WotLK

[Tannhauser]

Went to Target at lunch.  Picked up 1 of the two CE copies they had.  Got home and installed, patched and was playing in about 40 minutes.  No lag.

Also, I play on Gilneas.  It never has a queue.  Well until last night.  That speaks volumes to me.

[apocrypha]

I feel like a dip for being the ONLY PERSON AT WORK RIGHT NOW. And one of two cars in the garage.

If it makes you feel any better, having WOTLK installed hasn't meant I've been able to play for more than 20 mins three times since 

Was gonna head straight for Northrend but had to make my DK duo first (Obstreperous and Ostentations, him'n'her undead) and was unable to resist the urge to play with them. Still pretty much button-mashing them, nfi how DKs work yet but at least they've both got a giant glowy sword and a bunch of whackamole quests so maybe I'll start getting a clue next session 

[Dren]

My wife got my copy at Bbuy during the day and I installed when I got home last night.  Big install, but everything was smooth.  I'm surprised the lag wasn't worse than it was.  Even the mob spawning was keeping up with demand.

The big issue now?  THE DREADED QUEUE!  I got on early so I missed it, but I heard reports from guildmates of over 1000 at peak.

[Chimpy]

I have to give credit to Blizz on how smooth this is going.

Only a couple of "why the fuck did you make a named mob right next to the main town in Borean a quest mob"? kind of moments so far.

I love the look of Fjords, and Nexus was pretty cool.

But man the gear jump is even faster than in BC.....t5+ quality blues from the first Nexus quest, t6 quality weapons in the dungeon itself.

[Koyasha]

I'm not finding the gear jump that bad.  I'm seeing some advancement but it feels....right, rather than instantly replacing my outfit.  I'm not uber geared either.  I expect to have replaced most of my gear by 65 or 67, but it looks like it's going to go pretty much the way gear upgrading went from say, 60 to 70, or 30 to 50 pre-BC.

[Ironwood]

Um.

Kara shoulders right off after completing the Nexus.  The jump is actually just as bad.

[Merusk]

Meh.. Kara gear you should expect to get replaced, they have to balance around something and most folks have run Kara.  This is particularly true for "offpsec" gear or folks who Koy is talking about T5/ T6 stuff getting replaced as if T3 did in Hellfire but I certainly seem to recall hearing that T3 lasted well into the late 60s.

  T5/ T6/ Late Badge and Sunwell Gear should last you until 74 or 75 from what I've heard.  Seems reasonable to me. 

[Reg]

Do the expansion disks contain the original game and Burning Crusade or am I going to have to dig up my old disks and install them again first?

[Ratman_tf]

Meh.. Kara gear you should expect to get replaced, they have to balance around something and most folks have run Kara.  This is particularly true for "offpsec" gear or folks who Koy is talking about T5/ T6 stuff getting replaced as if T3 did in Hellfire but I certainly seem to recall hearing that T3 lasted well into the late 60s.

  T5/ T6/ Late Badge and Sunwell Gear should last you until 74 or 75 from what I've heard.  Seems reasonable to me. 

My stuff is Tier 4 and 5, and I've disenchanted every green drop and reward so far.

I  haven't been to Utgarde yet though.

[Ratman_tf]

Do the expansion disks contain the original game and Burning Crusade or am I going to have to dig up my old disks and install them again first?

You need the original installs for WoW and BC.

[Reg]

Oh well. At least I won't have to patch them. Thanks for the info.

[Numtini]

I'm not finding the gear jump that bad.

I got a staff with 199SP, 41 INT, and some spirit and stamina off a trash mob in Utgarde. I'd say that was a jump.

[Draegan]

Got my DK up to 60 last night.  Holy shit is he fun.

Now I have to plvl my friend from 48-60 so he can play with me now.  It's funny, a year ago I would of said fuck off I need to race to 80!  Now I'll take my time.

I heard Blizzard lowered the pop caps on the servers to ease on the load.  Read it on FOH I think, no linked source though.

[kildorn]

I'm not finding the gear jump that bad.

I got a staff with 199SP, 41 INT, and some spirit and stamina off a trash mob in Utgarde. I'd say that was a jump.

