Cataclysm

[Dren]

I like the vehicles in Wintergrasp, Isle and Strand (BGs.)  Those seem well done and fun.

Leave them out of instances, raids, and dailies.  One time occurences in quests as you level up is fine.  Even as a daily though, I'll feel like I need to do it for the rep or money and it will become annoying over time.  I have the same problem with flight paths.  I'm tired of taking one over and over that circles around the town you fly from almost two times before actually heading to the destination.  That was cool once and only once!

As a side note, I was at BBuy this weekend and saw the box for Lich King.  I noticed they had flying vehicles in the Wintergrasp setting.  I seemed to vaguely remember they had planned that.  Am I right and they cut it out at the last moment before they changed the artwork on the boxes on the shelves?

They look like the gnome/goblin helicopters.  I'm guessing you would do bombing runs with them?  That sounds kind of fun too, but probably harder than hell to balance.

[Typhon]

There are dailies in icecrown that have you do bombing runs in a variety of aerial vehicles.  Off hand, I remember at least three.  One starts on the ground, the others start on that hidden gnome town high in the air (has at least two, but I think there are more)

[WoopeeTuralyon]

It's just a bit too hard for some people to learn those couple new buttons along with the z-axis. But yeah, the ToC jousting was shit.

It's not a matter of difficulty, it's a matter of not fun. Also, I like playing my actual character.

Maybe not for you, but for the average pug... too much to handle.

[Dren]

There are dailies in icecrown that have you do bombing runs in a variety of aerial vehicles.  Off hand, I remember at least three.  One starts on the ground, the others start on that hidden gnome town high in the air (has at least two, but I think there are more)

Yeah, I know about several dailies that use aerials, but this picture showed the buildings in Wintergrasp in the background.  I seem to remember them trying to have them there in early Beta maybe?  They took them out due to having trouble balancing things I think.  Hard to remember now. 

I'm thinking that would be a blast to use the planes OR be a gunner on the walls trying to shoot them down.

[Paelos]

I believe planes were tested, but they were removed because of lag issues for the most part. Also, I think they had a nasty habit of simply DCing people when lag got really bad, and then dropping them to their doom.

[dd0029]

I'm thinking that would be a blast to use the planes OR be a gunner on the walls trying to shoot them down.

I do vaguely remember that was the plan, but something did not work with them.

Planes would argue for the placement of the guns.  Some of them really don't make sense for their placement.

Though Isle has similar placement problems with the cannons, so that's probably a design feature rather than a holdover from an older iteration.

[Typhon]

There are dailies in icecrown that have you do bombing runs in a variety of aerial vehicles.  Off hand, I remember at least three.  One starts on the ground, the others start on that hidden gnome town high in the air (has at least two, but I think there are more)

Yeah, I know about several dailies that use aerials, but this picture showed the buildings in Wintergrasp in the background.  I seem to remember them trying to have them there in early Beta maybe?  They took them out due to having trouble balancing things I think.  Hard to remember now. 

I'm thinking that would be a blast to use the planes OR be a gunner on the walls trying to shoot them down.

Sorry, you definitely typed "Wintergrasp" but my feeble reading skills said "Icecrown".

Agree, that does sound like fun.

[Soulflame]

The absolute worst vehicle combat quest experience was on my hunter.  It's the one where you jump from wyvern to wyvern killing blue people, and you have to kill 7 of them.  Using melee.  Without a pet.  And of course I hadn't bothered to level my melee weapon because, you know, HUNTER.   On the other hand, I thought this was the best quest ever when I did it on my paladin.

I think my poor daughter never finished that quest on her hunter.

Edit:  Just a quick edit to point out that this quest isn't exactly avoidable, since it's part of a chain that is a pre-req to do an honor grind with a faction that is pretty much required in order to raid.

[Nevermore]

But the problem with that was the whole archaic weaponskill stat that Blizzard is ditching in Cataclysm, not the quest itself.

[Dren]

But the problem with that was the whole archaic weaponskill stat that Blizzard is ditching in Cataclysm, not the quest itself.

True, but it was still painful for my hunter even at max weapon skill.  It took forever as Marksmanship spec.  Love the quest on every other class (yes, I've done them all.)

[Sjofn]

I didn't find it to be a problem on mine, she also had a decent weapon skill. Survival spec though. Survival is awesome at everything. 

[Lantyssa]

It wasn't real fun as a Moonkin, since I had to be in Elf form to ride the drake.

[SurfD]

Eh, melee, moonfire, insect swarm, wrath once or twice and they die

[Fordel]

The dots are a waste of time, spam wrath, next. 

[Sjofn]

It wasn't real fun as a Moonkin, since I had to be in Elf form to ride the drake.

I managed it with my elf form feral druid without it being a blip on my annoyance radar, so I can't imagine it was that much worse as a moonkin.  


EDIT: I could SWEAR on at least one of my characters it had some sort of fail defense though, I got some message about my unconventional (read: shitty) fighting style threw my opponent off balance, knocking them off the drake. Maybe it was on Jassan!

