Support NeoGAF

[CassSept]

I know people who have nothing but gear in their banks.

I have that problem. In my bank on main 5 out of 7 bags are nothing but past tier sets and weapons (some from vanilla, most of TBC tiers and all WotLK ones). Then I have some vanity items and crap from random festivals. I had to send everything else to bank alt because I ran out of space and even now I have some ToC/ICC crap constantly in my bags :/

At least they changed dual spec price so I won't hesitate about it on my next alts

 

[Infinitemadness]

Wow, they really dropped the price of dual spec.

Whooo, was so going to buy my level 45 shaman this. I think I can wait till Cata since I'm leveling him so casually.

 

[Entropia]

Also thank god that hitcap/expt cap are built into the game now

I find it funny MMO-Champ just posted that now. The blog/twitter community knew about that like 3-4 weeks ago...

 

[Tamanon]

I wonder if we're going to get another Beta Build tonight. Friday night seems to be their prime drop point the past several weeks.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

are honor and arena points going to convert to the new currency in cat?

 

[Tamanon]

are honor and arena points going to convert to the new currency in cat?

I assume it'll be just like badges now, no conversion.

 

[notworksafe]

Most likely they won't change over, but they may. They do have a more direct correlation then PvE badges. (Honor and Conquest points)

 

[Yazus]

I wonder if we're going to get another Beta Build tonight. Friday night seems to be their prime drop point the past several weeks.

Emergency Manteinance just showed up on the Beta Forums.

 

[firex]

honor points will probably stay, and arena points will probably get turned into honor points.

 

[markot]

I wonder if we're going to get another Beta Build tonight. Friday night seems to be their prime drop point the past several weeks.

We do not plan to patch today, though we plan to have a great deal of new content in the upcoming patch. You'll get access to new zones and dungeons, and potentially an increase in level cap to 85.

 

[LAUGHTREY]

I just canned my account, 9 months and counting with 1 new boss is a little ridiculous, and it doesn't look like Cata is coming out until late Nov or earlier Dec. I don't know if I will re-up for Cata if they're gonna pull the same shit again.

 

[Macattk15]

I just canned my account, 9 months and counting with 1 new boss is a little ridiculous, and it doesn't look like Cata is coming out until late Nov or earlier Dec. I don't know if I will re-up for Cata if they're gonna pull the same shit again.

I bet Blizzard weeps for your loss.

 

[notworksafe]

I just canned my account, 9 months and counting with 1 new boss is a little ridiculous, and it doesn't look like Cata is coming out until late Nov or earlier Dec. I don't know if I will re-up for Cata if they're gonna pull the same shit again.

Yeah, I get what you are saying. I'm pretty bummed about the lack of content right now. Halion was a joke, really. Not buying an expansion because of a possible lack of content a year or more off seems a bit odd though. This is assuming you were already interested, of course.

 

[J-Rzez]

I just canned my account, 9 months and counting with 1 new boss is a little ridiculous, and it doesn't look like Cata is coming out until late Nov or earlier Dec. I don't know if I will re-up for Cata if they're gonna pull the same shit again.

Since they're going up 5 levels a time now, I think going to try to really rape the consumer this time though. I'd actually expect new xpacs every 16mo at the latest, but no increased output on content patches. We'll probably get one-less patch actually for the accelerated milking.

But I agree, it's comical that they couldn't get content out there fast enough. Then again, that's expected from this company up until this point. Considering the amount of income they make off this game you'd think they'd expand. And not their offices for more statues, but their actual development teams.

I don't expect Cata until Nov/Dec now as well. They seem to have had some real poor management over there. I think this will change though, just to sap more money from the consumers while they can.

 

[speedpop]

I got a sequel to StarCraft a few weeks ago and Diablo III comes out next year. What more can I ask?

 

[CassSept]

I don't expect Cata until Nov/Dec now as well.

Wait, you really expected Cata before November? Woah dude, no shit that you are always so negative if you keep on expecting what's clearly impossible.

