WotLK

[photek]

I dont wanna spoil anything, but if you think the DK dragonflying was fun, wait til you get to Zul Drak. One word : STORM GIANT. 

[Ratman_tf]

Diaper Raiders are going to clear the content at a ferocious pace no matter what a dev does. Balancing the content difficulty for them means locking out 99% of the rest of the players.

It just means that when my guild gets to the raid content, we'll have fun instead of bashing our heads against a brick wall of cockblocks.

[Venkman]

Heh, and it just means by the time I get to Raiding everything's going to so mapped out it'll be cakewalk 

Last night was the first real session I had since the expac arrived, and I've already replaced a few quest blues and even that sword from Mana Tombs (good Mage sword there, too arsed to look it up). Funny that. Exact same thing happened when BC hit. The very first upgrade replaced by main hand within the third quest in HF. Maybe it's tradition. I do hope it takes a bit longer to replace my Hologogs though. That wasn't a cheap combine.

I pretty much stuck with DK in beta so all of the Northrend stuff is new. Spawn rates are crazy fast. I don't know if it's timed or due to activity but it's working whatever it is. Until I'm the only one in a cavern trying to get out. 

I will say that it seems what little I've read is spot on: Mages did not get the uber bump we got with BC. I can still kill stuff fast, but damn if they're not hitting me hard. I imagine that's why stuff has all sorts of STA on it.

[Draegan]

All those catass raiders had the best gear in the TBC in every slot.  Blizzard tuned the first tier of raiding for people with level 80 greens/blues and made it easy on purpose.  Of course they beat it all.

Idiots.

[Tannhauser]

I've now done Utgarde Keep, Nexus and Azuj Jerub (sp) and all there are fucking fun instances.  Maybe UK is a bit bland, but it's the newbie instance. 

First, all three are doable in less than 2 hours.  Important to casual gamers like me.
Second, they have fairly challenging encounters but not crazy hard.
Thirdly, the loot isn't too bad.  I have like 4 pieces of quest rewards as my gear.

WoW was Raiders of the Lost Ark
TBC was Temple of Doom
WotlK is Last Crusade with a dash of The Right Stuff, Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, and Star Wars thrown in.

[Ratman_tf]

WoW was Raiders of the Lost Ark
TBC was Temple of Doom
WotlK is Last Crusade with a dash of The Right Stuff, Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, and Star Wars thrown in.

That means the next expansion is going to be Crystal Skull! 

[Fabricated]

Also no one seems to remember that all 3 of the first raid instances were open on beta and had all of these poopsockers running them for months before.

Oh, and Naxx has been in the game technically for over 2 years.

Whooptie fuckin' doo.

[DraconianOne]

Also Lotro does this as well.

Unless they've substantiallly changed the technology since I last played, no, I don't think LOTRO does.  A zone will remain the same irrespective of what you do in the Book story instances. The only slight variation on this is the starter zone which is an instance, not a phased zone.  Similarly, I understood Guild Wars to be mostly instances rather than phased zones too.

[WindupAtheist]

I haven't done much instancing since like the fucking Scarlet Monastery stage. Everytime I tured on LFG it was just this infinite sea of rogues and mages wailing "we need healerssss and tanksss" like lost souls. I did a little Caverns of Time and some swamp instance, but I don't even know what the inside of any of the others even look like. Fuck you guys, I'm not speccing my pally into the Boring tree so I can be the healbitch.

Plus I don't like stupid "Didn't anyone tell you to stand on one foot and rub your stomach when the boss turns blue? Woops you insta-die!" gimmick encounters.

[Ratman_tf]

Plus I don't like stupid "Didn't anyone tell you to stand on one foot and rub your stomach when the boss turns blue? Woops you insta-die!" gimmick encounters.

Archimonde is just like that. Totally naff boss.

[Paelos]

Plus I don't like stupid "Didn't anyone tell you to stand on one foot and rub your stomach when the boss turns blue? Woops you insta-die!" gimmick encounters.

Archimonde is just like that. Totally naff boss.

Teron's like that too.

[Fabricated]

Plus I don't like stupid "Didn't anyone tell you to stand on one foot and rub your stomach when the boss turns blue? Woops you insta-die!" gimmick encounters.

Archimonde is just like that. Totally naff boss.

Teron's like that too.

Teron is just hoping any of the "THAT GUY"s in your raid don't get picked to stop constructs.

[K9]

Plus I don't like stupid "Didn't anyone tell you to stand on one foot and rub your stomach when the boss turns blue? Woops you insta-die!" gimmick encounters.

