Cataclysm

[Pennilenko]

 I'm looking forward to being out in the world more...  along with other people.

Same here.

[Sheepherder]

So far I'm liking the changes, but whoever decided that taking the portals out of Dalaran needs to have an ape cock shot into their mouth with the rest of the ape still attached to it.

Dalaran / Shattrath lag.  This is their answer, to get the entire active population of a server the fuck out of a single city.

Instead of, you know, removing almost all content from the zone the city is in so that the world server doesn't choke on bandwidth requirements.

[Rendakor]

It's only annoying that several characters are stuck in Dal, including those with no real way to get out since they're bound there with no flightpaths out, and the only recourse is to buy a port. Of course, this is how I got them there in the first place so it doesn't bother me too much. 

[Sjofn]

I only care during World Events that want me to go to the different capitals. And even THEN, I only mind it as Alliance.

[Kitsune]

So far I'm liking the changes, but whoever decided that taking the portals out of Dalaran needs to have an ape cock shot into their mouth with the rest of the ape still attached to it.

Dalaran / Shattrath lag.  This is their answer, to get the entire active population of a server the fuck out of a single city.

Instead of, you know, removing almost all content from the zone the city is in so that the world server doesn't choke on bandwidth requirements.

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.

As for moving around in general, a fair number of people have personal ports that they can use to circumvent some of the hassle.  Druids and DKs can teleport to old world locations independent of their hearthstones, engineers have their ports, alchemists are getting a teleport potion to one of the new zones, mages were already set for life...  It's not so bad.  I agree that it's irksome, but I don't consider it a major issue, especially once they unlock flying in the old world.

[Chimpy]

Dalaran and Shattrath were worse than IF/Ogrimmar for lag was because you had BOTH factions there. And Dalaran was the worst because it was almost impossible to find a spot where the entire city and all of the players were not being rendered on your machine. At least in Shatt, the city was spread out.

Even if every single person on one faction was in the capital at any given time, it will still be better than the hell that was Dalaran during prime time. I knew a guy who could not go to Dalaran except in the wee hours of the morning because the server would time out his connection while loading when there were a lot of people there.

[Sjofn]

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.

And it will STILL be a million times better than Orgrimmar + Ironforge populations cramming into one stupid neutral city.

Stormwind is the new hotness, by the way, it's the city with the new fishing and cooking dailies. 

[Hawkbit]

Stormwind is the new hotness, by the way, it's the city with the new fishing and cooking dailies. 

Speaking of which, I haven't looked to see if there's new fish/cook daily quests in any of the new zones, but the Stormwind fishing dailies provide terrible rewards in the loot bags.  I'm hoping there's an oversight with the loot table on them or that we get more in new zones. 

Also, the Stormwind crabs daily sucks.  I think it took me 25 minutes to finish that quest yesterday.  Slow respawn, 10 required loots, 20+ people at a time working on it.  Terrible.

[Selby]

It's only annoying that several characters are stuck in Dal, including those with no real way to get out since they're bound there with no flightpaths out, and the only recourse is to buy a port.

Good news.  All characters that haven't been to Northrend\Dal through normal channels now get the flight paths for Vengeance Landing\Dalaran\Warsong Hold (and the alliance equivalent).  So once your character gets off the boat to Northrend you can instantly hop the flight path to Dal.  At least all of my low alts have them, I imagine they did the same for everyone.  No more waiting until 74 to get the quest anymore, just instantly have the path there.

[Sheepherder]

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.

The amount of bandwidth required for a given number of players in a continuous load zone scales super-polynomially with the number of players.  Dividing players into two capitals will decrease bandwidth load by more than half, likely significantly more.

[Lantyssa]

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

Oh, I poked around a bit, but I mean it when I say this game isn't for me, anymore.  I don't give a whit about their self-referential quests, or the silly pop-culture, or changes to zones that I didn't care about the first time and have no reason to ever visit again.  I'm the MMO equivalent of the Dunkin' Donuts guy.  <zombie> "Gotta fed-ex the quest."

Mechanics aside, I can see why some people are enjoying it, but I'm caring about this as much as everyone cares about new stuff in Aion.  No amount of "this is new" is going to make me go "woo, awesome", I'm afraid.

Also those bastards nuked my Death Ravager.  She's just a normal green one now.

