Cataclysm

[caladein]

Mostly because they become so big they're pointlessly silly. It doesn't wreck my world or anything, but once you start hitting five digits regularly, it just seems out of hand to me.

Still, I like the new, higher, health baseline, not only because it makes the current healing game possible, but also because it means tanks shouldn't be hitting 3-4x non-tank health this go around.  Feel free to quote that back to me in a year and a half though.

[apocrypha]

Restrictions on dungeon groups are overly harsh I think.

We got 5 of us together last night, the plan being to do Stonecore. One 81, two 82s, and 83 and an 84. Dungeon finder wouldn't let us enter *any* dungeons. Flew around a bit, discovered entrances to everything, still couldn't do any. Went to Stonecore entrance and our 84 couldn't even walk in the door to it when grouped with the rest of us. 

We worked out in the end that it wouldn't let us into Vortex Pinnacle because the 81 enhance shammy had iLvl 269 average and it wanted 272. We crafted her a pair of blue slippers, she put them in her bag, it let us in. Moronic system.

[Lantyssa]

She had cold feet.

[01101010]

Restrictions on dungeon groups are overly harsh I think.

We got 5 of us together last night, the plan being to do Stonecore. One 81, two 82s, and 83 and an 84. Dungeon finder wouldn't let us enter *any* dungeons. Flew around a bit, discovered entrances to everything, still couldn't do any. Went to Stonecore entrance and our 84 couldn't even walk in the door to it when grouped with the rest of us. 

We worked out in the end that it wouldn't let us into Vortex Pinnacle because the 81 enhance shammy had iLvl 269 average and it wanted 272. We crafted her a pair of blue slippers, she put them in her bag, it let us in. Moronic system.

That's my only gripe with this expac. I can understand the motivation behind it, but the "you need to be this tall to ride" restrictions are  . Players, I can understand, they are douchebags... but building it directly into you game? hmmmm

[kildorn]

I find it more amusing that they try to get around gaming the ilvl system by looking at gear in your pack.. but can't be assed to check your "queue as ____" to make sure you have that spec as one of your two.

[Merusk]

I'm not entirely certain why big numbers frighten people, they're like little numbers, but bigger.

I've always had a problem with big numbers.  I hated them when I first came across it in FF games and I hate them in WoW.  What's the difference between hitting something that has 1k hitpoints for 10 and something that has 1mil for 10k?  Nothing other than the 10k makes certain personalities' e-peens twitch.  Something about it simply bothers me at a base level and I'm not sure why.

Then again I also remember that 109HP was uber in D&D.

[caladein]

That's my only gripe with this expac. I can understand the motivation behind it, but the "you need to be this tall to ride" restrictions are  . Players, I can understand, they are douchebags... but building it directly into you game? hmmmm

It's been in the game at least since they added the LFD system as we know it (so, a year ago).  Just now the numbers are exposed to the user without needing mods.

I agree the requirements for most instances are a bit steep, but that's both a design intent and a matter of perception.  They wanted us to run Normal instances before jumping into Heroics, which for the most part didn't happen with Wrath.  Also, the jumps in base attributes and available gear levels are much larger than the difference of a level or two would make it seem.

An 81 making their way through Vashj'ir or Hyjal is playing a different game from someone who's 82 and in Deepholm gear.  Their and their enemy's health has bloomed, they're in a tier or more better gear, but their ratings mean much less than they used to, and if they're a mana class, their spells have shot up dramatically in cost.

[Lantyssa]

I've always had a problem with big numbers.  I hated them when I first came across it in FF games and I hate them in WoW.  What's the difference between hitting something that has 1k hitpoints for 10 and something that has 1mil for 10k?  Nothing other than the 10k makes certain personalities' e-peens twitch.  Something about it simply bothers me at a base level and I'm not sure why.

For me it's because you don't need more than two significant digits if you normalize the damage scale.  Three or four makes you feel powerful for being able to take a large hit, but generally the real percentage of your health taken with any given fight would be a whole number.

Because of that, having 147,609 health feels as silly as having 147.609.  "Oh shit!  Bobxinus just hit me for 18.752 health!"  You don't care at all about that 0.752 because its order of magnitude is insignificant.

[Paelos]

I don't like it because it confuses me as a tank. What's a big hit this time around? How much damage should I take before using up shit. What number is my slush zone on this boss? Extra digits mean extra fine lines. I've lived through numerous fights in the last expansion with <200 health. Keep making it bigger you make the healer/tank management more of a fine line system instead of a large picture system.