[Simond]

http://soundcloud.com/chaud-1/sets/cataclysm-character-narration

[Ingmar]

It makes my head hurt that the Blood Elves and Draenei are going to hear that speech, then get dropped into their chronologically displaced starter zones.

[WindupAtheist]

Aren't their starter zones in... you know... the world that's getting revamped?

[Sjofn]

As far as I know they've done fuck all to those two starter zones, and that's the way it's going to stay.


EDIT: Even if they DO revamp those zones, which I don't think they plan to, Outlands is still a giant WTF now. And it was already pretty wtf for the Alliance.

[Ingmar]

Yeah the TBC content isn't being touched last I heard.

[Fordel]

The Draenei and BE zones have some new Flight Points, that's about it.

Maybe one or two quests have different dialogue, I only did 1-10 quickly to take a gander.

[Sjofn]

Really the BE starter zone could be half assed with mostly new quest text, but the draenei one is a lot more specific.

The Forsaken intro made me laugh, it's a lot more defensive than the current one.

[WindupAtheist]

I've come up with the solution to stupid-ass vehicle quests. Skip the vehicle, run down there and cockpunch that three-hundred foot tall 80 elite the old-fashioned way.


The ground slams were worth a good 18k damage, but you can run under him to avoid them. The normal attacks were nothing special. I wish I remembered to swap out of crusader aura, but with 300k health my ret aura wasn't going to make much difference anyway.

BUT I JUST DUN LIKE VEHICULS CUZ ITS TOO HARD. HUR HUR.

[caladein]

Any class with self-heals at 80 is able to do that quest that way.

[Morat20]

Any class with self-heals at 80 is able to do that quest that way.

I want self-heals. Potions, trinkets, and bandages do jack and shit.

At least I can heal my pet. Although I'm still confused about autocasting pet skills and the pet bar. I can't ever figure out why we have limited pet bar room, but can click things to autocast for pets out of the spell book.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

A hunter being able to heal at all makes no sense. Accept your non-class-ability means of doing so 

[WindupAtheist]

Any class with self-heals at 80 is able to do that quest that way.

I'm sure. Once you figure out that him about to smash the ground in front of him means you should avoid being in front of him, it's easy. And I'll grind down a million elites by hand before I sit around going "hur hur what abilities does this giant worm have" or whatever ever again.

[Merusk]

Any class with self-heals at 80 is able to do that quest that way.

I want self-heals. Potions, trinkets, and bandages do jack and shit.

At least I can heal my pet. Although I'm still confused about autocasting pet skills and the pet bar. I can't ever figure out why we have limited pet bar room, but can click things to autocast for pets out of the spell book.

Originally you couldn't use anything in the spell book, only what was on the pet bar.  Apparently coding the UI to work or display differently would be some Herculean task not worth the effort.  Much like adding more pet slots (only 3 and no more!) or the ability to swap pets without having to go to a city was for years.

[Sheepherder]

I've come up with the solution to stupid-ass vehicle quests. Skip the vehicle, run down there and cockpunch that three-hundred foot tall 80 elite the old-fashioned way.


The ground slams were worth a good 18k damage, but you can run under him to avoid them. The normal attacks were nothing special. I wish I remembered to swap out of crusader aura, but with 300k health my ret aura wasn't going to make much difference anyway.

BUT I JUST DUN LIKE VEHICULS CUZ ITS TOO HARD. HUR HUR.

Why Seal of Wisdom and Judgment of Justice you baddie?

 

[proudft]

Hey man, if that thing turned to flee it could have trampled innocent civilians!

[WoopeeTuralyon]

The absurdity of fighting a COLOSSUS as a little human. Not just a colossus, but a metal one. You are not Kratos. Seriously, what can you do to it? Hack its colossal toe? I hear if you hack a giant being's iron toe enough it falls over dead.

[Rendakor]

But fighting a giant dragon with 10-40 tiny humans makes sense? Hell, metal colossi make sense? 

[WoopeeTuralyon]

At least a dragon is flesh... and I think 40 humans could overwhelm one dragon, it just wouldn't be a long fight with no human death. The first few in the charge would get munched 

There would be no *slice her face 1000 times, she flies, she lands, slice her more, she dies* though. But if combat was realistic it wouldn't be very fun, right?? LK would be hacked to pieces rather quickly, and an iron colossus would be almost unstoppable, stepping on anyone in its path!

[Fordel]

You are assuming the Dragon would ever bother to even land!

[WindupAtheist]

Why Seal of Wisdom and Judgment of Justice you baddie?

 

Eh. If someone had told me that I could avoid the smash every single time and that it didn't have any other tricks it could do, I'd have gone with something else. As it was, I ate a smash early on, burned up my whole mana bar healing, and figured I may as well play it safe. JoJ is just on there because I'm so used to mashing it in PVP that I hit it before I realize what I'm doing.

Really I ran in expecting to get smushed by some sort of cheap "No this is a VEHICLE quest assbutt, go get on your vehicle!" one-shot attack anyway. It was pretty fun though, especially after all the quests hyping it up as an invincible army-crushing weapon of doom.