Cracks starting to show?

[Threash]

Also there was a massive boost to the exp/kill exp between zones in cata.  Level 85 might have taken 9 mil exp but quests in twilight highlands were giving 75-100k each, it made every level take about the same overall.

[Modern Angel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZXNMs8D-Ow

 

[Nebu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZXNMs8D-Ow

 

Please tell me he's doing his best Glen Beck impersonation. 

[Rendakor]

"Do I look like a casual player!?"   

[WindupAtheist]

GameSpy put an article up like a week ago that amounted to "cracks are starting to show". Not that anyone here really gives a fuck about GameSpy, but at least it's not just tinfoilers in this thread.

[Minvaren]

Here is the story WUA mentioned.

The article feels a bit cliched, but doesn't seem terribly far off the mark.  Some people are enjoying the heck out of it, others "just aren't feeling it."

[Merusk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZXNMs8D-Ow

 

Please tell me he's doing his best Glen Beck impersonation. 

He is. I actually went to YouTube to check the comments and he's got other videos where he sounds nothing like that and doesn't act that way.

[Nebu]

He is. I actually went to YouTube to check the comments and he's got other videos where he sounds nothing like that and doesn't act that way.

I'm starting to worry about you.  You need a vacation. 

[Merusk]

My problem is I'm on a permanent one at the moment.  You can only call folks so many times asking if there's openings before you're blacklisted.

[Ironwood]

True Dat.

[El Gallo]

It was shorter. My employment situaion dictates my play times. I work nights, so I have about 4-5 hours a night to play. I work weekends, so I essentially only have one day off. Every week is the same.

In LK it took me just over two weeks to hit 80. I averaged about half a level a night. The last couple of levels took three days each. Cata took me five days to hit 85. One level a day, and I probably could have shaved a day off of it as it was. Same time played per night, more or less. Quite frankly, I was surprised it went this quickly, but it was very easy to get a level a night. Three to four hours at the most. I did skip Vash, but did everydamnedthing in Uldum, and that zone was slow, slow, slow (but fun) because of the constant cut scenes. I hit 85 in Uldum, maybe 3/4 or a bit more of the way to the achievement.

Leveling was faster.

This.  World First 80 took 27 hours after WotLK launch.  World first 85 took under 6.  Both were being powerlevelled with out-of-group healers of course, but the difference is probably even greater for people who level via quests/instances.  Realm #2-3 on my server hit about 15 hours after release, and I know they weren't powerlevelled.  The people gunning for RealmFirst this time around were focused on little things like storing instant-cast broom mounts from halloween event and shaving a few minutes here and there off quests to get to the third hub fastest.  The WotLK race just boiled down to who had 3 days off work and an Adderall prescription.

Yes, I have a morbid fascination with these players. 

[Malakili]

It took me about 9-10 days or so to get to 85.  I was surprised at how fast 84-85 went.  I can't remember exactly when I bought it, either 2 wednesdays ago or 2 fridays ago.  Either way, I hit 85 last night.  A lot of those days I didn't have time to play at all.  I did make sure to log out in places where I was getting rested experience, and I had good solid 5 hours or so to play this past saturday where I got basically an entire level of it done.  Other than that an hour here and a couple hours there.   The streamlined quests meant very little downtime when I was on.

[Ingmar]

I think the travel time being stripped out is probably the biggest difference I've noticed.

[Paelos]

STV jumps out at me as the only zone I've encountered so far where they didn't do a great job with travel.

[Ingmar]

They could stand to tighten it up in Ashenvale a bit more too.

[Rasix]

They could stand to tighten it up in Ashenvale a bit more too.

[Rendakor]

It'd be nice if they made some zones easier to get to for those who hadn't been following the treadmill. Some zones are just painful to get to if you didn't quest in the zones preceding them (Winterspring and Tanaris immediately come to mind).

[Paelos]

It'd be nice if they made some zones easier to get to for those who hadn't been following the treadmill. Some zones are just painful to get to if you didn't quest in the zones preceding them (Winterspring and Tanaris immediately come to mind).

I remember at one point the questing board said I could go to Southern Barrens or Duskwood. I was like... yeah Duskwood's down the street.

[Rendakor]

I had to make the run from Org to Winterspring on my gobbie hunter last night with not a single flight path on the way. It wasn't fun, but the alternative was Un'goro Crater. At least when I had to do Tanaris I just bought a port to Dal and popped out in CoT.

[Lantyssa]

I had to make the run from Org to Winterspring on my gobbie hunter last night with not a single flight path on the way. It wasn't fun, but the alternative was Un'goro Crater. At least when I had to do Tanaris I just bought a port to Dal and popped out in CoT.

Why didn't you use Moonglade?  I do believe the Lunar Festival is going on right now.

