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World of Warcraft |OT4| "Why do we keep playing? It is simply in our nature."
- Thread starter Entropia
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Oh well, if the teaser for D3 X1 went up it's again more likely that it's indeed this what will be shown next Wednesday.
BlizzCon still sounds late for WoW X5 reveal.
There was pug sunwell runs in BC. Yes, the hardest raid ever was pugged. If you play on a crappy server you will never pug any current tier. Just saying. What he's doing is LFR. A queue for randoms to get together to kill current bosses with zero coordination, and zero skill requirements. You get the same loot as normal and heroic, just very weaker stats in comparison, but cosmetically looks the same.
Preach's video is pretty much the state of the game in how no one really gives a shit to get better because blizzard gives you everything. The current valor gear makes heroic ToES gear look horrible in comparison. It can be achieved so easily too. The people who killed Heroic Sha of Fear get a title for beating a hard ass encounter, but the people who don't have the skill set to ever get there can bypass the content completely and get better gear. That's just fucked up. In vanilla all the way to introduction of LFR people heard about these raids, and were super pumped to see them. You had to prepare to get there though. Now, people can just do LFR and feel like they did it all, and it was piss easy. I'm all for accessibility, but there needs to be some balance.
Let's not act like it's any sort of new phenomenon. The entire T7 except maybe Malygos could be pugged. ToC normal was puggable by a bunch of manatees and it had infinitely better rewards than the sparse Uldu hard mode gear.
LFR is the most logical course of action for Blizz and thank God they implemented it (though flex sounds better fit as casual difficulty)
LFR is the most logical course of action for Blizz and thank God they implemented it (though flex sounds better fit as casual difficulty)
LFR is a great tool, but I think it's being used wrong. You can seriously AFK or stand in shit and no one would give a shit. It's really weird to play a game where no one really cares if you suck or not. Maybe it's just me, but I like for someone to tell me if I fucked up so I can do a better job next time. I hope flex raid has some levels of difficulty, and phases out LFR to be honest.
I'm grateful that I can do the legendary quest in LFR, but I feel that if LFR didn't exist that I would actually have to make an effort to find solid group/guild to get it done.
Carpe Libertatem
Member
Malygos was pugged, although it took much longer than Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum. The only things I think weren't pugged were the latter parts of Ulduar and ICC.
But it didn't even really start in WotLK. You could get T6-quality gear from badges that came from heroic dungeons in The Burning Crusade (granted it took a lot).
I think Flexible Raiding (WotLK normal mode, maybe a little eaiser) -> Normal Raiding -> Heroic Raiding is a good balance. I don't like LFR at all - not because I think content shouldn't be accessible, but because I hate truly random groups like LFD/R and because LFR doesn't really teach people anything. If anything, scenarios have done a much better job of that.
I loved the style of WotLK normal modes. Accessible, but still required coordination.
It's later this month, isn't it? That doesn't sound too bad. Bear in mind that there's been some indications of an 'epilogue' patch 5.5, presumably incorporating catchup mechanics, crowning the new horde leader and setting up the storyline for 6.0 - I imagine they'd want SoO to have a similar life to the other raids, so about four months total, with a bit of plot progression and extra gear for non-raiding players halfway through that (October?).
It genuinely looks like they might pull off their goal of completing an entire expansion in a year. I'm impressed.
Hard for me to hype it up when I have no idea what it'll be about
I'm excited to find out, but I'm basically just waiting for some real info. I at least have faith that it will probably be well designed after they did pretty well with MoP.
I think they said the beta would be out by the end of summer. It's still summer, man!
This year BlizzCon is early November. That's why I'm thinking it's a tad late to announce the new expansion.
So it'll be released on September 21. Jerks.
We can try and speculate on the timeline...5.4 comes out at the end of August.
5.2 came out at the beginning of March, 5.3 came out at the end of June, so just under four months between the raid patch release and the non-raid patch that followed.
That would put 5.5's release somewhere around Christmas. Presumably, there wouldn't be a 5.6, which means 6.0 would probably come out around March/April.
5.2 came out at the beginning of March, 5.3 came out at the end of June, so just under four months between the raid patch release and the non-raid patch that followed.
That would put 5.5's release somewhere around Christmas. Presumably, there wouldn't be a 5.6, which means 6.0 would probably come out around March/April.
People might lament the simplicity of LFR, but it's worth bearing in mind that it's a raid that has to take place without the single most important tool to WoW raiders: communication. That's a huge deficit, and because the groups are randomly constructed there is absolutely no way to enforce it. I play in Europe, and in a random LFR, there's likely to be a number of members with a poor grasp of English (Many more who don't have English as a first language, of course, but the quality of English teaching in Europe is so good that in many cases it's hard to realise who those are!).