The pacing in TBC was worse, but at least there were more instances and more interesting content to keep you occupied (especially if you started raiding later on and you went up each raid tier). In WotLK we had:
- Naxx, OS, Maly - 4,5 months
- Ulduar - a bit less than 4 months
- ToC - a bit over 4 months
- ICC - 1 year+
This is fucked up, really. The best, longest instance ever had the shortest life span of all WotLK content. Seriously? Even ToC was current tier for longer than Ulduar. Ulduar should've easily had over 6 months, ToC should seriously be shortened, same with ICC. Hopefully they will pace this better in Cata, cause over 1 year for ICC is a joke.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Was it mandatory to pass through each tier in burning crusade? It was in Vanilla, and next to no one raided Naxx. Recycling that instance is passable since a lot didn't see it.

The game is definitely geared toward new 80's wanting to gear up and then progress through ICC before Cat skipping Uld and Naxx for the most part.

Some of you are focusing on lack of development, but to me it seems like they had a failed idea and balancing problems for hard core raiders.

 

[CassSept]

Was it mandatory to pass through each tier in burning crusade? It was in Vanilla, and next to no one raided Naxx.

Well, before 2.4 pretty much all instances in the game had attunements so you simply had no choice other than progressing through all tiers at first.
Other than that, you might've had luck and jump from Kara straight to BT, though that happened rarely (usually already after new BoJ rewards were made available) and only with classes that were searched for by guilds.

If you progressed with a guild you would have probably went all the way through content, if you changed guilds it wasn't that rare seeing someone jumping over T5 content (especially since bosses like Kael'Thas were harder than 4/5 of MH and most of BT ).

 

[Johnlenham]

Just tanked my first raid Was only VoA 10man but fuck it it still counts! even had to use a pot to get me raid def capped :lol

 

[firex]

wow, they actually want people to test out and give feedback specifically on lightwell. This spell might get seriously changed into something good.

 

[Xiaoki]

Was it mandatory to pass through each tier in burning crusade? It was in Vanilla, and next to no one raided Naxx. Recycling that instance is passable since a lot didn't see it.

The TBC attunements usually involved long quest chains you did solo, going to 5 man instances, doing previous raids and lots of back and forth talking.

But people complained that they didnt want to put time and effort into it so Blizzard caved and removed them.

So, if they required people to do the Matthias Lehner quest chain, Heroic Anub'arak and the Icecrown 5 mans to gain access Icecrown Citadel people would have complained.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

I was also talking about gear wise too. Did you need to progress through tier gear if you started late? No one cares about tier 7 or 8. It's all about tier 9 and 10. Not getting tier 1 in vanilla was unheard of no matter how late. BC?

I think they are putting a year on getting emblem gear and ICC gear for two reasons. They know new people want the latest gear too. And I guess they assumed hardcore people would want to gear multiple alts, get the legendary, and probably force them to pvp also.

 

[notworksafe]

Well pretty much everyone needed to get T4/Kara level stuff. Until 2.4 pretty much everyone had to do SSC and TK (could skip Gruul and Mags without issue). After 2.4 you could just farm Heroics 5s and Kara/ZA for Justice Badges and get T5 level gear. Engineers could craft T5 level goggles pre-Kara, which was extremely awesome and gave us a big boost over other professions. Locks/Spriests could also get the Frozen Shadoweave set, which was beyond amazing. FSW boots were best in slot for Shadow damage classes by a pretty wide margin. Mages had a good crafted set in Spellfire too. So there were always some shortcuts.

I'm glad Blizzard got rid of the old gear progression. It was essentially just getting gear to get to a level where you could replace it immediately. They just decided to skip the middle step of getting stepping stone gear. I think it's fine because now we don't need to have a dedicated night for running Kara (or Naxx, I suppose) to get people low level tier and badges. They can just run heroics on their own or with some guild members and be ready to raid in a week.

The big issue for my guild was getting people keyed. We had a pretty decent amount of turnover...though not too much more than normal for a 25M guild. Almost every new person we brought in had to be run through Kara/SSC/TK and various 5s to get ready for BT/Hyjal. That was that part that was annoying, but you'd often get people geared at the same time.

EDIT: I also forgot about PvP gear. There was a point (Season 3 or 4) where PvP gear was better than PvE gear for some classes and specs. So that meant lots of forced Arena if you wanted to do your best in raids. There was a long period of time where my Resto Shaman wore the S3 Arena chest (I think it was S3...it was the T6 equivalent) to Hyjal just to be able to survive Archimonde. I believe Warrior and Rogue also had some PvP gear that was very good for them (if not BiS) around Season 2.

