Cracks starting to show?

[Rendakor]

Yea that could work too. The biggest hurdle there would be finding a way to let people start in Outland but not Hellfire.

[caladein]

Now if she'd only stop reciting that f'ing poetry.

You shut your mouth!

Yea that could work too. The biggest hurdle there would be finding a way to let people start in Outland but not Hellfire.

You can effectively skip Hellfire now just by staying in Blasted Lands until you're 60.  Between that, dungeons, and catching up my gathering skills, I was able to only do Nagrand before getting 68 on my Goblin Hunter.

[Rendakor]

I meant more in a lore sense. You can skip any zone if you do enough dungeons or PVP.

[Selby]

The biggest hurdle there would be finding a way to let people start in Outland but not Hellfire.

If I never do HFP again I will be ecstatic.  I *hate* that zone so much and even did back when it was released.  I actually like the rest of Outlands (especially now with flying at 60) but being forced to do such a shitty zone over and over really saps any will I have to roll another serious alt (my 11 80's from WotLK notwithstanding ;-) ).

[ghost]

Mm, the best way to do it, I think, is to make the zones overlap more, and make it so you can get through that band of levels in, say, three zones (and if they redid the whole place, people would definitely stay until 70 at the very least). Part of WotLK's charm for me was being able to skip entire zones, because it means there would be zones I hadn't done to death for my next pass through them.

Being able to skip zones is better for alts, too.  When you're looking at 4-5 alts you gotta slog through new content that makes a hell of a difference. 

[Sjofn]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was getting at, it's nice being able to save some zones for later alts.

Bear in mind I'm not really against making leveling faster for people who hate it through optional means like heirlooms (I only ever buy weapons  ), I just think that's not really going to fix what the real problem with Outland is.

[apocrypha]

Here's my guess: he's  because they (Blizzard) put the best part of this expansion behind the suckiest cock-block.  You've got to EARN the right to see these raids!

I'm a page late here, but this is where I'm at now.

Guild is too small for raids - we effectively have 3 active members at the moment, and another 3 who play for an hour or two over the weekend, tops. I've now got 5 level 85s all in 340+ gear and nothing to do with them. The daily heroics are roughly 80% successful now, which I expect to go up to almost 100% after the next patch, but that still leaves me with nothing except 70 VP per day to do now.

I feel like I am either forced to leave my guild of extremely good friends, real life friends or just stagnate until the next content patch gives me some other way to advance and maybe get to see the current raiding tier.

[Ironwood]

No no, go on, let's hear it...   

Pretty much.  If people are saying that the raiding is the best thing about the expansion, it worries me enormously.  Not because I don't think you're right (I haven't seen the raids yet and I think this expansion sucks) but because I don't think I'll see them for a while (If Ever).  Once again, it would seem the 'best bits' are NOT FOR YOU and, probably, NOT FOR A LOT OF THE CASUALS, since we're back to hard as fuck Heroics we need to gear up and gear that sucks and badly itemised.

We did a fair bit of the ICC stuff as a guild and, recently, I went back and completed Black Temple, which even overgeared and easy, was really fun and well designed - But we've got barely 2 good groups who can reasonably do heroics and they're all already burned out on shit gear and grinding - Raiding really isn't gonna happen.

So.

To Recap.

[Hawkbit]

I've now got 5 level 85s all in 340+ gear and nothing to do with them.

The fact that you were able to bring five toons up to cap in both level and dungeon ilvl in less than two months means that this was a seriously content shy xpac.  I'm not discounting the old world revamp, but that should have been a separate dev team, released for free in stages.  Five new zones just isn't enough. 

Also, go outside.  There's sun and trees out there.   

[Maledict]

I've now got 5 level 85s all in 340+ gear and nothing to do with them.

The fact that you were able to bring five toons up to cap in both level and dungeon ilvl in less than two months means that this was a seriously content shy xpac.  I'm not discounting the old world revamp, but that should have been a separate dev team, released for free in stages.  Five new zones just isn't enough. 

Also, go outside.  There's sun and trees out there.   

Um, we had numerous people do the same in Wrath. If you consume content at that pace you *will* burn through it fast and you *will* run out of content. There is no game around that can make up for that - you either raid or pvp, or you run out of stuff to do. The extra 4 days it took to reach the level cap in wrath doesn't suddenly mean the initial content lasted 6 months or something. Unless of course grinding Hodir rep now counts as content... :)

[Malakili]

I've now got 5 level 85s all in 340+ gear and nothing to do with them.

The fact that you were able to bring five toons up to cap in both level and dungeon ilvl in less than two months means that this was a seriously content shy xpac.  I'm not discounting the old world revamp, but that should have been a separate dev team, released for free in stages.  Five new zones just isn't enough. 