There aren't any of these types of encounter outside raids, at least not that I can think of; even in raids true "gimmick" encounters are pretty uncommon.

You miss out on a lot by not doing instances imo. The nexus is pretty fun for a starter instance, and since retadins are pretty desirable DPS I don't see what would hold you back.

[Fabricated]

I haven't done much instancing since like the fucking Scarlet Monastery stage. Everytime I tured on LFG it was just this infinite sea of rogues and mages wailing "we need healerssss and tanksss" like lost souls. I did a little Caverns of Time and some swamp instance, but I don't even know what the inside of any of the others even look like. Fuck you guys, I'm not speccing my pally into the Boring tree so I can be the healbitch.

Plus I don't like stupid "Didn't anyone tell you to stand on one foot and rub your stomach when the boss turns blue? Woops you insta-die!" gimmick encounters.

You could spec prot and tank since prot kicks some ass now I hear.

Or you could just start your own groups for instances. That usually works believe it or not. Take the initiative and grab people off of the LFG tool/channel and the local channel in the instance's zone. Yeah, pugs have a bad rep but you'll get good at picking non-retards just by looking at character and guild names.

edit: Seriously, I heartily encourage you checking out all of the leveling instances at least once. About half of the instances in BC were boring as fuck in design but WotLK has some pretty cool stuff in it.

[Paelos]

Plus I don't like stupid "Didn't anyone tell you to stand on one foot and rub your stomach when the boss turns blue? Woops you insta-die!" gimmick encounters.

Archimonde is just like that. Totally naff boss.

Teron's like that too.

Teron is just hoping any of the "THAT GUY"s in your raid don't get picked to stop constructs.

I'll let you be a judge of how many THAT GUY we had in our top group. There's a reason I'll never lead them again.

[Tannhauser]

I hit the LFG queue and then I joined a pug yesterday for Azol-Nerub.  Turned out none of us had ever been there.  We died twice at the first boss, easily took down the 2nd boss and then almost wiped at the last boss.  Even with a sub-par tank and the server's highest DK (75, may God have mercy on his cat-ass soul).

My point is that the LFG tool works.  I just entered the queue for that dungeon and solo'ed until I was invited.  Also it was so cool to go in a dungeon without any one knowing any strats.  Sure we died but we did it ourselves.  Never happened to me before in WoW.

[Fabricated]

Plus I don't like stupid "Didn't anyone tell you to stand on one foot and rub your stomach when the boss turns blue? Woops you insta-die!" gimmick encounters.

Archimonde is just like that. Totally naff boss.

Teron's like that too.

Teron is just hoping any of the "THAT GUY"s in your raid don't get picked to stop constructs.

I'll let you be a judge of how many THAT GUY we had in our top group. There's a reason I'll never lead them again.

Yeah, I appreciate it, trust me. That other alliance my guild has is sorta the same deal, and their side of the leadership -really- wanted to keep trying Archimonde. yeeeeeeeah, that was gonna happen.

[Merusk]

Killing Turkeys isn't going to get old.  It's fucking hilarious.

[Khaldun]

I was skeptical, but I think this 'phasing' shit just might be brilliant when applied correctly in the right places. Doing quests and actually seeing the world change as a result of those quests was awesome. What's more, I've never heard of another game doing anything like this before. Blizzard may have done the unthinkable here and actually innovated a bit for once.

Guild Wars says hi.

Lord of the Rings Online has this as well. Oh, wait, I see other folks pointed this out. I think its implementation is almost exactly the same as the way it's done in the DK opening questlines, in fact.

[Khaldun]

I hit 73 late last night and decided to just go take a ride and see what I could see in the zones. It was a lot of fun. It looks like the really upper-level zones require a flying mount for access. But if you go into the 76-78 zones like Crystalsong and Sholazar, there are so few people (most of the earliest level 78-80 catasses are either exploiting a bug to level or they're just grinding shit in one place) that you can ride around pretty easily without worrying about mobs, because of dynamic spawning. Sholazar looks to me like it'll be an important resource zone: lots of herbs and minerals. Starting to already see Dragonsblight fill up with more toons: it's really interesting to track where the leading edge of the average levelling wave is.

More evidence of how smart Blizzard's designers have become: having two starting zones plus the DK experience has neatly split up the players without losing critical mass in any area AND given people reason to level alts in order to have some of the range of possible experiences. I see people in my guild alternating between levelling their DK and their main(s). Going through Outland instances with groups of 5 DKs, or 4 DKs plus one guildie who comes to help with healing, etc. is fun for a lot of people just because it's a new way to experience something old and familiar. The achievements drive this too. None of this is revolutionary, but basically, how is anyone else ever going to compete with WoW on this kind of terrain? Answer: they're not, don't even try.