EDIT 2: Forgot to add Sunwell and how awesome that gear was. The 150 badge weapons were miles ahead of anything else in the game so they were what everyone worked towards. The instance itself was mostly impenetrable for my guild until the big pre-Wrath nerf to everything. Also the introduction of ZA helped us skip much of Kara for gearing, but we still ran it weekly for the 21 badges it dropped.

 

[notworksafe]

We Are Legendary - Retroactive!

We are making a exception for this guild achievement. Any legendary items you have already earned will count

FUCKING THANK YOU BLIZZARD! Now my guild only needs four more legendaries!

 

[Rapstah]

While playing my first DPS 80 through instances to get gear, I've come to the conclusion that Forge of Souls is actually a brilliant instance. Getting yelled at as a healer for people not understanding the boss fights drained the fun out of it. There was, however, this dumb ass Death Knight who wouldn't stop DPSing when the last boss used the mirror ability and killed me in the process. We played it again with the same group and he actually killed himself on the second try, which was sort of ironically fun.

 

[speedpop]

wow, they actually want people to test out and give feedback specifically on lightwell. This spell might get seriously changed into something good.

If anyone hands out positive feedback on that useless spell, I might cry.

 

[J-Rzez]

Wait, you really expected Cata before November? Woah dude, no shit that you are always so negative if you keep on expecting what's clearly impossible.

The pacing in TBC was worse, but at least there were more instances and more interesting content to keep you occupied (especially if you started raiding later on and you went up each raid tier). In WotLK we had:
- Naxx, OS, Maly - 4,5 months
- Ulduar - a bit less than 4 months
- ToC - a bit over 4 months
- ICC - 1 year+
This is fucked up, really. The best, longest instance ever had the shortest life span of all WotLK content. Seriously? Even ToC was current tier for longer than Ulduar. Ulduar should've easily had over 6 months, ToC should seriously be shortened, same with ICC. Hopefully they will pace this better in Cata, cause over 1 year for ICC is a joke.

I fell for their "16 months tops" between xpacs hook, line, and sinker speech. I think they'll do it this time after Cata though, I'm sure Kotick isn't happy with the lack of milking. But if I've learned anything from Blizzard over the years is that they are possibly the most poorly managed studio in the business as far as timelines goes, and especially considering how insanely profitable they've been lucky to have been with WoW. They have the money to make things happen, yet they don't. It has to be something in management over there.

And yes, ICC was a joke. They gated the content on top of it to try to artificially extend content life, but that didn't help one single bit. It's been beat since march/april for so many people. The ending, the climax of this xpac, was a massive let down.

Ulduar was this xpac's only redeeming quality for me, and most of my guildies.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

I'm still annoyed with the way heroic raid tokens are given out. If I'm beating a boss on heroic difficulty, I should be getting heroic tokens. They pulled that crap with Heroic ToGC, only giving them out if you could beat heroic Anub. It's slightly better with ICC, getting a token off the final boss of each wing, but still so stupid. I think it's just one more way for blizzard to try and slow down content progression. Because even if you're in a good guild and can down the bosses, your whole 25man raid is getting 3-4 heroic tokens tops. That's a load of crap.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

For those complaining about a lack of content and Blizzard being lazy, these were the new zones in Wrath:

Borean Tundra (68-71)
Howling Fjord (68-71)
Dragonblight (71-73)
Grizzly Hills - (72-74)
Zul'Drak - (74-76)
Sholazar Basin - (75-77)
Storm Peaks - (77-80)
Icecrown - (77-80)
Wintergrasp - (80)
Scarlet Enclave (sort of) - (55-58)

These are the new zones in Cataclysm:

Arathi – (25-30)
Ashenvale – (20-25)
Azshara – (10-20)
Badlands – (45-48)
Blasted Lands – (54-58)
Burning Steppes – (50-52)
Darkshore - (10-20)
Deepholm – (82-83)
Desolace – (30-35)
Dun Morogh – (1-10)
Durotar – (1-10)
Duskwood – (20-25)
Dustwallow Marsh – (35-40)
Eastern Plaguelands – (40-45)
Elwynn Forest – (1-10)
Felwood – (45-50)
Ferelas – (35-40)
Gilneas – (1-12)
Hillsbrad (Alterac) - (20-25)
Hinterlands – (30-35)
Loch Modan – (10-20)
Lost Isles – (1-12)
Mount Hyjal – (80-82)
Mulgore – (1-10)
North Barrens – (10-20)
Redridge – (15-20)
Searing Gorge – (48-50)
Silithus – (55-60)
Silverpine – (10-20)
South Barrens – (30-35)
Stonetalon – (25-30)
Northern Stranglethorn Vale - (25-30)
The Cape of Stranglethorn – (30-35)
Swamp of Sorrows – (52-54)
Tanaris – (45-50)
Teldrassil – (1-10)
Thousand Needles – (40-45)
Tirisfal Glades – (1-10)
Twilight Highlands – (84-85)
Uldum – (83-84)
Un'Goro – (50-55)
Vashj'ir – (80-82)
Western Plaguelands – (35-40)
Westfall – (10-15)
Wetlands – (20-25)
Winterspring – (50-55)

Even if 50% of the content stays the same (which would be a conservative guess, I think less), that's a metric crapload of new content to play. There are plenty of legitimate concerns about the game (no new content in Wrath for a long time, over-simplifying gameplay). Don't play the "only 5 levels, ActiBliz are ripping people off" card, please.

 

[FLEABttn]

Even if 50% of the content stays the same (which would be a conservative guess, I think less), that's a metric crapload of new content to play. There are plenty of legitimate concerns about the game (no new content in Wrath for a long time, over-simplifying gameplay). Don't play the "only 5 levels, ActiBliz are ripping people off" card, please.

If you aren't or don't want to level a new character, then a lot of those zones don't apply.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

If you aren't or don't want to level a new character, then a lot of those zones don't apply.

I think a majority of the player base will reroll or level a new character.

With Cataclysm, its almost WoW2 for Blizzard. A big revamp of the original Azeroth.

 

[FLEABttn]

I think a majority of the player base will reroll or level a new character.

With Cataclysm, its almost WoW2 for Blizzard. A big revamp of the original Azeroth.

No doubt, but despite all the new changes, the whole "It's like a completely different 1-60 game!" doesn't really appeal to me, because I have 9 toons, of which the lowest level is 74. The revamped 1-60 game for me is years late.

 

[manofmandango]

I'm super super stoked about leveling a goblin shaman in the new 1-60 content. And I LOVED Northrend content (70-80). But sandwiched between lies the bane of my leveling existence. I absolutely detest the Outland questing experience. It is going to make it extremely hard to continue past 60 TBH. I've already done it on 3 toons. I'm not sure I can bring myself to do it again.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Even if I want to play a rogue or mage, I'd re-make one if enough people want to reroll with me. I have both at 70. But, I haven't touched them in over a year.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

If you stick with Azeroth, you can probably level into 61-63 or so, especially if you get into a lvl 60 raid for some reason. They kept Silithus for those wanting to reach the 60 cap without an expansion. But it also seems to have the least changes so far, if any. Which would mean that C'Thun hasn't been beaten yet, officially.

Me, I'm making a worgen rogue to play through the old content up to where my paladin is now (40ish). Then I'll see which of them will go on. Either way I'll see the new content... or rather a sixth of it. There are pretty much six distinct quest zone paths (three horde, three alliance) across the world so you could level six alts without ever redoing a quest.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Tell me about the quest zone paths.

Right now everything is the same after tarting zones.

 

[firex]

if you look at that zone list, there's basically 3 paths for 1-60 (more like 1-58 but whatever) through old world stuff.

Horde has 2 paths through Kalimdor, and 1 through Eastern Kingdoms. Alliance has 1 through Kalimdor, and 2 through Eastern Kingdoms.

The start of horde Kalimdor path 1 is Azshara. Path 2 starts in North Barrens, path 3 starts in Silverpine.
Alliance has path 1 starting in Westfall, path 2 starting in Loch Modan, and path 3 starting in Darkshore.

There's still basically a unique starting zone for each race, although the shared areas (gnome/dwarf and orc/troll) are still shared from about level 5 on. Gnomes start out in the reclaimed gnomeregan, trolls start out in the reclaimed echo isles, and then at level 4/5 they go to the same starting town as the dwarves/orcs. So I'm listing these paths as starting with the level 10 zones where they go in different directions. You aren't locked in to following the natural zone progression, but each place is set up so you will be funneled into a new zone right next to the zone you just finished.

and I should point out that you actually can't progress some of the story quests for zones without doing other zones first. It won't affect anyone leveling a new character, but like if you have a level 80 and you decide "hey I want to check out the new stonetalon" you might have to do some quest chains in ashenvale first.

