Red Thunder Clan

As one of the five members that comes here semi-often, thanks for keeping the lights on, Ult. :)

I'm perfectly fine with not flying while leveling or exploring new areas and such, but relying on flight paths and the (gimmicky at best) toys that allow short bursts REALLY kills my drive to leave my garrison.  For example, I've done very little archaeology, which was one of my favourite pasttimes from other expansions purely because getting from digsite to digsite has been an awful, time-consuming slog without the ability to fly.

I'd also be more tempted to explore if I didn't have to spend 20 minutes on a ground mount circling a mountain that's between me and where I want to go peek.

Quote from: Zanzier on June 10, 2015, 09:12:27 PM
Just a head's up, but Blizz has confirmed that the garrisons will NOT produce any felblight, for crafting, in 6.2. :(
The only way to get Felblight is through mining/herbing/skinning and................fishing? (yep, fishing too)
in the Tanaan Jungle.

Savage blood will still be used for the first 4 (of the 6) crafted item upgrades.

Also, developers have caved in and stated that flight will be coming to Draenor...............just not in 6.2. ;)

It should also be mentioned that flight won't be an automatic thing, but something you'll have to work towards like an epic questline.  You will have to earn certain exploration/quest achievements (that already exist...chances are you've completed most if not all of them already), collect several "treasures" scattered throughout Draenor, and if I read correctly you'll have to raise three of the Tanaan reputations to Revered.

In other words you'll have to work for it, but once you do you'll be able to fly--not just on your main, but any other 90+ chars as well.

This was a pretty decent compromise, IMO, and something I'm glad they implemented.  I was VERY unhappy about no flight throughout the entirety of WoD.

Sorry.  It is, indeed, a "fixed" plot.  Much like the fishing, mining and herbalism plots, you do a quest to open it up to get things started.

On the bright side, even if it hadn't been a "fixed" plot it would have just been another small one, and especially for someone such as yourself with a plethora of alts small plots aren't in much demand past your profession hut and salvaging yard.

Also, we're probably the only two reading this. :D

And to prepare people a bit for Live dungeon runs in WoD:

Learn what Dispels and Interrupts you have at your disposal and learn how to fire them off in a timely fashion...even on mobs you may not be focusing on at the time.

More than any other expansion, and in heroic dungeons particularly, these abilities are going to pretty much be a requirement.  CC will also be important in heroic dungeons, but I'd argue that even that is to some degree less important than dispels/interrupts.  There are a lot of buffs and abilities that trash mobs in these dungeons throw out there that you're going to want to avoid whenever possible.

Regular dungeons will probably be a faceroll fairly quickly, but even there you'll want to be practicing "good dungeoneering" if only to hurry things along.

With regards to the other content...I don't want to spoil most of it.  Even after having spent several months in the beta I'm greatly looking forward to release.  The possibility of us not being able to fly is still a major downer to me, because even with their "quality of life" travel improvements it's a pain to navigate the zones when where you need to get to and where the FP/etc. drops you off are any distance apart.  But I'm having enough fun otherwise to overlook it for now--though I suspect the arguments over it WILL come to a head once 6.1 is on the way.

For some classes you'll have to spend a lot of time relearning how to play, because a lot of abilities and skills were taken away and--for the most part--baked into passives or other abilities.  I can say as a BM Hunter that I had little problem at all adapting and I've heard many other classes had little to worry about, so it probably won't be such a huge deal.  Just be aware of the changes and adjust your macros accordingly. :D

Good luck, though I have to say:  The later you get in, the better.

I started on day one and it is a bear just trying to do the simplest things.  Naturally this is what beta is all about, but this early on I'm lucky if I even stay connected longer than 10 minutes at a time.  This is just my personal experience from the introductory quest line and about 3/4 of the first zone in about a 48 hour period.  I fully expect everything to go through several revisions in the next couple of months, and I'm already looking forward to being able to complete the quest lines without bugs, disconnects, server lag, NYI content and such cropping up every 5 minutes.

The introductory quest line is neat, though it was very barebones and still needs to be fleshed out with voice acting, cinematics and, in some areas, textures.  Upon completion, we were all dumped back into Orgrimmar because the transition to the next zone wasn't complete yet.  That was rather funny.

We're directed to a mini-Dark portal in Org to continue the quest line for the time being, and that essentially leads up to you creating your first Garrison.  I'm still not entirely sure about everything concerning them because, naturally, a LOT of stuff is still NYI in the beta (lots of dead-end quest lines, PH loot/NPCs, etc.), but I think I like the direction that's going in.

As far as the "Savagery" of Draenor...I'm not feeling it much.  Granted this could be because I'm in ilvl 550+ gear and combat hasn't been tuned completely yet, but I don't feel as if my life is in danger much...yet.  This is still pretty much the opening zone.  Oh, speaking of combat, as a BM Hunter I don't feel that the ability prune has crippled me much.  I DO miss having Serpent Sting on my rotation (that goes to Survival Hunters only now, I think), and I have to make a tough choice now on one of my talents, but overall they did a nice job of turning abilities into passives or baking them into other abilities.  I don't feel like I'm needing to adapt too much yet.  I can't yet speak for other classes, though I haven't heard much whining in-game from others on that subject.