[Lantyssa]

Unless they've substantiallly changed the technology since I last played, no, I don't think LOTRO does.  A zone will remain the same irrespective of what you do in the Book story instances. The only slight variation on this is the starter zone which is an instance, not a phased zone.  Similarly, I understood Guild Wars to be mostly instances rather than phased zones too.

I don't know about LotRO.

Guild Wars is all instances, however that's simply their design instead of using shared space.  They do change based on quests you've performed and other situations, and you can't go back once it's happened.

So the implementation may be a little different due to the base design of the game, but fundamentally they don't seem all that different.

[WindupAtheist]

Or you could just start your own groups for instances. That usually works believe it or not. Take the initiative and grab people off of the LFG tool/channel and the local channel in the instance's zone. Yeah, pugs have a bad rep but you'll get good at picking non-retards just by looking at character and guild names.

edit: Seriously, I heartily encourage you checking out all of the leveling instances at least once. About half of the instances in BC were boring as fuck in design but WotLK has some pretty cool stuff in it.

I've tried. On rare occasion it's worked. But mostly after 20 or 30 minutes of "3 DPS NEED HEALER AND TANK" aka "SOMEONE PLEASE DO THE SHITTY JOBS SO WE CAN GO" my patience is used up.

[AcidCat]

You congratulate yourselves and start sitting around wondering wtf to do for the next six months while the rest of us, y'know, have fun 

Seriously. Leveling and questing is more fun for me than anything at endgame, so I'm in no hurry, I'm just enjoying myself. Also enjoying my DK even into Outlands, I wasn't sure I'd stick with it beyond a test drive but he's fun to play.

[Scadente]

I was actually crazy enough to think that this was going to end that sweet-long-dripfed wow lull...

Man was I wrong. Wotlk is so on the ball in terms of fun that... I haven't had this much fun in a game for years. I'm just taking my time and sucking in all the good stuff. Impressed by almost everything so far. I still haven't travelled beyond the two starting zones (bar Dalaran and some random exploration). Really... I'm impressed, and theres this warm and fuzzy feeling inside of me... it's like being a kid in a candystore!

I also gave the new Battleground a try, nothing too serious, but it is something completely different to the old ones.

Granted, it's still same old WoW. There's just so much new STUFF to check out that it'll keep me busy for months to come.

[Xerapis]

Well, since I'm playing the Korean WOW now (S-L-O-W-L-Y because my Korean sucks) I'm not all wrathy yet.

But I am LOVING the achievements. I'm peacefully fishing and ~BAM~!!! They are like adorable mini-dings of pleasure 

In fact, I spent most of my lunch hour yesterday just browsing all the achievements (minus crazy raid-related ones) to see just how much coolness I can acquire.

Of course, I'm nowhere near Northrend levels yet, but maybe I'll make the boyfriend have a guild member summon me to the cool stuff or something once it starts.

~goes back to studying Korean some more~

[Ingmar]

Or you could just start your own groups for instances. That usually works believe it or not. Take the initiative and grab people off of the LFG tool/channel and the local channel in the instance's zone. Yeah, pugs have a bad rep but you'll get good at picking non-retards just by looking at character and guild names.

edit: Seriously, I heartily encourage you checking out all of the leveling instances at least once. About half of the instances in BC were boring as fuck in design but WotLK has some pretty cool stuff in it.

I've tried. On rare occasion it's worked. But mostly after 20 or 30 minutes of "3 DPS NEED HEALER AND TANK" aka "SOMEONE PLEASE DO THE SHITTY JOBS SO WE CAN GO" my patience is used up.

Tanking isn't a shitty job.

...tanking for PUGs is a shitty job. Some of my most miserable online experiences have come at the hands of PUG dpsers blaming me and whoever the lucky healer is for the many, many wipes their own fuckups caused. Luckily being a tank makes me a special princess and I can pick and choose who I tank for. (Except for the THAT GUYs in my own guild of course.)

The problem of course, is that without training, those shitty dpsers will never learn what they're doing wrong, and will just go on being shitty, making the next PUG for the next tank crappy, etc. Vicious circle. It has only gotten worse since protection paladin tanks made AE threat so trivial that you could mash any button and still win, too. Warrior AE threat is pretty good now, but it still won't hold off an all-out AE deployment.