[Rendakor]

I now feel like a total idiot.

[Rasix]

I had to make the run from Org to Winterspring on my gobbie hunter last night with not a single flight path on the way. It wasn't fun, but the alternative was Un'goro Crater. At least when I had to do Tanaris I just bought a port to Dal and popped out in CoT.

Un'goro's pretty nice now.  Very streamlined.  But then again, I've always liked Un'goro.  

Silithius was still goddamned terrible.

[SurfD]

For some reason silithus didnt get any new flight hubs either, where as like every single other zone in the old world got between 2 and 5 new flight hubs.

[Lantyssa]

I now feel like a total idiot.

My job here is done.

[Sjofn]

For some reason silithus didnt get any new flight hubs either, where as like every single other zone in the old world got between 2 and 5 new flight hubs.

I have to assume they're going to redo that zone eventually as it is painfully sucky compared to everything else.

[Minvaren]

They did some - all of the Cenarion Circle dailies are out.  Moved the item vendors to the "AQ10" (thought it was 20?) gate.  Took out the whole crest upgrade system off of the twilight folks.

On the plus side, I ground Cenarion Circle rep from revered to exalted via mass slaughter and page hand-ins in 3 hours, and farmed a metric fuckload of thorium in the process.   

[Ingmar]

Silithus wasn't given a redo pass the same way all the other ones were, you can tell because existing characters that had done Silithus got the zone achievement when Cataclysm went live, unlike every other zone - this means the quests all still had the same IDs and everything. Hopefully they have something in mind for it.

[Simond]

Return of C'Thun raid.

[Paelos]

Return of C'Thun raid.

 

Only it's like a dragon run. The idea of suffering through AQ40 long ass raids again makes me break out in hives.

[Minvaren]

Overheard in trade chat recently: "Need more for AQ40, quick run."

I had to pipe back, "Quick and AQ40 are two words you normally don't see together..." 

[Koyasha]

I really hope not.  If they do something with C'thun, odds are that they'll remove AQ40.  C'thun is still one of the most awesome experiences in the game, I think, so it would be sad for them to remove it entirely like they have with other places they've adjusted.

[Ingmar]

AQ20 seems more likely given Zul'Gurub (speaking of unfinished storylines.)

[Malakili]

I really hope not.  If they do something with C'thun, odds are that they'll remove AQ40.  C'thun is still one of the most awesome experiences in the game, I think, so it would be sad for them to remove it entirely like they have with other places they've adjusted.

C'thun is neat if you could hypothetically get a group of 60s to raid him again.   We had a group of 8 (apparently the minimum needed to get the guild achievement?) clear AQ40 in about 20-25 minutes the other day, C'thun is not an awesome experience anymore.  It was just run non stop to victory except for the "1/2 of us go left 1/2 go right" for twin emps.

C'thun was: run in - killed the first phase in about 10 seconds.   Second phase, kill stuff as it spawns until the first person was swallowed, (it happened to be me).  I killed both the tentacles, and the others literally killed the boss before I had even had a chance to bounce back into the main room. Entire thing including the phase transition took maybe 1 minute. 

Now, I hope they leave it is just for the sake of nostalgia, but I have to imagine the number of people actually enjoying this content the way it was made is incredibly small, if it even exists as a group to begin with.

[Merusk]

Sounds about right.  At L80 with ilevel 200 gear (which is when I ran AQ40 on the DK) it was ridiculously easy but we were still killed by the eyebeam on the initial charge in a few times because we were disorganized.  These days I imagine you can soak the hit on even the least-geared DPS.

[Malakili]

Sounds about right.  At L80 with ilevel 200 gear (which is when I ran AQ40 on the DK) it was ridiculously easy but we were still killed by the eyebeam on the initial charge in a few times because we were disorganized.  These days I imagine you can soak the hit on even the least-geared DPS.

I think we only have 1 person there with us who wasn't there in the old days of when the guild was actually running AQ40, and that probably helped some. (we did actually have one person run in first and every one sort of kept spread out from the eye beams out of pure habit that only weeks of grinding glass on an encounter can build.)  Still the real issue is DPS and hit points.  You can eat a Dark Glare now no sweat (if the encounter had gone on long enough to see one).  The normal green Beam doubles in damage each bounce and starts at ~1.5-2k damage if memory servers, which means you could see 6 bounces before it it starts killing off even the least geared DPS, with only 8 people in the raid I think we could've piled all on top of each other and possible beat the encounter based on how fast he died (a slightly exaggeration based on how fasts he shoots those things, but really not by THAT much)

Hell, I was running MC the other day with 1 friend ( I know it can be soloed but we just did it for old times sake) and we were running out of the fire on Gehennas out of pure habit even though it was doing trivial amounts of damage per tick.  Old habits die hard, heh.