Cataclysm

[Lantyssa]

"It's not gay if it's an elf."

[Sjofn]

No self-respecting straight man plays male elf characters in wow.

Why do straight men hate appearing hot to ladies?

[Tannhauser]

I'll have you know my male blood elf is quite manly.  http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/alexstrasza/kirthas/
Um, ignore the pink text. 

The Searing Gorge quest chain was fun.  The Burning Steppes quest chain was a bit dull until the end when the plan comes together for an amusing end.
I'm outlevelling Swamp of Sorrows so not sure if I'll do the whole chain.  I like how Blasted Lands is the highest EK zone before Outland and I'm sure you get sent through the Dark Portal at that point.

Now go improve Outland Blizz.

[Ratman_tf]

No self-respecting straight man plays male elf characters in wow.

They play female night elves.

[Sjofn]

I'll have you know my male blood elf is quite manly.  http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/alexstrasza/kirthas/
Um, ignore the pink text. 

Man, nice outfit! My male blood elf is also totally manly, and he has YELLOW text: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/moon-guard/zandrys/

[kildorn]

The only thing that amuses me about female blood elves is the head tilt thing they do when idle. Because that is SO the look I give my party when we haven't pulled anything for 3 minutes.

[Azazel]

Flying over the zones misses about 95% of what makes the changes awesome.

This. You really need to do it from ground level to appreciate it all fully. Flying 10ft off the ground might do the same thing, but I've really enjoyed checking it out as well as doing the new quests that change the zones around. I've had several "whoa, that's nice" moments while running around om my lowbie, and I've only properly seen 3 cities, 3 zones and 2 half-of-a-zones

[Merusk]

If you want Master flying (310%) just do the "What a Long Strange Trip it's Been" achieve.  Or, if you're really good at PVP do the Arena thing until you get Gladiator.  Both grant the top level of flying now.   If pooling 5k gold is that severe an issue for you, then the year it'd take to do LST will probably be easier.

One of those options takes a full year to complete and the other is only available to .5% of the population, getting exalted rep and farming 4k gold is magnitudes easier than either of those options.

Yeah that's my opinion, too.  However I still run into people who, having played for 4+ years say things like "How the hell do you have 20k gold on your Death Knight?  I never have more than 1,000 at most!"  Yes, they're still on the base flying mount.   I don't get it either.

[stu]

Flying over the zones misses about 95% of what makes the changes awesome.

This. You really need to do it from ground level to appreciate it all fully. Flying 10ft off the ground might do the same thing, but I've really enjoyed checking it out as well as doing the new quests that change the zones around. I've had several "whoa, that's nice" moments while running around om my lowbie, and I've only properly seen 3 cities, 3 zones and 2 half-of-a-zones

Plus, it's pretty cool when you're exploring the changes in a zone and Deathwing flies through, torching everything. At first I was like, what? And then I was like, whoaaa.

[Ingmar]

I am one of those usually-poor people, although I have gotten myself slowly over the years to 3 or so characters with epic flight. My main has the artisan flight from the holiday achievement, and the relatively small boost isn't worth it to me to buy for anyone else.

[WindupAtheist]

I only have one character and that character has two gathering professions. As soon as I decided I had all the gear I wanted from WOTLK and thus quit buying gems/enchants, the gold piled up around my ears. Bought a motorcycle, will be able to buy 310 flight as soon as I get around to caring, though that'll break me.

[Azazel]

Except now everyone will be in Ironforge and Orgrimmar.  If they had any damn sense, they'd've put something compelling in the redheaded stepchild cities like Darnassus to bait players into hanging around them like unique daily quests or convenient access to new content.  As it is, we'll be seeing the same 'OMG ironforge lag' of the old days back with a vengeance.

On my server at least, Stormwind always has a ton of people in it as well as Ironforge. Quite comparable really, ever since they added the AH to SW. (There's a second AH and Bank near the Deeprun Tram as well which will spread people around a little more as soon as they start to realise). Darnassus is always almost empty, and Exodar is always empty because it's a fucking mess of a design. Seriously, they need to completely rebuild that town.

But anyway, if Horde are mostly in Org and a few in UC, it's still a hell of a lot better than everyone from both sides being in a "city" that's double-layered but half the size of one of the normal capitals.

[Ingmar]

Hm, other than IF I actually find Exodar to be the simplest/cleanest city design. Hub and spoke, while SW and Darnassus have more walls and water barriers clogging up pathways and such.

[Azazel]

The interior layout might be okay, but the everything-looks-exactly-the-same architecture is off-putting, as is the long and winding road that takes you up to the outside.

