WoW: Warlords of Draenor

[TheFeniX]

Anyone keeping up with this? All the new news I can find is about the human female update which aside from "those hips" I'm not really all that concerned about.

However, I'm interested in content concerning the new garrisons players will setup.

“In Warlords of Draenor, your Garrison is your fortress—a foothold in a savage world, and ultimately a place to call your own. One of our main goals with the Garrison was to really bring some life and sense of purpose to the characters who inhabit the world, and to make them feel like they belong in their environment. What that entails for us as artists is to brainstorm, develop, and refine a scenario that not only gives a narrative to a particular space, but helps make the player feel like the world is cohesive and real. We strive to give each set of props—what we call a 'kitKit
Short for “style kit,” this refers to an overall story the art should be consistently conveying. This helps to achieve a cohesive look as multiple artists contribute individual elements to a larger piece.'—logical treatment and placement so that the NPCs look as if they truly belong there. In doing so, it hopefully allows for a more visually rich and rewarding journey for the player.”

This is something I've felt missing from WoW since I started as a Wrath baby. There is no place to really call home. The closest you have even now is the Halfhill farm and that's not exactly the same thing. I'm hoping there's the option for a guild/ small group of player's garrison, but I find that unlikely.

I don't know if I'll even being playing WoW after the month is out and our home is finished, but there's a lot of little tokens of information I've picked up that makes it seem like the expansion might be different enough to make the game worth hanging around in a casual fashion, rather than me raiding to justify the $15/month cost. This is cribbed from other forums and some blue posts, so I'm not going to dig up links and I can't verify the information.

1. Supposedly, your questing to 100 (or whatever) will be as slow or fast as you want it to be. You can take an XP increase to pound your way to max or cut it down to enjoy the questing experience without overlevelling everything after one zone. There's also talks about levelling having different paths than pounding dungeons or straight questing.

2. While mentioned as a possibility for leveling, the endgame is supposed to model Timeless Isle more than the "do dailies, run dungeons, or fuck off and die" of earlier content. Timeless is kind of a place where things go on, you kill mobs, search around for hidden treasure, and group (or not) to down rares.

3. I've heard talk about a "gear crunch" that's supposed to hit the game across the board. The days of having over a million HP and 500k DPS is supposed to go away while somehow still keeping old content soloable (or close to it). I'll believe it when I start seeing some numbers.

Though it may not matter for me. Blizz managed to fuck WPvP up more than SWTOR did and I can't justify the cost of transferring. I'm kind of tired of fighting melee as prot and actually being at a disadvantage.

[Highlord Laan]

I'll be getting it, eventually. Most of my friends will jump right in, but I'm waiting on it. Primarily because Chris Lucas Metzen has already stated that this xpack is pretty much All Orc, All The Time, with the Draenei getting a "bit" of attention early on (kind of like Burning Crusade). And after the litany of bullshit that was Allied content and game experience in Cata and Pandaland, I'm mainly waiting to see what new and interesting (to them) methods, means and stories Blizzard and Warchief Kosak have developed to fistfuck the Alliance playerbase.

[Darmalus]

My feelings are mixed. Art wise it will be Blizzard's usual excellent (to me) work, so that leaves only plot and game mechanics to consider.

Game mechanics
I love the stat overhaul, getting rid of Hit and it's friends has been much desired. Throwing in some new stats should also make gear more interesting.
I like the PvP toggle. I don't like PvP, and I hate the asswipes that follow you around hoping to catch a cleave and force flag you. I chose a PvE server for a reason.
Neutral on the stat crunch, since I enjoy soloing old stuff. They can fix instanced content by adding a health/damage/etc multiplier based on how much you outlevel the content, but they can't do that for world content.
Not sold on no flying. This alone ensured I have no particular urge to hurry and pick up the next expansion.
Garrisons might be interesting, wait and see.

Lore
Time travel and parallel universes? What retard thought this one up?
Orcs orcs orcs, I'm tired of these fuckers.

Conclusion
This has to be the first time I have no interest in where we are going or what we will be doing. I get everything I want in the pre-patch game engine update.