Also, go outside.  There's sun and trees out there.   

Um, we had numerous people do the same in Wrath. If you consume content at that pace you *will* burn through it fast and you *will* run out of content. There is no game around that can make up for that - you either raid or pvp, or you run out of stuff to do. The extra 4 days it took to reach the level cap in wrath doesn't suddenly mean the initial content lasted 6 months or something. Unless of course grinding Hodir rep now counts as content... :)

Yeah, at the high end of "hardcore" like that, no amount of content lasts.  Whether you have 1 day of content or 10 days for that group of players is more or less irrelevant.

[Shrike]

Also, go outside.  There's sun and trees out there.   

No, no way. There isn't any sun and the trees are snow and ice-covered (as is everything else). It sucks out there right now. Bigtime.

[apocrypha]

I've now got 5 level 85s all in 340+ gear and nothing to do with them.

The fact that you were able to bring five toons up to cap in both level and dungeon ilvl in less than two months means that this was a seriously content shy xpac.  I'm not discounting the old world revamp, but that should have been a separate dev team, released for free in stages.  Five new zones just isn't enough. 

Also, go outside.  There's sun and trees out there.   

It's really not taken that long, you're spot-on with the content-shy expansion comment. I am freelance, and work has been slow the last couple of months, but I'm not catassing, honest! 

In actual fact gearing them from fresh-85 to all 333's/some 346's/couple of 359's has been far, far too quick to happen. I suppose I have been "efficient" in that all but the 1st were levelled from 80-85 by doing a random dungeon per day plus questing while in the queue, so they've pretty much all hit 85 JP capped, plus I'm a hoarder (For the Hoard!) so have ended up with multiple crafts levelled and lots of BOE blues etc.

Still too fast thought.

[Paelos]

I logged in recently on my main and was bored out of my fucking mind. At best, I can do achievements, which is pretty damn boring now.

Time to focus on the alts.

[Ironwood]

It really doesn't help much.

They haven't added enough NEW.  I'm done.

[El Gallo]

Never hated the game as much as I do right now.  I don't think heroics are overly hard, but I have everything I need from them now.  Given my small, casual guild, the only significant upgrade (and it would be quite significant) for my character is the archeaology sword.

Now, I have no problem with solo grinding for rare items.  I have Thunderfury.  I have both rare ZG mounts, Rivendare's mount, Anzu, well over 100 pets, well over 100 mounts, and both the rod and the fish illusion trinket from winning the stranglethorn fishing contest twice.  I have Mr Pinchy, I have Salty, I have Loremaster.  I have almost every available illusion and teleport item in the game.  I have the Bloodsail Admiral's Hat and the Primal Blessing tiger illusion weapon set.  And I was, until recently, still farming Attumen weekly, and Skadi and Kael'thelas daily, for their rare mounts.

Archaeology has utterly crushed my will to log in.  I don't care for alts, and I feel like every time I play but don't do archaeology I'm wasting my time (zomg ocd, sure) since it's the only substantial upgrade available to my character.  For weeks my gameplay has consisted of looking at Gatherer dots and flying around the eastern kingdoms, wondering if I will get my fifteenth skull-shaped planter or hit 5,000 useless fossil fragments.  I found myself logging in less and less, to the point where I check in to say hello every couple days and that's it.  

Hell, I levelled an alliance character to 76 just so I could repeatedly kill it for the halaa pvp mounts during wotlk.  I'd rather do that 10 times than see another digsite again.

[Paelos]

I concur with the Rooster. Now that I have stuff and archy is the only way to get any substantial upgrades other than pvp, I'm logging in less and less.

Also, it looks like our best attempts to put together a raid will fail because two of our three guild healers just quit. 

Not being able to even get a functional 10 man would probably kill my interest completely.

[Rendakor]

El Gallo, honestly, get a 2s partner and do arenas. 5 wins a week for 3 weeks will get you a nice purple sword. It's not as good as the Arch one, but you'll hate your life considerably less, and you can go back to farming your cool mounts.

[WindupAtheist]

Ugh, PVP. I've been avoiding kicking them too hard over it since it's not the focus of their game, but it seems like a fucking mess from the outside. The heralded new Rated Battleground system is having it's fifteen-man maps removed for lack of participation, and Tol Barad has just been a dismal dismal failure that they're taking alarmingly long to correct.

[Ingmar]

Ugh, PVP. I've been avoiding kicking them too hard over it since it's not the focus of their game, but it seems like a fucking mess from the outside. The heralded new Rated Battleground system is having it's fifteen-man maps removed for lack of participation, and Tol Barad has just been a dismal dismal failure that they're taking alarmingly long to correct.