Not being able to fly for a while will, in my opinion, be a major pain in the ass.  I don't notice it so much while leveling (much like previous expansions), but I can already tell that relying on the existing flight points and shanks mare will be pretty galling.  HOPEFULLY they don't decide to keep flying out of the expansion altogether (they haven't definitively said one way or the other yet), but waiting until the first major patch after release is going to be a ball-ache, I think.  Again, this is all based on very early beta, so perhaps more FP's and other modes of transportation will be put in between now and release, but as I see it currently it's a bit frustrating.

The storyline quests thus far have been pretty decent, and if you're a fan of the Lore then you'll be treated, no doubt.  Again, it's all going to need a LOT of polish before it's ready for consumption, but I can see the shape of it under the rough exterior and it seems pretty fun.

It's starting today...and I'm in!  Of course this time around I suspect they're going to give it to just about everyone who's still a paying customer...

I'll be able to get a week in before I'm on vacation for a week, but I expect the beta will be going on all Summer long anyway.  I guess I'll finally get to see first hand just how all of that ability pruning has affected my class, since that's been my sole major worry thus far.  Hopefully most of the stuff I really liked has just been baked into other abilities instead of outright removed.  *sigh*

No, Zan.  In WoD you'll be replacing the cloaks with green gear just like everything else.  Blizz have said they have no plans to continue that storyline in Warlords.

You can safely skip it on your alts.

I bought and played GW2 ages ago.  Got bored very quickly with much of it and wasn't terribly impressed with the rest.  Gave it up completely after a month.  Sorry.

EVERYONE should take breaks.  It helps prevent burnout.

The past three months I've only logged on about two weeks' worth.  I wanted to play some of the backlog of games I've had on my Steam account for the past year.  Now I'm starting to get that WoW itch again so I'll probably be on more often soon leveling up one of my other characters. :)

I still think the earliest would be September, but I think even when WoW loses a lot of subs between now and then there'll be enough stuff forthcoming to get people to re-up.  I'm really liking a lot of what I'm seeing from the Alpha.

I'll still be sticking with it.  Not that I ever see any of you guys anymore, but I still enjoy the game and I don't see that changing anytime soon.  I've tried just about every other MMO that's come out the past 8-10 years--Beta testing quite a slew of them--and I've never found one I liked more than WoW.

So...you're stuck with me.  I'll probably end up being the one turning out the lights when everyone else has left the party.

Just days after announcing the Warlords of Draenor alpha it seems they really WERE further along in the process of getting the expansion done because tons of information about the beta client is being datamined these past few days (including a launch screen actually stating "Beta (x64)".  mmo-champion.com has all of the data, as per usual, and I recommend everyone taking a look, specifically at all of the class changes. 

EVERYONE is pretty much going to have to relearn their class this next expansion since they're cutting out a lot of abilities (and, presumably, baking their benefits into passives or combining them with other abilities) to get rid of the "ability bloat".  They're also cutting out a lot of CC from everyone across the board, so I assume their dungeon designs will be adapted more to the past "AoE the hell out of everything" approach and not so much the "you CC X, I'll CC square, you CC triangle" strategies employed in some of the more nail-biting heroics.

I will admit I was pretty daunted by the sheer amount of things that were on the chopping block (which, for me, included several hunter abilities I've used daily since starting my hunter), but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and see how it plays before I pass judgement on it.  I see their reasoning for trimming some of the fat...I'm just not yet fully convinced all of it was fat.

"•The devs will try to reduce the economic impact that the Enchanting and Jewelcrafting changes will make. Enchanting might be able to make some weapons or offhands. Jewelcrafters might be able to make some trinkets or other things to sell."

Pulled from an interview.

I watched pretty much the whole stream.  As much information as they gave out during the entirety of Blizzcon there's still a ton of stuff they didn't flesh out like they did in past expansions...which I'm kind of okay with.  More of a surprise for later.  I'm betting beta is just around the corner, though...wouldn't be surprised if keys start going out towards the end of next month.

I was happy to hear that expertise and hit were on their way out.  I understand their rationale for having them in earlier, but it was pretty frustrating when I had to get those two values to 7.50% without going over or risk "wasting" stat points.  Spent way more than I should have during that stupid balancing act.

They've said for a long time now that the numbers squish was coming during the next expansion, so that wasn't much of a surprise.  I'm on the fence on how I feel about it.  I guess I can see their point and it doesn't really matter what those numbers are ultimately, but I'm VERY concerned that it'll be a pretty hard nerf to soloing older content (since the difference in damage/level will be much smaller than before).

I was kind of hoping for some Burning Legion stuff, but if things go the way I think they'll go we'll probably be seeing them in the expansion after this one.  I just have a sneaking suspicion.  Also, I'm pretty sure "Jaina" is a Dread Lord.  I think she died during the Theramore hubbub and one of them came through in her place, which would explain why she's turned into such a mega bitch.
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I like that you can kill a rare monster and hang its head in your inn or whatever.  Overall I'm pretty happy with what I read about Garrisons.  I suspect I'll be spending a lot of time there.

Hell, I like the ideas for the expansion in general...although I must have been the only one that LIKED having a linear, straightforward quest progression as opposed to the "discovery and exploration" style that Timeless Isle is modeled on.