World of Warcraft: The War Within

[J1M]

Raiding was a social activity until they added difficulty levels. The tedium was fine when it was spent with friends.

 

[Late Bloomer]

It seems they are adding "Story Mode" to The War Within which makes the last raid boss of Nerub-ar Palace, soloable. Anyone give it a try?

How Story Mode works

In Story Mode, you fight only the raid's final boss, which has been scaled back in stats and complexity so that it's beatable for a single player or a very small group of friends. Challenging encounter mechanics have been removed, and the whole fight has been retooled to focus exclusively on the narrative aspects.

There are some rewards, but they're not the same as those on more difficult raids; the goal was to avoid cheapening the experience for those who do want to go all the way.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024...-warcraft-will-now-let-players-do-solo-raids/

 

[Habichtswalder]

I find the idea of a story mode that includes ONLY the final boss pretty stupid. If you want players to experience the story, make it the full story (= entire raid).

 

[Keshik]

Did the story mode, the NPCs were better than the people I raid with in LFR. Kind of cheap to just give us the last boss and the cinematic, although not sure how much lore was skipped - I've only done two wings in LFR and not really much story there other than the Queen talking crap to us.

 

[Dr1f7]

not really much story there other than the Queen talking crap to us.

lmao raid story:
Queen Nz'schtu;'a: "OY BLOKE FUCC U BLOODY BIT*CH I DID UR MUMS" middle finger gesture, spits web at floor

 

[Naraya]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024...-warcraft-will-now-let-players-do-solo-raids/

 

[Keshik]

not really much story there other than the Queen talking crap to us.

lmao raid story:
Queen Nz'schtu;'a: "OY BLOKE FUCC U BLOODY BIT*CH I DID UR MUMS" middle finger gesture, spits web at floor

Well pretty much that, from what I recall she just tells us how doomed we are, etc. Usual raid boss smack talk. Azshara still has the best lines in the recent expansions though

Thalyssra: Stay vigilant, champions! Azshara conceals schemes within schemes. She wants something...
Azshara: You've only just come to this realization? "First Arcanist" indeed!

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I did the Dawnbreaker dungeon (for the weekly quest). It's nice being able to mount up and fly around between airships, and it does the GW2 thing (Wyvern boss at the end of Verdant Brink, Mordremoth, Soo-Won, etc) where you have to leap off of the platform as it becomes enveloped in fatal AoEs and you have to fly back in when it's safe. It is quite odd however that the airship gets completely enveloped in void energy (which the story since BFA (perhaps even WotLK if you consider Saronite) has emphasized is highly corruptive and will literally twist material and render it uninhabitable and unsafe to be in proximity to or touch) and yet you immediately return and hop on board the ship no problem. It also feels odd that every flying mount besides the Dragonflight species does not have a fly-in summon animation, so it doesn't feel like you are calling your dragon to come rescue you. It just poofs out of thin air and then poofs out.

 

[Dr1f7]

that big void doom sphere is p cool tbh

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Just did the raid.

So, that's it for the Nerubian war? We never got the grandiose war advertised in the titular expansion and on the key art. It doesn't feel like a big battle is being waged with other NPCs fighting in the background like in Siege of Orgrimmar or Antorus or Amirdrassil. It's just 15 guys running through chopping up bodyguards, and then some VIPs, and then killing the queen while she is alone. It is also disappointing that there is no epilogue. I went back to the inn in the Weaver's Lair expecting Neferess to get the news that Ansurek is dead and to come back, but that didn't happen. And at the end of the raid, the Vizier is talking about how they have to keep things hush? What? Ansurek, her two generals, and all of her loyal soldiers within the castle walls are dead. Who are you afraid of? Just tell the people the truth: Ansurek got duped.

Aesthetically, I thought the raid was good-ish. More memorable than Vault of the Incarnates. Music was forgettable. There is tense violin music playing on the boss fights that makes it a little more exciting, but I can't remember anything about it melodically. Wouldn't add it to my favorite's playlist.

The boss fight weren't anything super standout but overall better than Vault, where I can hardly remember any of the fights. I liked picking up the chunks of meat and throwing them into the first boss' mouth. Running around chasing Rasha'nan was fun. I liked the intensity of Broodtwister with her creepy-cool model and the room slowly filling up with that creeping AoE. The dual boss fight against Anub and Takazj was neat.