A 199 SP staff isn't that big a jump imo. Utgarde's caster weapons were ZA levels of SP, with fewer extra stats. The shaman gear was barely an ilvl above Kara (1 more SP, 1 more mp5)

[AcidCat]

I'm glad I didn't spoil any of this stuff by playing the beta. Borean Tundra is huge and has some really cool quests - and funny ones. I love the murloc quests (gang of baby murlocs following you around was hilarious) and the quests mocking the Nesingwary quests of old are great - the mobs like "loot crazed hunter" have some really funny flavor quotes too.

[Khaldun]

I haven't actually replaced anything yet, with a mix of Kara, SSC, Gruul's and Sunwell badge loot on. The shoulders out of Nexus (quest reward ones) are pretty much on par with my T4 shoulders, except I've got the T4 shoulders enchanted, I get a set bonus, and I've got them gemmed, so eh, why replace just yet. The dagger I got off the final Nexus boss was just about on par with the T6-type daggers that were badge-bought from Sunwell Offensive vendor, but about 1.5 dps less and with slightly less attractive stat bonuses. Though as a rogue one of the interesting puzzles is the amount of + haste gear instead of + hit gear--I need to read the theory folks to see exactly what that means and when/whether I should start building lots of  +haste, which might dictate an earlier shift to Northrend greens and blues than otherwise.

So far liking Fjord--much of the rest of my guild went to Borean first. Geography can be a bit disorienting at times--there are some very teeny-tiny quest hubs that are easy to miss, or areas where you have to go which are easy to ride right past and not even get an exploration credit for them because their boundaries are so small. (I was looking for one area called Thorvald's Camp that's near to the second Horde hub that took me a long while to find, even though it's quite close and near the main circular road.)

[Merusk]

I haven't messed with it yet since I was playing my new DK, but I do expect to replace several items on my pally.  She's still very geared around the old spellpower/ int paradigm instead of WeaponDPS/ Str/ Avoidance one. (Rings cloak and accesories in particular)  I expect ret pallies might find they're replacing a few bits of gear as well, but yeah, I wouldn't think most folks who had better than Kara will be replacing stuff in the first zone or dungeon.

[Dren]

My top 3 chars that have full purples from Kara, Mags, Gruul, and assorted other raids will not be replacing much right away.  My warlock has been DE'ing everything but maybe one item and that was pretty much a wash (read very small improvement.)  My other characters with greens and blues will be upgrading immediately and by a huge amount.  It should be fun.

The one thing my warlock is improving dramatically is on enchantments.  The first 5-6 you get by stepping into town are exceptionally nice.

[rattran]

I've not been in any TBC dungeons, and I still haven't found anything better than my 4 piece Undead set. I've replaced my weapon, bracers and boots though. And haven't even been in Nexus yet.

[Tannhauser]

Just finished my first run thru of UK and the quest rewards are just barely better than my current gear.  It's almost a toss up. So far the gear drops seem perfect though I am wondering why so much Spirit.  I seem to recall it was the same in Hellfire Peninsula.

[Draegan]

There is a heavy focus on spirit now for mana regen and stuff.

[Ratman_tf]

My top 3 chars that have full purples from Kara, Mags, Gruul, and assorted other raids will not be replacing much right away.  My warlock has been DE'ing everything but maybe one item and that was pretty much a wash (read very small improvement.)  My other characters with greens and blues will be upgrading immediately and by a huge amount.  It should be fun.

The one thing my warlock is improving dramatically is on enchantments.  The first 5-6 you get by stepping into town are exceptionally nice.

Yeah. The spellpower enchant for gloves is 10 points higher, and a ton less expensive in ingredients.

[tazelbain]

Do the expansion disks contain the original game and Burning Crusade or am I going to have to dig up my old disks and install them again first?

You need the original installs for WoW and BC.

I might actually have be tempted with an all-in-one box.

[Merusk]

*twitch* only 5 hours to go.

I'm so sad.

[Morfiend]

The new DK experience is amazing. Hats of to Blizzard for that. It really is amazing.