[Grumman]

The new female humans look a lot better - both the skins and the meshes. The colours on the old ones look washed out.

[TheFeniX]

That reminds me. I've heard reforging is out the door as well, but more than a few players I've talked to are annoyed that Mastery isn't going the same route. There's also plans for one "set" of gear per player that will change stats based on your spec. Will make gearing up off-spec easy, but at some point I wonder if pretty much all the stat customization is just going to go out the window. I can't say I would cry about that.

[Darmalus]

That reminds me. I've heard reforging is out the door as well, but more than a few players I've talked to are annoyed that Mastery isn't going the same route. There's also plans for one "set" of gear per player that will change stats based on your spec. Will make gearing up off-spec easy, but at some point I wonder if pretty much all the stat customization is just going to go out the window. I can't say I would cry about that.

Reforging is gone.

Only primary stats, Int, Str, Agi, switch to match your spec. I think they should just remove all three and replace with a generic universal stat, like Might or Power or something.

Spirit is now a secondary healer only stat, Armor is a tank only secondary stat. Both of these will appear only on specific gear slots.

Colored gem slots are gone, along with built in gem slots. Every time a piece of gear is generated (quest reward, looted from a mob or boss) it has a chance to have a extra bonus tertiary stat, which includes gem slots. Gear will no longer have gem slots as part of their design, only as a bonus.

[Civil War Man]

Colored gem slots are gone, along with built in gem slots. Every time a piece of gear is generated (quest reward, looted from a mob or boss) it has a chance to have a extra bonus tertiary stat, which includes gem slots. Gear will no longer have gem slots as part of their design, only as a bonus.

I know that built-in gem slots and socket bonuses are gone, but as far as I heard they were still having the colored sockets (and may even require matching the color due to the removal of the socket bonus). They are also reducing the available enchantments for gear, so not every major piece will necessarily have an enchant for it.

It does make me wonder how they are going to change the stat bonus for professions to accommodate the relative rarity of gem sockets. I heard that the sockets will be more rare, but individually more powerful. So at the very least jewelcrafting or blacksmithing needs to change how it gets its stat bonus. Otherwise, depending on how rare sockets become, jewelcrafters may have a harder time taking advantage of their bonus than other professions unless they also level blacksmithing to compensate.

[Flagg]

Holds looks rad but I'm done with WoW ever since my account got hacked and banned. Blizzard were wonderful in their quick investigation and reversal and restoring my items and gold, but I had a strong suspicion it was a guild member because they had my email from registering at their website. No idea how they could've gotten my password. In any case I just felt so violated and didn't trust anyone to be able to join a new guild without being paranoid to the point of not even participating in guild chat. So I just quit after getting panda land and not really enjoying the first set of quests.

[Oskuro]

Garrisons? Funny, player housing was an "upcoming feature" back in vanilla. It's taken them long enough.

[Flagg]

Garrisons? Funny, player housing was an "upcoming feature" back in vanilla. It's taken them long enough.

Player housing is so superfluous to gameplay that I don't blame them for not taking it on for 10 years. Unless you're a "total immersion" role player it's just not important. I'd rather they added actual oceans and gave us player owned boats and zeppelins. That may have made me get back into the game. I'd have sold my account if I didn't play SC2.

[Lord Revan]

Garrisons? Funny, player housing was an "upcoming feature" back in vanilla. It's taken them long enough.

Player housing is so superfluous to gameplay that I don't blame them for not taking it on for 10 years. Unless you're a "total immersion" role player it's just not important. I'd rather they added actual oceans and gave us player owned boats and zeppelins. That may have made me get back into the game. I'd have sold my account if I didn't play SC2.

problem with full Oceans is that Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms are on separate servers so you'd have either merge them or find a way to teleport you from 1 server to the other without noticeable loading.

[Flagg]

Garrisons? Funny, player housing was an "upcoming feature" back in vanilla. It's taken them long enough.