I don't think the dungeon journal explained the web mechanic on the Silken Council very well. It said that it causes massive raid wide damage when the web breaks, so I thought it was going to be like the DoT mechanic on Sarkareth where you can't have everyone break their webs all at once and instead have to pace them out over the course of the fight, so I was running with my partner trying not to break the web. But apparently everyone was just breaking the web immedietely? But then you also have other people who have to keep the link to trip Anub when charges. It's just not tutorialized well.

Ansurek was an underwhelming base game final boss compared to Raszageth. Raszageth appeared from the beginning of the Dragonflight story in the Forbidden Reach and then popped in a few times throughout, and then the base game culminated in you killing the main villain which was a nicer conclusion to the base expansion experience than usual. Raszageth also had a cooler design being a bird dragon that breathes lightning lasers. Ansurek however is only introduced in the last 5 minutes of the Azj-Kahet questline, and doesn't look as cool. Doesn't feel as cathartic of a final boss.

 

[Caim]

They already killed the expansion's second biggest antagonist? That is... bold, unless they only expect there to be one patch after this one with a raid where you go and kill the knife bitch.

 

[Keshik]

They already killed the expansion's second biggest antagonist? That is... bold, unless they only expect there to be one patch after this one with a raid where you go and kill the knife bitch.

Xal'atath is the antagonist for the whole trilogy of expansion packs I believe

 

[Reever]

Xal'atath is the antagonist for the whole trilogy of expansion packs I believe

Correct, unless they have another "it was actually x who used xal'atath all along!" planned (which wouldn't be surprising) I expect her feet will have plenty of screentime in the next expansions.
As for them killing Ansurek already, it's somewhat similar to what they did in dragonflight with Raszageth. I'm not sure what they'll follow this up with since I expect they're saving Belegar for the next expansion (since it's called midnight) and there are not a lot of threads left open to follow up on. I guess Iridikron is still there somewhere doing "stuff"

 

[Beastro]

There might be some type of spider rebels or some spider aristocrats not liking how she killed the queen.

Yes, they need to justify playable bug people.

Gotta make the most of that Chinese market.

 

[Beastro]

the fact that according to Meltzen, WoW is going to continue with 10-20 years worth of expansions, is fucking frightening.
I genuinely wonder how long their engine is going to be running until they can no longer support it with content that's held together by super glue (the MTX shop will work fine though)

Everquest is still releasing expacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest_expansions#The_Outer_Brood

 

[Thalstarion]

My suspicion is that there was meant to be more to TWW but for whatever reason it was scrapped. A lot of it appears to be potential setup for the future, since the Arathi appear to be something to potentially exploit after the trilogy ends and we go to yet another new continent. I liked the Nerubian raid overall, though I do agree that the story ends rather abruptly.

It's funny to me that Thrall is on the artwork since he's barely present in the story itself. Even the likes of Jaina had a very scaled down role which is strange given what happened to Dalaran. The Silver Covenant, Sunreavers and Kirin Tor were also largely sidelined.

 

[J1M]

Metzen added the blowing up Dalaran thing to give a flaccid story he walked into about girls replacing old men some stakes.

That's why it is never mentioned until future patches.

 

[Maculo]

I have had a string of bad or weird luck with retadins in mythic groups — to the point I find myself hesitant to invite any. One Paladin kept spamming “go” on a 6+ Boralus on packs that should not be rushed and died on the final boss. Another left mid-pull on 5+ Grim Batol because the timer was too tight (you can still get loot though); thus bricking the key. Years ago, I had a retadin brick a key because someone told him to use his interrupts.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I have had a string of bad or weird luck with retadins in mythic groups — to the point I find myself hesitant to invite any. One Paladin kept spamming “go” on a 6+ Boralus on packs that should not be rushed and died on the final boss. Another left mid-pull on 5+ Grim Batol because the timer was too tight (you can still get loot though); thus bricking the key. Years ago, I had a retadin brick a key because someone told him to use his interrupts.

People keep doing this because there are no consequences for failure. Their key isn't the one being bricked. They aren't losing score. They can quickly get into another PUG group. Also seeing lots of people AFKing and bringing bad attitudes with them into the new 8v8 solo queue RBGs.