If you throw together a group of random people who *you can't guarantee are able to communicate*, things are going to be highly volatile; I get why Blizzard erred on the side of caution, there. Making flex raids such that they remove the constraint on numbers of players, but putting the onus on the players themselves to put them together means that Blizzard can transfer the responsibility for ensuring that the players can communicate over to the players - and that, I think, will prove key.
Hmmm. I wonder if I was conflating it with that Gamescom shindig.
One small extra factor I'd throw in: I wonder if the fact that they're not going to be converting valor to justice suggests that they perhaps want this tier to go a *little* faster than previous ones. I'm sure they'd like to have TDB out in time for Christmas, if the opportunity's there.
Crazy suggestion: Is it viable for them to release the TDB boxes and allow people to upgrade their accounts at Christmas with the actual release coming after that point? I've always thought that their tendency to release the boxed product at the same time as the servers are switched on is a little detrimental when you have to factor in actually *recieving* the product...
Failing that, doing something similar to the Diablo-CE-when-you-had-the-free-copy-from-the-annual-pass would be nice: Allow people to purchase digital, and then when they upgrade to the CE after recieving it, give them the digital price's value in free months.
Nah, we're gonna get another full year of 5.4 raiding! ;D
Lol, there is no chance that the next expansion will release in time for Christmas. It hasn't even been officially announced yet and we're in August!
I know crossposting is bad, but I'm posting here what I posted in the otherthread, because I would like to talk about this with people actually enjoying the game.
About the timing of the next expansion, do you think we'll be stuck the the SoO for like a year?
Looking back at previous expansions cycles:
Wrath of the Lich King relase date: Nov. 2008
Cataclysm trademark discovered: July 1st 2009 (+8 months)
Cataclysm reveal: End of August 2009 (+2 months)
Cataclysm release date: Dec. 2010 (15 months after reveal)
Pandaria trademark discovered: August 2nd 2011 (+8 months)
Pandaria reveal: End of October 2011 (+3 months)
Pandaria release date: Sept. 2012 (11 months after reveal)
The Dark Below trademark discovered: August 13th 2013 (+ 11 months)
The Dark Below is on schedule to be revealed at Blizzcon in November, and to be released in the fall of 2014.
This means, unless they're surprisingly faster this time around, that we'll have to raid SoO for like a year, like we did with DS and ICC. And that sucks so much I can't even begin to wrap my head around it.
About the timing of the next expansion, do you think we'll be stuck the the SoO for like a year?
Looking back at previous expansions cycles:
Wrath of the Lich King relase date: Nov. 2008
Cataclysm trademark discovered: July 1st 2009 (+8 months)
Cataclysm reveal: End of August 2009 (+2 months)
Cataclysm release date: Dec. 2010 (15 months after reveal)
Pandaria trademark discovered: August 2nd 2011 (+8 months)
Pandaria reveal: End of October 2011 (+3 months)
Pandaria release date: Sept. 2012 (11 months after reveal)
The Dark Below trademark discovered: August 13th 2013 (+ 11 months)
The Dark Below is on schedule to be revealed at Blizzcon in November, and to be released in the fall of 2014.
This means, unless they're surprisingly faster this time around, that we'll have to raid SoO for like a year, like we did with DS and ICC. And that sucks so much I can't even begin to wrap my head around it.
Yoshichan
And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
This is amazing.
Great stats, but I hope they break the cycle. Fall 2014 is too far away. This couldn't be a wise move for them as there is a lot of, what appears to be, great competition on the horizon.
There have always been great competition. There is always a "WoW killer", sometimes it's called Aion, sometimes Star Wars Old Republic and sometimes Guild Wars 2. And the game has always been bleeding subscribers. Didn't change a thing.
I hate to be pessimistic, and I'd love to be wrong. But Blizzard answer is usually something like "hey, Annual Pass!", not faster expansions. They've been saying "we'd like to pump expansions out faster" since BC.
Yea, that's true. I'm interested to see how EQN and TESO do.
hnnng
Yep, and they seem to have big Diablo plans, but nothing WoW related
Good. Saving the good stuff for Blizzcon.
Yep, and they seem to have big Diablo plans, but nothing WoW related
I seriously doubt that they will wait 2-3 months(Blizzcon 2013) after the release of the last MoP patch before revealing the next expansion. That just sound like a stupid decision. Did they ever announce an expansion, only for it to release less than 6 months later?
It will be better than E3! How can I wait when I can't?!
Sax Russel
Banned
Huh, so, Dark Below it is. I'm ok with this, but they BETTER FUCKING DELIVER on Azshara, Nazjatar, N'Zoth, or I'm going to be DISPLEASED. You hear me Blizzard?! Displeased!