TL;DR it's unnecessarily complicating matters.

[Lantyssa]

I imagine the Divide By a Hundred add-on will become popular for that reason, too.

[Sheepherder]

You know, you could just set your normal UI to display percentages.

[Ironwood]

She had cold feet.

 

Oh God.

[apocrypha]

She had cold feet.

[Sjofn]

You know, you could just set your normal UI to display percentages.

That's stupid in a different way. I don't talk in percentages for these sorts of things except for "we got Sindragosa down to 5% and then we wiped." Even then I'm more likely to say "she had blahdeeblah HP left waaaaaaaah" instead.

[Abelian75]

For me it's because you don't need more than two significant digits if you normalize the damage scale.  Three or four makes you feel powerful for being able to take a large hit, but generally the real percentage of your health taken with any given fight would be a whole number.

Because of that, having 147,609 health feels as silly as having 147.609.  "Oh shit!  Bobxinus just hit me for 18.752 health!"  You don't care at all about that 0.752 because its order of magnitude is insignificant.

That's a good way of putting it I think.  I think it does make some sense to make it so the lowest-of-the-low hits are around 10, rather than 1, for no reason other than that it does seem to make numbers seem cooler, to some extent, when you can get them into the 1000s sometimes.  But I do think WoW has now reached an order of magnitude too many.  Hitting things for 10000+ being an entirely unremarkable event is a little bizarre.

I guess for some reason it sort of seems ok to me if the last TWO digits are insignificant (like if 100 hp is essentially a sliver from nothingness, and indistinguishable from 10 hp for the most part).  Somehow once you add on one more insignificant digit (meaning that 1000 hp is now a sliver of nothingness) it feels ridiculous somehow.  Hopefully it does not need to be explicitly said that this is a blatantly subjective evaluation (though who knows, it's possible it has some universal truth in humans).

(and yeah, the percentage display thing doesn't work because you need to be able to compare two different creatures to each other)

[ghost]

Okay, so I've run through several of the intro levels for different races and classes.  Are there any particularly gimped classes right now?  Or classes that are really overpowered?  Sorry, but I haven't picked this up in a very long time. 

[stu]

Neptool, the Rockpool Murloc Chief, sounds just like phantom Towley.

[Sjofn]

Okay, so I've run through several of the intro levels for different races and classes.  Are there any particularly gimped classes right now?  Or classes that are really overpowered?  Sorry, but I haven't picked this up in a very long time. 

Protection paladins are hilariously overpowered at the low levels. They are particularly bullshit in PvP.

[Tannhauser]

What she said. Even a Holy Pally is an engine of destruction. 

[ghost]

Bullshit as in good, or bullshit as in bad?

I just rolled up at Tauren Pally.   

[Rendakor]

Bullshit as in good, or bullshit as in bad?

I just rolled up at Tauren Pally.   

In your case, bullshit as in good.

[Fordel]

As in everyone you fight will be cursing "that is total bullshit!" while they wait for the spirit rezzer. 

[Ginaz]

Restrictions on dungeon groups are overly harsh I think.

We got 5 of us together last night, the plan being to do Stonecore. One 81, two 82s, and 83 and an 84. Dungeon finder wouldn't let us enter *any* dungeons. Flew around a bit, discovered entrances to everything, still couldn't do any. Went to Stonecore entrance and our 84 couldn't even walk in the door to it when grouped with the rest of us. 

We worked out in the end that it wouldn't let us into Vortex Pinnacle because the 81 enhance shammy had iLvl 269 average and it wanted 272. We crafted her a pair of blue slippers, she put them in her bag, it let us in. Moronic system.

That's my only gripe with this expac. I can understand the motivation behind it, but the "you need to be this tall to ride" restrictions are  . Players, I can understand, they are douchebags... but building it directly into you game? hmmmm

I think the reason behind it is that you gain a shit load of HPs with each level and the gear you acquire, and its necessary for the new dungeons.  Its a huge jump, doubling or and even tripling what you had in high end gear with Lich King.  I had a bear tank yesterday in the Deepholm dungeon that was running with about 66k health.  I think he was 81 or 82, with a lot of ICC gear.  We only managed to get about half way before calling it.  Tank died numerous times along the way and the healer wasn't the problem.  Considering that another time we had an 84 DK tank with just over 100k HP, players are eventually going to have health pools comparable to LK mini bosses or high level trash mobs, which gives you an idea of how much health raid bosses will have.  I don't know if this will hold true for the inevitable raid to kill him, but I saw Deathwing with almost a billion HP when I first flew into Hyjal.  Thats right.  One billion HP.  I makes me keep thinking of Dr. Evil when he first demands "One Biiiiilion Dollars" from the US government when he goes back in time and the reaction he got.  They laughed at him for asking for such an absurd amount of money.  I think if you went back a few years and told people they would be facing a boss with a billion HP, they would probably have the same reaction.