Player housing is so superfluous to gameplay that I don't blame them for not taking it on for 10 years. Unless you're a "total immersion" role player it's just not important. I'd rather they added actual oceans and gave us player owned boats and zeppelins. That may have made me get back into the game. I'd have sold my account if I didn't play SC2.

problem with full Oceans is that Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms are on separate servers so you'd have either merge them or find a way to teleport you from 1 server to the other without noticeable loading.

That or make the oceans on a third server and have them be PVP zones or something along those lines, with the option of just taking the regular zeppelin or boat.

[Oskuro]

Oh, I agree that player housing was never a priority given the focus of the game.

My own personal dissatisfaction from the game stems, precisely, because I was looking for more of a open-sandbox-roleplay kind of experience, but I don't blame Blizzard for focusing on what the majority of their audience wants.

Hence I find it funny that a feature I was looking forward to, is eventually making its way into the game. Although making the "housing" something practical is probably a better option than just adding instanced houses, much like Super-Bases were useful in City of Heroes.

I also agree that it'd be awesome to have an open ocean "continent" to go sailing about. One of my MMO wet dreams is a proper fusion of WoW and Pirates of the Burning Seas (WoW on-ground gameplay, PotBS ship mechanics).

[Grumman]

Player housing is so superfluous to gameplay that I don't blame them for not taking it on for 10 years. Unless you're a "total immersion" role player it's just not important. I'd rather they added actual oceans and gave us player owned boats and zeppelins. That may have made me get back into the game. I'd have sold my account if I didn't play SC2.

problem with full Oceans is that Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms are on separate servers so you'd have either merge them or find a way to teleport you from 1 server to the other without noticeable loading.

Perhaps apply a sort of "Big Sea Theory"? Once you get a certain distance away from land, just assume that you don't come across anyone else until you get where you're going? Or if you do, it's an instanced encounter with no landmarks?

[Flagg]

I also agree that it'd be awesome to have an open ocean "continent" to go sailing about. One of my MMO wet dreams is a proper fusion of WoW and Pirates of the Burning Seas (WoW on-ground gameplay, PotBS ship mechanics).

Yeah that's what I was thinking. POtBS was such a disappointment for me tho. They oversimplified it IMO.

[Flagg]

Player housing is so superfluous to gameplay that I don't blame them for not taking it on for 10 years. Unless you're a "total immersion" role player it's just not important. I'd rather they added actual oceans and gave us player owned boats and zeppelins. That may have made me get back into the game. I'd have sold my account if I didn't play SC2.

problem with full Oceans is that Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms are on separate servers so you'd have either merge them or find a way to teleport you from 1 server to the other without noticeable loading.

Perhaps apply a sort of "Big Sea Theory"? Once you get a certain distance away from land, just assume that you don't come across anyone else until you get where you're going? Or if you do, it's an instanced encounter with no landmarks?

I was thinking more like every capital has a port and you just click on "your" ship and you'd load onto the ocean server. Maybe make it PVP optional with sea monsters and pirates as PVE opponents.

[Civil War Man]

That or make the oceans on a third server and have them be PVP zones or something along those lines, with the option of just taking the regular zeppelin or boat.

I could see this being workable in a hypothetical South Seas expansion. The possible locations in an expansion like that would be pretty spread out. Places like Zandalar, Kezan/Undermine, Kul Tiras, or their ruins depending on the extent of the damage they took in Cataclysm. Maybe also include some underwater content like Nazjatar and wrapping up the Abyssal Maw storyline since having the Naga as the main villains in an aquatic expansion is just common sense.

[TheFeniX]

It does make me wonder how they are going to change the stat bonus for professions to accommodate the relative rarity of gem sockets. I heard that the sockets will be more rare, but individually more powerful. So at the very least jewelcrafting or blacksmithing needs to change how it gets its stat bonus. Otherwise, depending on how rare sockets become, jewelcrafters may have a harder time taking advantage of their bonus than other professions unless they also level blacksmithing to compensate.

Blacksmithing needs to be revamped either way, which is probably unlikely to happen. It has to be the weakest for leveling and profitability, while only beating out alchemy at endgame after 1 or 2 content updates when the Alch trinket becomes useless. I think it was originally balanced around the crafting of weapons, but that has been gutted so much it, it's not really a factor. MoP has to be the worst offender in this regard.