I have been playing FF11 Horizon again and the difference in people's attitudes is night and day. You lose exp upon death and can delevel, becoming unable to equip gear with level requirements. There is a high amount of time and some money required to travel to the location and buy buff food. The server has 2k to 4k people online and only a few dozen people on the same step of their journey as you. You can't sabotages groups like that or else word is going to get around and people won't invite bad actors, and you become stuck. I have played for 300 hours and I don't think I have ever seen anyone throw a group like I see happen in WoW. IIRC there was some discussion a while back (either here or on another forum) comparing the attitudes you see in WoW vs FF14, and while I agree that FF14's community is not sunshine and rainbows and you see bads there too, there just seems to be something about WoW. Haven't seen anywhere near as much crap like this in GW2 either. Maybe the focus on hyper competitive endgame has weeded out a lot of pleasant people out of the game and pugging. The solution is to join a community like "WoW Made Easy" where people with bad attitudes who sabotage keys get kicked from the community, so you have committed, pleasant people playing the game together.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I have had a string of bad or weird luck with retadins in mythic groups — to the point I find myself hesitant to invite any. One Paladin kept spamming “go” on a 6+ Boralus on packs that should not be rushed and died on the final boss. Another left mid-pull on 5+ Grim Batol because the timer was too tight (you can still get loot though); thus bricking the key. Years ago, I had a retadin brick a key because someone told him to use his interrupts.

People keep doing this because there are no consequences for failure. Their key isn't the one being bricked. They aren't losing score. They can quickly get into another PUG group. Also seeing lots of people AFKing and bringing bad attitudes with them into the new 8v8 solo queue RBGs.

I have been playing FF11 Horizon again and the difference in people's attitudes is night and day. You lose exp upon death and can delevel, becoming unable to equip gear with level requirements. There is a high amount of time and some money required to travel to the location and buy buff food. The server has 2k to 4k people online and only a few dozen people on the same step of their journey as you. You can't sabotages groups like that or else word is going to get around and people won't invite bad actors, and you become stuck. I have played for 300 hours and I don't think I have ever seen anyone throw a group like I see happen in WoW. IIRC there was some discussion a while back (either here or on another forum) comparing the attitudes you see in WoW vs FF14, and while I agree that FF14's community is not sunshine and rainbows and you see bads there too, there just seems to be something about WoW. Haven't seen anywhere near as much crap like this in GW2 either. Maybe the focus on hyper competitive endgame has weeded out a lot of pleasant people out of the game and pugging. The solution is to join a community like "WoW Made Easy" where people with bad attitudes who sabotage keys get kicked from the community, so you have committed, pleasant people playing the game together.

WoW had a decent enough community early on. When it blew up and started hitting critical mass in terms of players is when you got an influx of complete asshats that started dominating the community. I think it's about size and cross-server stuff. The more of that there is, the more likely you can float around anonymously and do whatever.

Beyond that, WoW had a lot of people get really addicted to it that doesn't seem to happen as much anymore (or it's just not reported as much these days and I'm out of those communities myself now). They started taking things way too seriously instead of as a game. In contrast, FFXIV with its sort of "take breaks", drop your sub and come back later, approach and GW2's no subs that also promotes more casual play likely gives people healthier outlooks when coming to the games.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

When can we play this game for free? Any rumours on that?

 

[mediocrepoet]

When can we play this game for free? Any rumours on that?

You might think you want that, but you really don't.

 

[Thalstarion]

When can we play this game for free? Any rumours on that?

I actually don't expect it to ever happen. The game's twenty years old at this point but still going fairly strong.

You technically can play it for free after a while, since you can buy tokens for the monthly subscription in exchange for gold...but then you'll be spending a lot of in-game time making gold to pay for it which gets harder the longer an expansion goes on.

 

[Maculo]

When can we play this game for free? Any rumours on that?

Not any time soon imo. For now, it draws in too many paypigs, like myself. It still prints money despite the hits it took recently.

 

[Reever]

Even without a sub, the amount of people I see with those god-awful overpriced store cosmetics like the murloc onesie suit or the shop mounts are astounding. In addition to charging for basic, automated systems like name/race changes, character transfers etc. I feel like this game could live just fine without having a subscription and just paying for the expansion every two years. It will never happen, of course.