World of Warcraft®

Quality-wise it certainly holds a lot of promise. Blizzard purchased itself back from Activision, so its choices now no longer have what a lot of players felt was a negative influence from the parent company. Furthermore, they've got the designer of pre-Cata content back on the team. The potential is definitely there, but we'll have to see how it goes.

What about my ussse of the "Sss" key, yesss?

*eyesockets the Hewt-thing*

How else do you move away from your target?

Well, if you're a moonkin, you jump and mouseturn while firing off a moonfire at the thing that's after you, then you land running like a total cool dude....and die like a chump trying to fumble your way to the "cat form cowardice running now" key.

Because I am JUST THAT BAD at PvP....

What about my ussse of the "Sss" key, yesss?

*eyesockets the Hewt-thing*

That's not sssssss-key, that's assssKEW....

/shudder

/flings moonshine at Abominuseses MaggotBasket

I didn't mean to jump on you about it, Plains. I missed the sarcastic edge to the post and I apologize for it.

I do really hope we get lots more players back, though.

Honestly? When I left the game for a year or two and came back during the Darkspear Revolution patch, the biggest stumbling block to learning the new content and new mechanics was the change in player attitudes.

It's hard to re-learn the game when everyone runs through instances at breakneck speeds without saying a word. It's harder when, if you do ask about a fight, you're told to go watch a YouTube video -- as if you're going to go do that in the middle of the instance, even assuming you could find one that was relevant to your class, role, and spec without doing far more digging through aggressively gamer-cultured websites than casual players are willing to subject themselves to.

I do not like the assumption that everyone's played this game 'til they're sick of it and is just going through the motions out of some kind of loot-gathering spinal reflex. It feels very anti-MMO. If I wanted to kill computer-generated mobs for prizes with no basic human interaction along the way, I could just buy something single-player.

A large influx of new or returning people who need to figure out the game the old-fashioned way -- by playing it and talking to the other people who play it -- could be just what the server, and WoW in general, needs.

Blizzard/Activision bought themselves from Vivendi, but as, at the time of the merger, Blizzard negotiated their independence from Activision anyway, the point is moot.

The biggest point being is: with a large influx of new players, whether they be entirely new, returning since leaving in BC or whatever....those of us that are here now and used to the grind need to be a little more patient and open-minded- with those players, and maybe find it again with each other, to boot. I think the sentiment is one we should try to practice.

11/12/2013 10:41 PMPosted by Silvèr

I'm not sure if an influx is an inevitability, not if we're using subscription trends and the company's financials as a guide.

Except this is a better received expansion announcement than both Cataclysm and Pandaria.

What are you going on to say that?

Good points all here.

Arjah makes a good point. I was on my WW monk doing part of Dire Maul yesterday and the Disc Priest in the group was just running super fast pulling things. I asked about waiting for the tank (who was DCing unfortunately) and their answer was "luls I'm a disc priest".

They also pointed out "I've literally run this 100s of times" when he ran off in the other direction from the rest of us.

Hopefully dungeons in WoD will be better! Hopefully we can get some groups running right from CC like the old days.

Hopefully dungeons in WoD will be better! Hopefully we can get some groups running right from CC like the old days.

Blizzard is changing the way LFD works in WOD. You will now get the rewards for running with a pre-formed group. One of the devs said at a Blizzcon panel that they want LFD to be "a last ditch option". It'll still be there, but it won't be the best option you have.

I think we will see more server-based groups in the upcoming expansion.

What are you going on to say that?

Well, speaking purely subjectively, this expansion has me all kinds of excited because it is purely a story-and-gameplay focused expansion. No new classes, no new races, 100% of the expansion effort has been put into current content - more story in the top tier. More dungeons. More scenarios. More raids. More quests. Think about how involved racial starting zones are. Imagine all the effort that went into the travelling turtle circus, or the goblin/worgen starter zones (plural) was instead used to create endgame stories and adventures.

That alone is unprecedented, add in that we're getting some pretty bedrock level changes designed specifically to account for modern playstyles (an in-game oQ answer, a real focus on local group building, reduction of the spread-sheet dependent nature of the game, and a way for new players to join US at cap without spending 3 months levelling? Yes Please!), and I admit, I am really excited.

Also, the complaints this time around? Nobody is complaining about the core elements of the game, they're complaining about secondary and tertiary stuff like "flying" or "wah, you're taking away the stuff that nobody likes...how will they know how leet I am if I don't need to reforge?" or "I don't understand time travel and alternate realities...these stories make my widdle head confused..." or "new people suck! don't let new people in without making them suffer!". Very few people (compared to past expansions) are saying "this whole WoD idea is a stupid idea and you are stupid and I'm going back to my cave I quit".

Of course, these are all just my subjective observations...YMMV (and probably does), so eh...it's all fine.

11/14/2013 12:49 PMPosted by Plainswander

What are you going on to say that?

Well, speaking purely subjectively, this expansion has me all kinds of excited because it is purely a story-and-gameplay focused expansion. No new classes, no new races, 100% of the expansion effort has been put into current content - more story in the top tier. More dungeons. More scenarios. More raids. More quests. Think about how involved racial starting zones are. Imagine all the effort that went into the travelling turtle circus, or the goblin/worgen starter zones (plural) was instead used to create endgame stories and adventures.

That alone is unprecedented, add in that we're getting some pretty bedrock level changes designed specifically to account for modern playstyles (an in-game oQ answer, a real focus on local group building, reduction of the spread-sheet dependent nature of the game, and a way for new players to join US at cap without spending 3 months levelling? Yes Please!), and I admit, I am really excited.

Also, the complaints this time around? Nobody is complaining about the core elements of the game, they're complaining about secondary and tertiary stuff like "flying" or "wah, you're taking away the stuff that nobody likes...how will they know how leet I am if I don't need to reforge?" or "I don't understand time travel and alternate realities...these stories make my widdle head confused..." or "new people suck! don't let new people in without making them suffer!". Very few people (compared to past expansions) are saying "this whole WoD idea is a stupid idea and you are stupid and I'm going back to my cave I quit".

Of course, these are all just my subjective observations...YMMV (and probably does), so eh...it's all fine.

Well, I won't go over my problems here (if you're that interested, I have a thread floating around on the Story forums), but, I am very interested to see any data that anyone has on this.