World of Warcraft: Current Year

Daezuel said:

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Mud Hutters

I remember creating a barbarian on EQ, exploring around, getting lost in a snow storm, finding a cave and decided to go there, only to find out I can't see shit in dark and getting killed by something.
EQ was rough, and that was great.

One thing I felt WoD did right was introducing in-game cinematics for finishing key moments of pretty much each zone's major questline.

After that, for most of the expansions since, it feels like all you do outside of raids has no impact at all on the story.

Legion still had a few of those zone story cutscenes, and BFA had a bunch of those million-dollar CGI cinematics about Saurfang and then it basically stopped altogether.







Remember when Khadgar wasn't just housing decor in a wheelchair in the Arcantina?

TJT said:

We don't need these big stories though. You are the story. You are some adventurer just trying to make his way in the world. The Horde or Alliance asks you to do stuff from time to time. Dragons cause problems and are bad. Big elementals cause problems and are bad.

That is all you need to do. WoD had some cool moments but all of it was YER THE HERO OF THE WORLD!

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I agree for the early years of WoW. By the time Warlords of Draenor came out, I had done my share of gathering bear asses and boar livers for years. I had slain Onyxia, Nefarian, C'thun, saved Outland from Illidan's clutches, defeated Yogg-Saron and the Lich King, explored Pandaria and saved that too, so excuuuse me if I want people to know my name and recognize my deeds.

While I agree that there was certainly some hero fatigue during Shadowlands (with you being the incredibulous Maw Walker that can exit the Maw freely... along with XXLegolasXX over there with his fox pet. And those other dudes running around too), it's quite normal to have a bit of inflation when it comes to your heroics in this kind of game with a continuing story. Otherwise it's just as unrealistic that people are treating you like a peon despite your name being the stuff of legends.

There's two schools of thought in that regard I suppose. You're more into being a random Horde grunt or Alliance soldier in Warcraft 2, accompanying the big named heroes as part of a giant army, or as a mercenary.

But since Warcraft 3, the game shifted to you playing the big named heroes with a few grunts or soldiers around them, and WoW shifted from you being just a grunt in the early years to you being one of the named heroes of your own, treated as an equal by the main characters of the story.

Runnen said:

But since Warcraft 3, the game shifted to you playing the big named heroes with a few grunts or soldiers around them, and WoW shifted from you being just a grunt in the early years to you being one of the named heroes of your own, treated as an equal by the main characters of the story.

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The problem is how WoW did it.

It never set you up as a hero it just fucking happened. The player character wasn't recognized as a champion until Wrath and it was only recognized during the fight with the Lich King, and he only seen the player characters as champions not singular hero.
It wasn't until Pandaria really where your character became the main focus, after that your character was just the champion of everything. Now this would work IF your character did everything but the reality of the situation with WoW is you had Bob who does every raid and then you have Billy who hasn't done a single fucking raid and pulls less dps than the healer somehow but he's also the champion.

Look at current retail you make a new character you crash on an island as a soldier, you finish that up as a soldier suddenly you're off to the dragon isle for some reason, and for some reason you're a champion at that point why? Because you hit level ten so good job champion, then you go to Silvermoon and you're a champion, your character hasn't done anything to earn being a champion.

The shift from being a grunt to champion in WoW is shit because the game wasn't built for it there's no build up to it.

Compare that to a game like Final Fantasy 14, you start out as an adventurer and as you go through the story you slowly become the Warrior of Light and earn the title of a hero through deeds your forced to do (unless you buy a skip). WoW doesn't have that you're just a champion for no reason, your actions in WoW they don't matter you're always the champion.

WoW is just a better game for being a random adventurer who occassionally stumbles into a mess than being the champion.

rolien said:

Look at current retail you make a new character you crash on an island as a soldier, you finisht hat up as a soldier suddenly you're off to the dragon isle for some reason, and for some reason you're a chamion at that point why? Because you hit level ten so good job champion, then you go to Silvermoon and you're a champion, your character hasn't done anything to earn being a champion. Compare that to a game like Final Fantasy 14, you start out as an adventurer and as you go through the story you slowly become the Warrior of Light and earn the title of a hero through deeds your forced to do (unless you buy a skip). WoW doesn't have that you're just a champion for no reason, your actions in WoW they don't matter you're always the champion.

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But Dragonflight IS a skip. It's the price you pay in WoW for starting the game late, or creating an alt.

I'm talking about my personal experience as someone who played since WoW's release, I did collect bear asses in Westfall and boar livers in Loch Modan. I went through all the quests and dungeons and raids until level 60. And then Outland to 70. And so on.

I earned my title as a champion, a hero of Azeroth.

