) and there is the chances that you might get the minigame with the hourglass which helps spruce things up, but it's still not very fun. The green orbs that spawn around the Dreamsurge zone that you can fly through to get currency are neat, though ultimately both the Time Rifts and Dreamsurge events are rather grindy.

For Dreamsurges you get about 30 currency per event (which happens once every 30 minutes), and a piece of gear costs 100 currency. That is 1,200 Dreamsurge currency you need to gear up a character (you can buy everything except trinkets). You can also get about 50 more currency in between Dreamsurge events by doing world quests, killing empowered rares in the area, or flying through the green orbs, but it will still take a few days just to get one character geared, whereas with prior catchup systems like Timeless Isle of the Forbidden Reach you could be fully geared in less than a of couple hours.

 

[gabel]

yeah man aesthetically shadowlands was cool

Yeah, no, I don't think "aesthetics" is what people are thinking about when they say the expansion was shit.

WoW was aesthetically awesome. 20 years ago.

It always looked like shit.

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

After hitting Valdrakken renown level 30 on my main, I went to the rep vendor to buy the dragon taming manual to mail it to my hunter alt, only to find out that I can't do that. Instead, I had to do this whole rep grind all over again on my hunter alt. I did get double rep on my alt until renown level 20, but still... that was frustrating. And perhaps a waste of time too. I got the dragon taming manual, and... there are only two dragon models that you can tame. And one of them, the Veilwing, doesn't even fly like the NPC mobs. The tamed pet version walks on the ground. It's a dog with wings. So the only real dragon pet you can get is the Fey Dragon. There is also the Cloud Serpent, but I already got that from the Cloud Serpent rep I reached exalted on my main over 10 years ago, and it's bigger than the Fey Dragon. It would've been cool if you could have tamed one of those big proto-drakes, or those Draenor Fey Dragons. and they flew rather than walked.

I did the Time Rift and Dreamsurge events. They still suffer from the same flaws that plagued the Primalist Future and Tuskurr soup events, in that they are nonstop high intensity for too long and with no breaks. You're furiously bursting down mobs for 10 minutes straight. The Time Rift event is probably the "best" one thus far given that it has you flying around (though the Researchers Under Fire event also did that) and there is the chances that you might get the minigame with the hourglass which helps spruce things up, but it's still not very fun. The green orbs that spawn around the Dreamsurge zone that you can fly through to get currency are neat, though ultimately both the Time Rifts and Dreamsurge events are rather grindy.

For Dreamsurges you get about 30 currency per event (which happens once every 30 minutes), and a piece of gear costs 100 currency. That is 1,200 Dreamsurge currency you need to gear up a character (you can buy everything except trinkets). You can also get about 50 more currency in between Dreamsurge events by doing world quests, killing empowered rares in the area, or flying through the green orbs, but it will still take a few days just to get one character geared, whereas with prior catchup systems like Timeless Isle of the Forbidden Reach you could be fully geared in less than a of couple hours.

Spirit of Competition exists from 2008 Beijing Olympics, BMAH might have it