 

[darksunpr]

I was wondering is it a good time to start playing wow or should I wait for cataclysm? I have only played the trial a few years back.

 

[speedpop]

Wait until patch 3.9 drops, which will most likely be a few weeks before Cataclysm comes out.

 

[Calantus]

if you look at that zone list, there's basically 3 paths for 1-60 (more like 1-58 but whatever) through old world stuff.

Horde has 2 paths through Kalimdor, and 1 through Eastern Kingdoms. Alliance has 1 through Kalimdor, and 2 through Eastern Kingdoms.

The start of horde Kalimdor path 1 is Azshara. Path 2 starts in North Barrens, path 3 starts in Silverpine.
Alliance has path 1 starting in Westfall, path 2 starting in Loch Modan, and path 3 starting in Darkshore.

There's still basically a unique starting zone for each race, although the shared areas (gnome/dwarf and orc/troll) are still shared from about level 5 on. Gnomes start out in the reclaimed gnomeregan, trolls start out in the reclaimed echo isles, and then at level 4/5 they go to the same starting town as the dwarves/orcs. So I'm listing these paths as starting with the level 10 zones where they go in different directions. You aren't locked in to following the natural zone progression, but each place is set up so you will be funneled into a new zone right next to the zone you just finished.

and I should point out that you actually can't progress some of the story quests for zones without doing other zones first. It won't affect anyone leveling a new character, but like if you have a level 80 and you decide "hey I want to check out the new stonetalon" you might have to do some quest chains in ashenvale first.

You forgot ghostlands, or is it still in beta?

 

[firex]

I didn't forget ghostlands. It just isn't changed much at all.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Damn, Never seen anyone this big

 

[C.Dark.DN]

i wish my mechano-hog was BOA. makes sense.. since its a vehicle.

 

[Bisnic]

Damn, Never seen anyone this big

I've done that with my tauren. Just buy one of those potion that make you grow in the AH, then talk to the troll voodoo in the troll village south of Razor Hill. He can use a random buff to make you grow. And there is also another trick. Log out once he gives you his grow buff, and when you log back if you get his grow buff again, they can stack!

My tauren on a mammoth mount can't even enter Orgrimmar. :lol

If my tauren was a shaman, i could use bloodlust to grow even bigger.

 

[FLEABttn]

They should really just drop in a patch that makes all the heroics drop frost badges, though I actually think that's something they could do during a Tuesday downtime with no patch. Shit's so boring.

 

[firex]

They should really just drop in a patch that makes all the heroics drop frost badges, though I actually think that's something they could do during a Tuesday downtime with no patch. Shit's so boring.

I think that's a change I would do in 3.9 as a "last chance to get some good gear before the expansion" thing for people.

I'd actually be able to get some t10 that way.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

I think that's a change I would do in 3.9 as a "last chance to get some good gear before the expansion" thing for people.

I'd actually be able to get some t10 that way.

and then people could do pugs left and right if they haven't killed lich king.

 

[CassSept]

and then people could do pugs left and right if they haven't killed lich king.

Which would be exactly how it was when 3.0 dropped and everyone could kill Illidan.
SWP was still a bit tricky because you still actually needed tactics there, but it was piss easy too tbh.

That would make sense, especially since they are leaving this content before. The last weeks between pre-expansion patch and the expansion itself are a great time. Everyone is pumped, doing new stuff all the time. It's amazing actually (unless some idiots come whining that they don't like it, e.g. pre-wotlk Zombie Invasion), can't wait for pre-cata event.

 

[Kintaco]

Just got a scroll of ressurection from a friend and man the find a dungeon or whatever is dam nice. But what the he'll happened to BGs they are empty as hell? I have most of my fun levelling toons rather than end game stuff, so I can't wait for Cataclysm to level up a Worgen (class unknown) now just to get some heirlooms. I picked a bad time to enjoy the game, classes start Monday.

 

[AceBandage]

So, anyone get these guys yet?