[Nevermore]

Also those bastards nuked my Death Ravager.  She's just a normal green one now.

Goddamit, that was one of my favorite pets too. 

[Rendakor]

Good news.  All characters that haven't been to Northrend\Dal through normal channels now get the flight paths for Vengeance Landing\Dalaran\Warsong Hold (and the alliance equivalent).  So once your character gets off the boat to Northrend you can instantly hop the flight path to Dal.  At least all of my low alts have them, I imagine they did the same for everyone.  No more waiting until 74 to get the quest anymore, just instantly have the path there.

That's a really good change, both for people stranded in Dal and for new 70s leveling up.

[Musashi]

Just got finished leveling through the late stages of the new content.  It's fucking glorious.  Fucking glorious.  The amount of annoying shit they took out or expedited is incredible.  It's an alt-whore's paradise.

[Sjofn]

Just got finished leveling through the late stages of the new content.  It's fucking glorious.  Fucking glorious.  The amount of annoying shit they took out or expedited is incredible.  It's an alt-whore's paradise.

It really is, and it's making me cast my eye about for another good Alliance server for happy fun alt time, as my slots are full on Doomhammer. 

[Minvaren]

Just got finished leveling through the late stages of the new content.  It's fucking glorious.  Fucking glorious.  The amount of annoying shit they took out or expedited is incredible.  It's an alt-whore's paradise.

It really is, and it's making me cast my eye about for another good Alliance server for happy fun alt time, as my slots are full on Doomhammer. 

Do not taunt happy fun alt...

But agreed, ran a little bit in (Northern) Barrens with an alt and it feels pretty streamlined.  Almost...  Too streamlined...  (sound of crickets)

[Simond]

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

I just came here to post this. All the Forsaken quests so far have been great, and this little in-joke quest was like the cherry on top.

And then you get the follow-ups, two played for comedy while one starts that way....

[Sjofn]

But agreed, ran a little bit in (Northern) Barrens with an alt and it feels pretty streamlined.  Almost...  Too streamlined...  (sound of crickets)

No, I can kinda see what you mean. MY personal damage is the leveling is too fast, it's really easy to outlevel a zone before the "end," especially if you want to do the leveling dungeons. I'm sure I'll LIKE that fastness once the shiny newness wears off, although I'll probably have a 60 of every class by the time that happens and won't care about the little people that don't.  

[01101010]

But agreed, ran a little bit in (Northern) Barrens with an alt and it feels pretty streamlined.  Almost...  Too streamlined...  (sound of crickets)

No, I can kinda see what you mean. MY personal damage is the leveling is too fast, it's really easy to outlevel a zone before the "end," especially if you want to do the leveling dungeons. I'm sure I'll LIKE that fastness once the shiny newness wears off, although I'll probably have a 60 of every class by the time that happens and won't care about the little people that don't.  

While I agree wholeheartedly, around half way through the quests I just stop paying attention to the xp and really am focused on the quest information. Not had that happen in any game in a long time.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I've been just finishing zones regardless if it greys out for me or not, which is highly unusual for me, and usually it doesn't really bug me because I find the new stuff rewarding enough on its own most of the time, but in the back of my head I still have that little feeling of "OMG INEFFICIENT."

[Ingmar]

The new leveling content is really, really great. Seems like every zone has something really cool in it. I'm not using my XP heirlooms at all because they would push me through too fast, especially because the big payoff quests tend to be at the end of a zone's story (Redridge  ) - they can go on when I hit Outland. Skipping dungeons for now too, they give too much xp and make me miss out on sweet, sweet questing content. They'll be there when I want to level a tank or healer by that method later once I've tired of the regular questing content. Which will take a long time - it looks like there's enough content for me to level 3 Alliance toons 1-60 without repeating a zone, and then I can switch to Horde...

EDIT: On the new cooking/fishing dailies, of course the rewards aren't good (although getting a skill point and a token is pretty good imo). They're not max level dailies.

[Polysorbate80]

My favorite quests have been "Little Girl Lost" (horde) and Martek's version of "The Day that Deathwing Came: What Really Happened" (I think both sides can do this one)

Cuz, y'know, I dislikes the blood elves.