[lesion]

I did heroic Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep today, and holy crap crap crap. Thrall's balls! They're awesome.

Figuring out heroics is a hell of a lot of fun too. I think I'm the only one geared enough to run them in my guild right now, so I come across lots of guild-minus-one groups and we always end up rocking stuff. I've almost macroed "I wouldn't be doing heroics if I didn't expect to die a lot" for when people apologize for not being over-geared dicks with raid gear. This is the best part of WoW, right here.

[Ashamanchill]

I have two view points of this expansion to report;

1: So I managed to convince two of my friends who have not played the game since BC to come back and play. They love the pve experience; quick levels, good quests; they loved the dungeon crawl........only problem is they are PvP addicts, and PvP at lower levels is FUCKED. Hunters, Rogues, and Feral Druids are one-shotting them....basically all the classes who get a **Weapon Damage + X** who are using heirloom items which were not intended under the games system. What I mean by this, is those classes smoke people instantly. It's not even fun. I've tried to convince my friends that it's not like this at the higher levels, but their patience wore out, and they basically dropped the game. I hope Blizzard goes back and balances the game from lvl 1 up. It's not like it's a priority or anything, but I wonder how many people quit or half quit cause the leveling pvp is not even closed to balanced.

2: I've been playing at max level for a bit. Loved Hyjal, HATED Vash'jir, even if i seemed cool in theory. I've only done two dungeons thus far, BRC, and ToT so far. Throne of Tides seemes alright. I particularly like the giant tentacles that prevent you from going into any hallways you have not cleared yet. BRC was just gay, both times I did it, if a group wipes, it's  'cause no one knows their way back into that fucking place.

As an addendum; I ran into a smug-ass wow player at a party tonight who claimed that after 5 days at 3 hour played he has managed to reach 85.  I play like 4 hrs a night, and quest like mad, with a few random dungeons thrown in, and I just hit 82. I mean, I know I'm not great at this game, but I didn't think I was falling THAT far behind.

[Tannhauser]

I completed the entire Vashj'ir quest line and the gear from that was superior to the gear from Throne of Tides.  So maybe the instances ARE an alternative levelling path.

Still loving Uldum.  Deathwing burnt me to a crisp yesterday :)  I tried to follow, but yes I lost sight of an enormous dragon burning everything in its path.

Did the Gilneas zone yesterday.  Great looking zone and good quests.  A little surprised they sent me to Darkshore, figured Worgen would go up into Shadowpine, but no matter.  Not a big fan of the male worgen walk.  Bad enough I have to look at wolf-butt.

  

[Ginaz]

As an addendum; I ran into a smug-ass wow player at a party tonight who claimed that after 5 days at 3 hour played he has managed to reach 85.  I play like 4 hrs a night, and quest like mad, with a few random dungeons thrown in, and I just hit 82. I mean, I know I'm not great at this game, but I didn't think I was falling THAT far behind.

He's full of shit.  Either he isn't 85 yet or he played more than 3 hours ( a day or total, it doesn't matter).

[Hawkbit]

As an addendum; I ran into a smug-ass wow player at a party tonight who claimed that after 5 days at 3 hour played he has managed to reach 85.  I play like 4 hrs a night, and quest like mad, with a few random dungeons thrown in, and I just hit 82. I mean, I know I'm not great at this game, but I didn't think I was falling THAT far behind.

Yep, I hit 81 in about 4 days of playing casually through a bit of Vashjir and Archaeology.  My wife told me that this woman she works with hit 85 in about two days... she and her family all play together and until about a year ago they were casuals.  I'm getting MMOld I guess.  Figured I'd wait until the new zones clear out a bit.

At some point in the next few days I'm going to write up a detail about this xpac.  Overall, I'm sure it is a glaring success, but it has some gaping flaws that aren't typical of Blizzard.  I would have expected them to figure out a formula by now, but they're still tweaking the roots of the game.  The QC just wasn't all there this time and unfortunately Blizzard isn't known for fixing things promptly (or at all).  Tuning the game for 85 (as mentioned a few posts above) is one of the major ones.