I don't think they're removing the 15s, just converting them to 10? Maybe I misunderstood the post.

At least 2v2 arena is still fun? 

[Paelos]

Yep they are converting them to 10s. I honestly would never set foot in a ranked bg. Seems like a waste of time.

[Rendakor]

You're not going to be doing 10m AB; they're removing the 15v15 bracket, so all rated BG weeks will be 10m. To get these rated BGs working they really need to just go the extra mile and allow same faction BGs. This would remove queue times and make population balance a non-issue for everything except TB.

[Paelos]

You're not going to be doing 10m AB; they're removing the 15v15 bracket, so all rated BG weeks will be 10m. To get these rated BGs working they really need to just go the extra mile and allow same faction BGs. This would remove queue times and make population balance a non-issue for everything except TB.

They are removing 15v15 weeks. However, they are doing this for the future:

We also have plans to adapt additional battleground maps in the future to work in the 10 player bracket to increase the variety of maps available.

[Xanthippe]

I'm done for now.  I'll resub maybe when they put my fun back in.

I don't like the direction the devs have taken the 85 game (I thought they had learned those lessons already), and I don't think the GMs are adequately handling the wow community in game.  Rampant botting, poor behavior, long ticket times.  Blizzard ought to be putting more resources into GMs - hire more, pay them more, tighten up on community standards.

Rift seems fun.  And Sims Medieval is coming soon.

[Paelos]

We've lost 2 healers, 2 dps, and 3 members to Rift in the last two weeks.

I don't like what I'm seeing, but I honestly can't blame them either. There's just no real feel of hope that we'll be able to complete anything important in the current environment.

[ghost]

Rift will probably die as quickly as Aion.  I can't wait until they put in the grindiness. 

[Simond]

And if they don't?

[ghost]

Then bully for them.     The world needs another decent MMO. 

[Kail]

On another note, the Valentine's day quests are bugged to hell.  Holiday vendors are glitching out, daily quests require players to turn in bracelets to faction leaders who are dead (Cairne, Brann), there is no level 85 version of the daily which you need to complete for the achievement, so level capped players are screwed... ugh.

[Paelos]

On another note, the Valentine's day quests are bugged to hell.  Holiday vendors are glitching out, daily quests require players to turn in bracelets to faction leaders who are dead (Cairne, Brann), there is no level 85 version of the daily which you need to complete for the achievement, so level capped players are screwed... ugh.

Sounds like fun! 

I tried pvp today. I went seven runs in a row of Isle of Conquest before I got a win. The only reason it happened was because I finally convinced 5 people to hang back and harass their tank when he went into our base, and we managed to kill him, wiping out their assault group.

The other six times was a combination of not protecting sieges, splitting into 4 groups, using the hangar for all the wrong reasons, defending nodes well after they were useful, stealing sieges and taking them to fight in the middle, not defending at all, not assaulting at all, and parachuting short of the base.

[Fordel]

Ugh, PVP. I've been avoiding kicking them too hard over it since it's not the focus of their game, but it seems like a fucking mess from the outside. The heralded new Rated Battleground system is having it's fifteen-man maps removed for lack of participation, and Tol Barad has just been a dismal dismal failure that they're taking alarmingly long to correct.

I don't think they're removing the 15s, just converting them to 10? Maybe I misunderstood the post.

At least 2v2 arena is still fun? 

From what I've seen so far from the new patch, no, 2v2 probably won't be very fun for us anymore.

[WindupAtheist]

Look man, I don't care what maps they do or do not use. The difference between removing 15s and merely converting them to more 10s is semantic. Bottom line is, participation is below what was designed for.

[Simond]

Much like everything else in Cataclysm! 

[Paelos]

Much like everything else in Cataclysm! 

I wonder how many people have actually participated in a raid at all. And by participated, I mean killed a boss anywhere that's not Baradin Hold. I don't count trash runs as raiding.

I would bet the number is shocking low compared to the WoTLK number when they released Naxx 2.0, but that's simply a guess based on what I'm seeing so far in my casual alliance.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Much like everything else in Cataclysm! 

I wonder how many people have actually participated in a raid at all. And by participated, I mean killed a boss anywhere that's not Baradin Hold. I don't count trash runs as raiding.

I would bet the number is shocking low compared to the WoTLK number when they released Naxx 2.0, but that's simply a guess based on what I'm seeing so far in my casual alliance.

It's funny because while I enjoy this tier of raiding moreso than wotlk it doesnt seem like there are any more guilds raiding than there used to be.  Even with the ten man changes the only difference im seeing is some smaller guilds just dropping from 25 to 10mans and not recruiting anymore.