I played for an hour or so yesterday. Decided to just do quests and finish off the grey Redridge stuff and a bunch of Darkshire. All the time I was wanting to do dungeons in the back of my mind, though.


Lanty - you might just need a year or two off. Not playing for a long time, playng LotRO for a bit, then coming back to WoW when the lotro shiny wore off made it a whole new game for me. Take some time off and do a trial in a year or two to see if it holds anything for you.

[Lantyssa]

Perhaps.  I had a good run thanks to having people whose company I enjoyed around.  However, my tolerance for certain things is getting less in my old age and conscious design decisions and are in direct opposition to them.  Maybe they'll have ironed some of those out by WoW 5.0 or when they decide to go f2p.

Or maybe they won't.  What I do hope is that someone else can prove to be a success so that lessons on what to do right can be learned from a new game and not one approaching six years old.

[Musashi]

I can understand that with just a cursory overlook it might seem overwhelming to essentially re-learn the old world that you were already comfortable with.  But really.  Just roll a damn alt.  The shit's incredible.  I promise. 

Remember that quest you hated because it was like poking needles in your eye?  It's probably changed to be coherent.  And it's worthwhile now, because the rewards are much improved.  Remember how it sucked after you were done with that god damn quest, that you had to drive your dude back to the quest hub and he sent you right back to the place you just came from?  No more.  Now that quest auto-completes, and you get the next one right there in the middle of wherever in front of god and everybody.  Remember that quest where you had to fly back to the god damn auction house to get some retard engineer to make you a mithril casing because there weren't any on the god damn auction house?  No more.  Now you just need a thing off one of those gorillas right over there.  And you're done.

The only thing that sucks about WoW at the moment is Outlands.  It's just a hideous monstrosity in comparison to the new content.  I used to look forward to getting out of the old world with my alt du jour because at least the rewards in Outland were better.  No more.  At least they nerfed the xp so it doesn't last as long.

[Hawkbit]

Westfall is a murder mystery now.  When I looked down and saw the Furlbrows dead, I actually had a moment where I was pissed.  Old Blanchy deserved better.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Westfall is a murder mystery now.  When I looked down and saw the Furlbrows dead, I actually had a moment where I was pissed.  Old Blanchy deserved better.

Looks like they really put the cart....before the horse.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

[Sjofn]

I got to punch Deathwing in the face today. 

[Rendakor]

Is Deathwing still running around destroying shit? I've neither seen him nor heard from anyone who has.

[DraconianOne]

The lowbie undead quest where you pretend to be a quest giver is fucking hilarious.

Where is this quest? If it's in Tirisfal then I've either missed it or didn't notice it. Seem to have been told to go to Silverpine already.

[Evildrider]

I got to punch Deathwing in the face today. 

That quest chain is 

[Simond]

The lowbie undead quest where you pretend to be a quest giver is fucking hilarious.

Where is this quest? If it's in Tirisfal then I've either missed it or didn't notice it. Seem to have been told to go to Silverpine already.

It's the very first quest in Hillsbrad, after you get sent via breadcrumb.
Make sure you finish all of Silverpine first, though.

[DraconianOne]

It's the very first quest in Hillsbrad, after you get sent via breadcrumb.
Make sure you finish all of Silverpine first, though.

Cheers. Nowhere near it then. Not really playing my hunter that much - not enjoying the class as much as I thought I would (or as much as I remember playing it a few years ago).

[Xanthippe]

Low level no heirloom healing is D: right now. Especially with the changes to SFK and Deadmines.

Dear lord, what. It's pretty much 4 casts and OOM for any healer right now, combined with MUCH harder trash and bosses.

If you've got a priest, Disc has no mana issues in low level dungeons assuming sensible pulls and an actual tank.

I have a shadow priest and have had few mana issues.  I have to drink a little.  But she was already 25 when the sundering took place and all the bosses grew to 4x hps.

[Xanthippe]

Low level no heirloom healing is D: right now. Especially with the changes to SFK and Deadmines.

Dear lord, what. It's pretty much 4 casts and OOM for any healer right now, combined with MUCH harder trash and bosses.

If you've got a priest, Disc has no mana issues in low level dungeons assuming sensible pulls and an actual tank.

My priest is 80 already. What I lack is a druid, but that's painful to heal with while leveling right now.

I'm tempted to use a shaman, since earth shield will help a lot with healing mana, since it's a low cost and 9 charges out of the box now.