There's absolutely no way TDB would launch this year. It hasn't even been announced yet, lol.
I'd ordinarily guess next fall, keeping to the timeline precedents for past expansions. However, they really have kept to their promise of pushing content out faster with MOP, so I'm optimistically thinking TDB could hit in summer instead. Earlier wouldn't make sense. Still gotta squeeze in a potential 5.5 (maybe just with scenarios, or maybe just with SoO aftermath?) and a 6.0 that can tide us over for a couple more months. If big things like Combined Realms and Updated Models hit in either patch, I'd say blizzard may be comfortable letting those patches last a bit longer too.
But yeah, I will agree that the times have changed over the years, and that despite it being likely, waiting till Fall 2014 for TDB is not going to be good for WoW. They must, must, must keep up this excellent pace and get a big new expansion out sooner.
I'd ordinarily guess next fall, keeping to the timeline precedents for past expansions. However, they really have kept to their promise of pushing content out faster with MOP, so I'm optimistically thinking TDB could hit in summer instead. Earlier wouldn't make sense. Still gotta squeeze in a potential 5.5 (maybe just with scenarios, or maybe just with SoO aftermath?) and a 6.0 that can tide us over for a couple more months. If big things like Combined Realms and Updated Models hit in either patch, I'd say blizzard may be comfortable letting those patches last a bit longer too.
But yeah, I will agree that the times have changed over the years, and that despite it being likely, waiting till Fall 2014 for TDB is not going to be good for WoW. They must, must, must keep up this excellent pace and get a big new expansion out sooner.
The various bug races of Azeroth have all been pretty lackluster one-offs confined to a tier of raiding and one geographical zone, haven't they? I doubt they'd be a focus, especially with all the hints at demons (from Wrathion to Ra-Den, etc) especially in the very name itself (Dark Below).
Naga have been a bit more....ubiquitous throughout WoW, and strongly featured in Frozen Throne. They'd be a fascinating choice for a playable race. But damn; which faction? Ghostcrawler's comments suggest they were actually really unhappy with how a neutral race turned out in MoP, which means they probably won't repeat that.
The Mantid have a pretty big role outside the raid tier, and the Nerubians are pretty ubiquitous throughout Warcraft. The 4.3 changes to the dungeons also gave us a pretty strong hint about the strength of the remaining living Nerubians.
Plus there's bound to be other insect races for the other old gods, so there's plenty for them to build on for it.
Orochinagis
Member
Starting to hate the hunters who doesnt turn off pet taunt, they cant die because they are very strong.
It heals very poor on LFR, cant help with multiple groups heals and easily run out of mana so I focus on the tank but still it heals poorly.
On pvp is great btw.
It heals very poor on LFR, cant help with multiple groups heals and easily run out of mana so I focus on the tank but still it heals poorly.
On pvp is great btw.
https://twitter.com/Nethaera/status/367676442567397377
May I advise keeping your eye on the official World of Warcraft site today? We have more 5.4 previews coming.
Much as I'm sure GC would love to get back to AN, that ship has sailed.
Noted. And yeh, you're right, I totally spaced and forgot how involved the Nerubians were in Frozen Throne. Still, they've been kind of missing since TOC, no?
Also, aren't the Mantid/Klaxxi (what's the diff again?) kind of over and done with after HOF/TOES?
Are insect races always tied to Old Gods? Missed that detail.
New question! The official site used to have an expansive history and lore section before it was overhauled years ago. It was super detailed, went into everything from Azshara and Sargeras, the creation of the world, to the titans and Medivh, and, well everything.
Where is that now? I dig the WC universe deeply and want some (official) reading.
Klaxxi actually are a raid boss in Siege of Orgrimmar. The Paragons of Klaxxi. Think they're coming to an end when the expansion ends though. Since they're kinda big on the whole Ysaarj thing.
You find out about their connection at the end of the Klaxxi Exalted storyline, kinda shocking when you go into the egg room!
RPGCrazied
Member
Looks like the dark below was fake, if mmo-champion is anything to go by.
Carpe Libertatem
Member
I actually wonder if there might be some kind of raid put into the game after 5.4 because it looks like there is going to be a season 15 (Prideful Gladiator). I suppose the lower iLvls of PvP gear allows for there to be no new raid, but it seems strange to me that Blizzard would start another arena season and leave the same raid.
Although another season isn't entirely confirmed (though I think it is very likely), I guess. And one year of a raid with two arena seasons is better than one year with only one season.
Although another season isn't entirely confirmed (though I think it is very likely), I guess. And one year of a raid with two arena seasons is better than one year with only one season.
Sax Russel
Banned
Smug bastards at Blizzard probably enjoyed watching everyone scramble all over themselves with speculation though =P
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