[Kitsune]

I've only replaced incidental bits of gear so far; the welfare epic set that dropped from the scourge invasion last week is thus far better than the quest rewards I've come across.  Plus, three whole percent extra damage against undead!  How can that ever be replaced, I ask you?

[MrHat]

The new DK experience is amazing. Hats of to Blizzard for that. It really is amazing.

   That's my panic face.

[Lightstalker]

1 CTD for me on install, and some client-server sync issues (where if you have no ranged attack you can't hit the mob killing you).  Smoother than Tuesday, to be sure.  My girlfriend's machine CTD'd pretty regularly between patch 3.0 and when I replaced it prior to 3.0.3.  So I guess, again, I  bitch about their quality control and how this is considered good for MMOGs.  We picked this server prior to TBC because it had a low population, yesterday we had a short queue. 


Gear jump looks to be about the same as TBC, but without the obviousness of Stamina rescaling (just look at the gems instead).  Since I switched specs I have swapped a resto ring for a quest green to better fit with enhancement.  It isn't better, to be sure, but it is more appropriate for what I'm doing than anything that I forgot to disenchant.  Some of my gear will last through to 80 and beyond, most won't.  Neltharion's Tear from Blackwing Lair was still great for a lot of classes until Badge trinkets and new Heroics started offering better in the last couple months, there will be similar items with this expansion (e.g. Shard of Contempt for anyone who hits things with a weapon).   

It will be nice to be able to turn badges into tier pieces, that should greatly improve player's ability to get the items they really want from an instance (and tier pieces will be available through this mechanism without doing anything more than heroics).  Of course, that will reduce the number of times the big instances are run overall and we'll burn through LK content even faster than TBC content.  As it is, my guild is flying through the levels with a Deathknight at 71 and three (Druid, Warlock, Warrior) at 75 through solo or duo play. 

[ClydeJr]

The druids have their own version of PETA. there: Druids for the Ethical and Humane Treatment of Animals (DHETA). They're a subset of the Cenarion Expedition and are set up in direct opposition of Hemet Nesingwary (Mr. Kill 30 Animals). If you kill a wild animal, you'll get an Animal Blood debuff that last for 3 minutes. DHETA will instantly aggro anyone with the debuff. I watched an Ally hunter ride into the camp with the debuff and get thrashed in 2 seconds by 3 questgivers.

So far I've had 3 different quests that let me ride something else as a mount: a tank, a kodo, and a wooly mammoth.

[Rasix]

Must... resist...

[MrHat]

Must... resist...

[Dren]

I rode the mammoth last night.  It was way too short of an experience.

Good stuff.

Edit:  For those resisting:  You fight while on the Mammoth.  You kill the boss for the quest by ramming him and stomping on him with your HUGE elephant!

[lesion]

The new DK experience is amazing. Hats of to Blizzard for that. It really is amazing.

Confirming this. Sadly.

Help me.

[Merusk]

It makes me happy as a beta tester to see lots of you jaded bastards enjoying the content. 

[Dewdrop]

Um.

Kara shoulders right off after completing the Nexus.  The jump is actually just as bad.

Comparing Nexus/Utgarde gear to mine and others it seems the instance blues are balanced somewhere around ZA level. Kara gear should get replaced relatively quickly, ZA gear less so. Depending on set bonuses (T6 4pc being awesome for most dps classes)  and such you can expect T5 gear to last until ~75-76 and quite a few people raided Naxx on beta with T6 and Sunwell gear at level 80. Heroic epics and blues seems to be about the jumping off point for those people to start upgrading but I doubt set bonuses will be broken until 10 and 25 man Naxx.

Alot of people, though, didn't spend months farming BT/MH or even SSC/TK so even if not everything you see is an upgrade you'll likely be boosting yourself in your weakest slots. The jump from quest/instance blues to Heroic/Raid epics is pretty huge though, at least from what I've seen perusing wowhead and wowdb. And, or course, those still sporting Kara gear and old heroic epics will get upgraded rather quickly.

Keep in mind, also, that BAD (back then) was me stripping off freshly acquired Tier 3 40 man loot at level 60 and replacing it with quest reward trash greens that were actually quite a bit better. So, top of the line Classic loot getting replaced on day one, thats not happening at ALL this time.