[Oskuro]

Yeah that's what I was thinking. POtBS was such a disappointment for me tho. They oversimplified it IMO.

The ship combat was pretty solid, but yes, very simple. I would often zoom in completely to play it from a "first person perspective" and, truth be told, the engine held pretty well and made the action look impressive... But it was impractical.

The ground portions, though......

[TheFeniX]

Vengeance is supposed to get an overhaul if the forums and blue-posts are to be believed. Right now, it really gimps leveling as prot because you just don't take any real damage (at least not enough to keep a worthwhile amount of it) so you have to slow grind mobs down. Supposedly, Blizz is shooting for Tank DPS being around 70% of DPS numbers, without any kind of vengeance mechanic. This would make questing as prot that much easier and also might give it some teeth back in WPvP.

However, this worries me that we'll see the same thing we saw in cata where prot became overtuned in PvP and was gutted as a result.

I wonder if the changes to Pally tanking in MoP was their test for this system. There's no difference between Ret and Prot gear up to a certain level and DKs and Warriors had the Riposte ability added so they could keep using Dodge/Parry, which smacks of a duct tape solution. Paladins in general don't seem to mind the change though, Warriors and DKs seem to be on the fence.

[Darmalus]

Ahh, I forgot to mention that Dodge and Parry are going away as gear stats. Each tanking class with have a static amount of Dodge and Parry with various active defenses that increase them temporarily. The only taking stat will be Bonus Armor, which won't even be on every slot. This means that as long as they get the scaling right for Crit/Haste/Mastery/New Stats, a tank should be doing 70% of an equal DPS at all gear levels. Assuming equal drop luck, of course.

I rather like this. I tend to play at a low level (LFR), so having a sub-optimal gear set is acceptable if I get to use that gear set in two different rolls.

[Broomstick]

It does make me wonder how they are going to change the stat bonus for professions to accommodate the relative rarity of gem sockets. I heard that the sockets will be more rare, but individually more powerful. So at the very least jewelcrafting or blacksmithing needs to change how it gets its stat bonus. Otherwise, depending on how rare sockets become, jewelcrafters may have a harder time taking advantage of their bonus than other professions unless they also level blacksmithing to compensate.

Blacksmithing needs to be revamped either way, which is probably unlikely to happen. It has to be the weakest for leveling and profitability, while only beating out alchemy at endgame after 1 or 2 content updates when the Alch trinket becomes useless. I think it was originally balanced around the crafting of weapons, but that has been gutted so much it, it's not really a factor. MoP has to be the worst offender in this regard.

The professions used to have a lot more impact on game play, I wish we could get back to that. They've really been neglected and changed to almost useless, which is a shame in my opinion. Used to be crafting was useful, now it seems to be mostly gathering that will do anything for you.

[Darmalus]

Crafting, in it's current form, simply does not fit into the modern gearing and leveling design of WoW.

Personally, I'd remove the stat-gear from LS/BS/Tailoring/Eng and convert them into transmog and toy making professions.

That, and strip out all profession perks completely.

[Minischoles]

All the professions need an overhaul - if nothing else, they need a majorly different way of being leveled, similar to the catch up recipes cooking was given.

You still need massive amounts of low level herbs/ores/skins to level the crafting professions, and odds are 90% of people are out leveling their professions before they hit level 20. Even gathering professions don't really keep pace with leveling, it's quite common to level out a zone and not even be a quarter done with leveling your gathering to the next level.

[Darmalus]

Cooking is a good example of doing catch up right. You can go from zero to 525 for a few hundred gold right there at the vendor.

If they were to do that with the crafting professions, have a trainer/vendor that provided training-only crafting materials and a bunch of white or grey fast leveling patterns, you could overhaul the professions to provide something decent. Cool looking gear sets for transmog, powerful twink items, fun toys, etc.

It would crash the low level material gathering market, but I despise the current gathering design anyway.