[kildorn]

The new leveling content is really, really great. Seems like every zone has something really cool in it. I'm not using my XP heirlooms at all because they would push me through too fast, especially because the big payoff quests tend to be at the end of a zone's story (Redridge  ) - they can go on when I hit Outland. Skipping dungeons for now too, they give too much xp and make me miss out on sweet, sweet questing content. They'll be there when I want to level a tank or healer by that method later once I've tired of the regular questing content. Which will take a long time - it looks like there's enough content for me to level 3 Alliance toons 1-60 without repeating a zone, and then I can switch to Horde...

EDIT: On the new cooking/fishing dailies, of course the rewards aren't good (although getting a skill point and a token is pretty good imo). They're not max level dailies.

The new instances are <3 <3

Just because handing out quests inside the instance is awesome, and still doesn't stop people from going "share quests plz?"

[Lakov_Sanite]

There are at least three quests on eastern kingdoms alone that confuse male blood elves for female ones. It's awesome.

[Ginaz]

Theres an awesome quest/mini game in Hillsbrad Foothills where you help a farmer defend his house from zombies with...plants.  It won't make it anymore obvious than that on how its done.  The end reward is a singing sunflower pet.  I also got a few of the new hunter pets, a fox, a dog, a monkey and a seagull.  The fox has a nice debuff attack that lowers a targets attack speed by  20% for 30 secs.  The dog's special is one where he clamps down on a target and prevents them from moving for a few seconds.  The monkey throws poo and blinds a target for 4 secs.  The seagull disarms the target for 10 secs.

[apocrypha]

Peacebloom vs Ghouls is indeed awesome, and I have now got 10 singing sunflowers, one on each 80.  

I tamed this guy yesterday and it's the first pet I've had that gets me whispers about it every time I go into a city. Ugly fucker though!

The monkey throws poo and blinds a target for 4 secs.

Aaaaand now I need one of them. They the ones from Deadmines?

Oh, and I forgot, potentially useful post on MMO-Champ forums about What Wrath players need to know to not suck at Cata! I'm sure everyone here will know all this stuff already but always useful to point your guildies at! 

[Ingmar]

Northern Stranglethorn and Cape of Stranglethorn have them too, wouldn't be surprised if they're also in Un'Goro. Perhaps of interest is the fact that the Deadmines monkeys keep their pickaxes when you tame them.

[apocrypha]

Nice one, cheers Ingmar. Will go monkey-hunting later!

[Raguel]

I was going to post on how much I love WoW's questing system, but it appears that most of the quests I like are new ones. 

I'm tearing through content like crazy on my paladin. Part of me wants to mix in some dungeon crawling and pvp, but I always think "wait til my quest queue clears, and then I'll do something else" only that never happens. I've never seen anything like it.

Through a duel, I did learn first hand how much equipment means in a duel. My level 25 paladin (with 20ish level eq) fought against a level 1 rogue. Now I could have just nuked the guy to death, but surprisingly he survived a single nuke (I could 2 shot even cons then) and he dodged most of my melee. He told me his dodge rating was 70%. I beat him, but I doubt I could have if he was level 15 or so.  Gear is important in just about every mmog I've ever played but this seems beyond the pale. I did ok in DAoC's BG but I'm a bit scared off at this point tbh.

[Ingmar]

If he was level 15 he would have had a harder time hitting that dodge % due to the way the rating:stat conversions work at different levels. Not sure how fast they decay exactly (and I believe it is not linear either, it takes a dive at levels that cross certain threshoulds like 61 and 71.) Basically (WARNING: made up numbers) if say 10 rating gave you 20% dodge at level 1 it might only give you 15% dodge at level 15, or whatever.

[Simond]

There are at least three quests on eastern kingdoms alone that confuse male blood elves for female ones. It's awesome.

So I finished the Ghostlands questline on my belf paladin (that's been sat ready for about 6 months or so) after waiting for the Shattering:


My male blood elf paladin, that is.

[Nebu]

Apparently you're new to WoW.  There are no male blood elf paladins.  The text is correct.  Blood elf paladins get a femininity slider (A lot to not much) at creation.  You should have figured that out by the feminine physique and long hair.

[Ingmar]

In their hairstyles, maybe. The male blood elves are still way muscle-bulkier in a lot of ways than most real people. Still slightly bitter about the change they made to make them that way, way back in TBC beta.

[Chimpy]

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

[Ingmar]