[apocrypha]

Quick question, can you random queue for normal dungeons at 85? Or can you only queue for heroics?

[Merusk]

12 of us went out as a guild and did old world raids for guild achieves last night.  Cleared 6 of the BC raids in about 2 hours and the only reason it took that long was GCDs and everything in BC loved to fucking talk your ear off.  The exposition by Kael'thas in TK took longer than the whole Illlidan fight.

Mag was 50 seconds, Gruul was 36, The spear guy in BT that used to be a 9 min fight? 22 seconds.   

Quick question, can you random queue for normal dungeons at 85? Or can you only queue for heroics?

You can random for normals.  Until you hit gear level 239 that's all you CAN queue for.  Only thing is you won't get Justice Points for anything beyond completion of the first random of the day.

However, you'll be more productive in gearing up, since successful completions of heroics are taking 2-3 hours involving multiple wipes.  Everyone wants to try as soon as they hit 239, but it's not advisable.  Blizz wasn't kidding when they said you should have a full blue normal set before trying Heroics in /random.   In that 2-3 hours you could have completed 2-4 normal randoms and gotten gear instead of a huge repair bill.

[Simond]

Garrosh is hilariously Emo in TBC, which makes WotLK Garrosh even more 

Yeah, he went from being this sad little shitface who should be fucking grateful Thrall every came along to pull him out of his stupor into a fucking "HEY NICE PLANET YOU GOT HERE LET'S TAKE IT OVER COMPLETELY."

Garrosh's story got shortchanged because WotLK was an 'Alliance Expansion' (like TBC was a 'Horde Expansion' i.e. all the good lore & storylines were either that side or neutral).

What it should have been was him carrying on from the Nagrand event and basically doing a Grand Tour of Horde areas on Outland then Azeroth, and his reactions growing from that (namely "Wait, why the fuck are we making nice politically with the arseholes in the Alliance when we're living in fucking deserts and post-apocalyptic wastelands when they have pristine mountains and forests...and they're invading us?"). Combine that with the whole death before dishonour thing and the fact that he's quite happily embracing his heritage now instead of repressing it, and you'd have an interesting story. Especially when you consider that by definition Garrosh had fuck all to do with anything the Horde have done pre-TBC (his skin is the wrong colour, for starters), and quite a lot of the Horde is probably in a similar boat (grew up in the Internment camps for orcs, had fuck-all to do with the original Horde for everyone else; hell, two of the Horde races are ex-Alliance!) so they're not exactly defaulting to 'repentant noble savage' like Saurfang Sr. et. al. - in fact, they probably see the Alliance as holding grudges and spoiling for a fight.

Instead we got: Emo Garrosh *timeskip* "Why in the name of Gul'dan's fel-corrupted ballsack aren't we going to kick the crap out of Arthas now? The plague was an act of cowardice" *timeskip* Hello I am the "Big I Am" in Borean Tundra *timeskip* Rar Imma gon' eat Wrynn's face *timeskip* Sup I'm Warchief now.

And a shitty comic starring King Manbeef McRoidrager and his chillaxed magical twin.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm/features/garrosh.html

[Lantyssa]

As an addendum; I ran into a smug-ass wow player at a party tonight who claimed that after 5 days at 3 hour played he has managed to reach 85.  I play like 4 hrs a night, and quest like mad, with a few random dungeons thrown in, and I just hit 82. I mean, I know I'm not great at this game, but I didn't think I was falling THAT far behind.

Simply respond, "Dude, you waited two years to blow through the expansion in five days.  Well done."

[dd0029]

So, in Beta, the worgen mount/run animation just kind of raised your camera angle and you walked faster.  Got to 20 today with my new female worgen.  There's actually an animation now.  And dirty, dirty, dirty it is.     They bend over and shove their ass in the air, which kind of make sense, but it's still oh so dirty.

[01101010]

So, in Beta, the worgen mount/run animation just kind of raised your camera angle and you walked faster.  Got to 20 today with my new female worgen.  There's actually an animation now.  And dirty, dirty, dirty it is.     They bend over and shove their ass in the air, which kind of make sense, but it's still oh so dirty.

I like it for the most part. It needs to be slowed down (the animation) a tad bit since it looks like I am just flopping around all over the place, but I definitely like it's "feral" feel.

[Miasma]

There is a great new quest in western plaguelands where you let a hopeless new troll druid tag along with you for a while.  He shapeshifts into a seal and flops around, can't get aggro in bear form, burns himself in moonkin form.  It's one of those quests I'll remember for a long time.