[Sjofn]

Tanking for PUGs was a great way for me to learn to tank in a trial-by-fire sort of way, but yeah, it can be pretty annoying. However, as a tank, I can be the giantest bitch in the entire fucking world to the idiot DPS, because deep down they know they ain't doing shit without me. I can almost be just as bitchy as a healer, but I usually don't need to be, as long as the tank vaguely knows wtf they're doing, which on my server they usually did.

[rattran]

In PUGs I either get bitched at for doing too much, or too little damage. With no seeming difference in what I'm doing. Maybe I'm simply the worst Hunter evar. Or maybe many tanks and healers are prima-donna fucks. Or most likely both.

That said, I was in a group of people the other night who were just being unbelievably insulting, racist, and homophobic. Volleying/multishotting a few groups and then feigning and watching them all die warmed my heart.

[Ingmar]

In PUGs I either get bitched at for doing too much, or too little damage. With no seeming difference in what I'm doing. Maybe I'm simply the worst Hunter evar. Or maybe many tanks and healers are prima-donna fucks. Or most likely both.

I save complaining about too little damage for /o. 

I don't care about doing too much damage - there's no such thing; I do care about pulling aggro. If you're not feigning until *after* you pull a mob off of me, you're doing it wrong and endangering the healer. That said it isn't as much of a problem as it used to be since they made taunt longer than melee range.

[Ratman_tf]

I'm kinda on the fence about Northrend now. I've run into a couple of quests that are bugged and I cannot complete them. And a lot of the rest are "Keel seex snow moose" stuff. Utgarde Keep was fun, if plain.
Starting in on the Borean Tundra now. The quest where you summon the boatman is frikking annoying. I got DCed just as he hopped off the boat, and by the time I abandoned the quest and re-took it, there were two more guys on the shore trying to do the quest at the same time.

[Arinon]

Having a blast on the DK.  Hadn't logged in since April previous to this.  This is my 5th trip though Outland and it's not nearly as bad as I expected.  Really looking forward to hitting Northrend with the near universal praise I keep hearing.

Went Unholy and having a 120% ground mount and mounted water walking really keep things moving.

[Khaldun]

Fjords is a better experience than Borean, imho

There are great, fun, innovative quests, but sure, there's more than a sprinkling of the "kill seex snow mooses" shit. Of course. Though even some of those are ok because of the topography or something else. It took me a while just to navigate through the crashed Scourge base in Borean, for example--that was sort of a challenge of sorts.

Another thing though, that Warhammer taught me: killing shit in WoW when you have a kill quest is *fast*. That was my mental impression, but I'm insanely sure of it now.  That makes a big difference in psychic feel: killing ten things when they all die quick is just mentally healthier than killing five things that die slow.

[K9]

Tanking isn't a shitty job.

...tanking for PUGs is a shitty job. Some of my most miserable online experiences have come at the hands of PUG dpsers blaming me and whoever the lucky healer is for the many, many wipes their own fuckups caused. Luckily being a tank makes me a special princess and I can pick and choose who I tank for. (Except for the THAT GUYs in my own guild of course.)

The problem of course, is that without training, those shitty dpsers will never learn what they're doing wrong, and will just go on being shitty, making the next PUG for the next tank crappy, etc. Vicious circle. It has only gotten worse since protection paladin tanks made AE threat so trivial that you could mash any button and still win, too. Warrior AE threat is pretty good now, but it still won't hold off an all-out AE deployment.

Ditto for healing. Healing 5-mans before you outgear them is about as interactive as the game gets, since you have no fallback. However healing malcoordinated PuGs isn't worth the time.

Getting into a good guild can solve 99% of PuG related issues of course.

[rattran]

The D.E.H.T.A. quests were fun, and the achievement "D.E.H.T.A.'s little P.I.T.A." is full of win.

[Kageru]

I have to agree on the quest progression in Wrath, it really is good. Wonderful pacing and variety on the quests, some interesting game mechanics and a sense of actually progressing make them surprisingly addictive. Lovely little touches like when you finish the warsong quest line in borean tundra the guards start congratulating you occasionally as you pass, when you finally put together a gnome flying machine it launches and driving a siege tank is just too much fun.

Did a Utgarde keep run with some guild folk. We rejoined wow a couple of months ago (vanguard, what an error that was) so our gear is decidedly sub-kara and it was actually nicely challenging, especially without spoilers. Died a lot, wiped multiple times and had to try and work out boss effects on the fly but got through it in the end. I can imagine the uber-geared are finding it boring but blizzard built heroic mode for those guys.