Of course you're right it's silly to reach level 10 and suddenly you're the hero of Dragonflight, but Dragonlight being the default leveling experience is the result of the game being 22 years old and thus making you skip all the previous expansions because with the modern XP you outlevel every zone 2 quests in and it would not be any fun gameplay-wise.

There's definitely a story/gameplay segregation at work there, but that doesn't mean the game should treat you like a random adventurer after 22 years of literal world-saving heroics.

Which is why Forever is going to DESTROY Retail for the "new player experience." New players get COMPLETELY lost by the time they finish Dragonflight with ALL the systems that have been shoehorned into the retail product that they usually just quit. Forever is going to be a FAR better experience as the game once again slowly introduces concepts and abilities to the player without also expecting them to know everything about Delves, Vaults, Professions, etc.

Prediction: Forever will be the premier version of WoW within 3 years.

I, on the other hand, expect Forever to do very well at launch but then lose a lot of its population when they realize what "forever" truly means. There won't be new zones, dungeons or raids every few months. Zero expansions. Ever. You'll probably get some new thing here and there, rarely. Because they don't want to upset the "muh classic experience" people too much with new things.

It's for sure appealing to a (significant perhaps) niche of MMO players looking for the "new car smell" all over again, or people who missed the original release, but I don't think it's going to be dethroning retail unless Blizzard fumbles spectacularly after The Last Titan.

Runnen said:

I, on the other hand, expect Forever to do very well at launch but then lose a lot of its population when they realize what "forever" truly means. There won't be new zones, dungeons or raids every few months. Zero expansions. Ever. You'll probably get some new thing here and there, rarely. Because they don't want to upset the "muh classic experience" people too much with new things.

It's for sure appealing to a (significant perhaps) niche of MMO players looking for the "new car smell" all over again, or people who missed the original release, but I don't think it's going to be dethroning retail unless Blizzard fumbles spectacularly after The Last Titan.

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This is just CATEGORICALLY FALSE. You didn't watch a single second of the Blizzcon coverage did you? Here, let me help you out. I'm sorry you love the Retail slop version, but you are now an endangered species.

I did watch it, and obviously Blizzard is known for respecting its deadlines and delivering a quality product when they rush.

I included the already announced new stuff into my appraisal for Forever. As I said, it'll do well at launch. I just don't think it'll last very long at that level of populariy. People consume content faster than it can be made in MMO's, of course, and this is mostly content people have not only mastered long ago and can rush through, but they've even done it several times in various iterations of "Classic".

As I said after the initial announcement, I'm happy for those with an itch this will scratch, but I think this is overhyped and people are a little delusional if they think the same parent company that wants to add ads after boss battles will let you have this untouched classic experience "forever" without monetizing the shit out of it.

Runnen said:

this is mostly content people have not only mastered long ago and can rush through, but they've even done it several times in various iterations of "Classic".

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Tell me you haven't played the Beta without telling me you haven't played the Beta.

TJT said:

Dude, people ate up Turtle WoW with their amateur hour garage project updates and they kept attracting more and more players. When Forever is an astounding success watch more resources get dumped into it. If those guys could churn out content patches and mini expansions on a regular basis then Blizzard can as well. They had not had a Blizzcon since 2023. Everything they announced communicates that they are flush with cash and resources from the greater Microsoft organization now.

My prediction is that the retail side that loves SUPER DIFFICULTY will have more of the game stripped out so it becomes just about doing that stuff. Mythic+ and Uber Raids only. They can even make them more and more ball crushing and difficult to keep that small player base happy. There has already been success in this way with Titanforge and additionally indie games that are standalone Mythic+ ladders that also had a lot of success.

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They will need a couple leveling zones with iLvl 2235566 greens to keep that sweet sweet gear reset going every "expansion".

TJT said:

I play mostly at night too as I am just busy during the day. But I don't mind that. Game looks good at night.

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Lots of EU players experiencing night for the first time as there are no EU servers atm and timezones have an internal game clock difference of 8 to 9 hours.

+1 to the thought of having a 21-22 hour cycle which would eventually experience all in game times.

As to weather in game, that’s nice. I remeber it didn’t at launch, took 6? Months to patch it in. Remeber it well because i found it weird it didn’t have it when EQ had it since 99. Also couldn’t play on shared servers when I was in a EU/US guild raiding in EQ. Tethered mobs and the abiliy to solo what felt like everything and you leveled crazy fast. This children cartoon video game will never last! Going to EQ2…. Was wrong then (not about even vanilla being fast and easy), but really enjoying Forever now.

We'll just agree to disagree, I wish Forever nothing but good things especially since people here are happy/excited about it, I'm just being realistic and probably a bit cynical about it.