Druids are just.. We have a HoT and swiftmend, and everything else costs a fifth of your mana bar.

edit: that said though, Rake is hilariously overpowered at low levels. The DoT tics crit for half an even con mob's health.

I started a troll druid to check out the starting areas.

The pain has largely been removed from early druid leveling.  Cat form at 8.  Wow.  And boy is rake OP.  Thorns too even though it's been toned down.

[AcidCat]

Westfall is a murder mystery now.  When I looked down and saw the Furlbrows dead, I actually had a moment where I was pissed.  Old Blanchy deserved better.

Yeah seeing Old Blanchy like that was quite a shock. Suspicious hobos in place of Defias .. hehe. I had no idea the Defias were finished ... no more Van Cleef! I'm glad I didn't do beta and spoil any of this stuff, so many little surprises.

[Lantyssa]

I can understand that with just a cursory overlook it might seem overwhelming to essentially re-learn the old world that you were already comfortable with.  But really.  Just roll a damn alt.  The shit's incredible.  I promise. 

Maybe I'm not making myself clear enough.  It's not overwhelming.  It's that... I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck.

Wandering around doesn't rekindle that feeling.  The most joy I got was from pulling out my green proto-drake.  (I love that 'little' guy.)  Five seconds of nostalgia isn't going to cut it though.

I'm glad a lot of you are finding it fun.  I'm interested in following along because WoW impacts game design whether I'm enjoying it or not, so I've been putting out my initial impressions while they're still not well-formed and tainted by hindsight.  Just accept it's not for everyone, and I happen to be one of those people.  No amount of "You should love it because I do!" is going to change my opinion.  Because it's a bloody opinion.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Clearly you are confused, the wow bitching thread is over here. -----> http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20037.0

This is the circle jerk thread.

[Raguel]

Is that pet raptor quest in Stranglethorn a new one? It's pretty cool.

There's a quest that's giving me fits tho: High Priestess Venoxis

(lol looks like she used to be a level 60 mob; I'm 35 now)

[Shrike]

Westfall is a murder mystery now.  When I looked down and saw the Furlbrows dead, I actually had a moment where I was pissed.  Old Blanchy deserved better.

Whoa. Seriously? Wow.

Well, hell, now I"ll have to look into that. My shaman was just out there the other day and I didn't notice them anywhere, but...hell.

[Sjofn]

I got to punch Deathwing in the face today. 

That quest chain is 

The caravan chain in EPL is still my favorite so far of the stuff I've done (I am totally joining the Paladin Pals), but that one was right up there. I don't often laugh out loud at stuff in my fake internet world, but the third guy having his story interupted by the other two made me lose my shit. 

[Azazel]

I'm glad a lot of you are finding it fun.  I'm interested in following along because WoW impacts game design whether I'm enjoying it or not, so I've been putting out my initial impressions while they're still not well-formed and tainted by hindsight.  Just accept it's not for everyone, and I happen to be one of those people.  No amount of "You should love it because I do!" is going to change my opinion.  Because it's a bloody opinion.

That's fine. I've been there with WoW. I'm there now with LotRO. I'm not trying to sell it to you or even make sure that you try it again in a year or two years or whatever, even though that got me interested again. Because while you're a nice enough poster on f13, I've never interacted with you ingame, etc, so it's not like I'm going to suddenly "miss" hanging out with you and so forth. OTOH, the game design changes are probably a good thing for the MMO industry, since it has involved a great deal of the cockstabbing with levelling quests.

por example: There's a long quest chain in Rivendell in Trollshaws (which is a painful zone, as well) in LotRO where you literally just run from Elrond to Aragorn (across town, around a huge gorge with a river in it) to Elrond, to one of Elrond's sons halfway across the zone, to the edge of the zone, back to Elrond's son, back to Elrond, up into an adjacent zone to Gloin, back to Elond, over to Glorfindel, back to Elrond, back to Aragorn, etc etc etc etc. You're not really doing anything, just playing messenger boy. Hopefully the WoW changes will impact silly timewasting quests like this in future MMO design.

[Typhon]

The only messenger-type quest I can see having any patience for is if the game has the tech to ambush you along the way.  Even then, they better be high-reward quests.  And very few and far between.

[Cadaverine]

Remember how it sucked after you were done with that god damn quest, that you had to drive your dude back to the quest hub and he sent you right back to the place you just came from?  No more.  Now that quest auto-completes, and you get the next one right there in the middle of wherever in front of god and everybody. 

Is this something that only happens after a certain level, or something?  I started up a couple new characters to check out the new content, and I've had to turn everything in as I always have.