World of Warcraft: Dragon Desperation

[mediocrepoet]

Val the Moofia Boss thanks man.

I sort of wondered if they had announced a trilogy of expansions to basically try and re-attract a playerbase while they start to figure out wtf to do, such as by trying to set up WoW2 or whatever.

Maybe Microsoft will dump all the dangerhairs. A man can dream.

 

[Elttharion]

Funny how Blizzard is still saying they want to push expansions faster. They have been saying something like this since TBCs last patch, when we were waiting for Wotlk.

 

[Caim]

Funny how Blizzard is still saying they want to push expansions faster. They have been saying something like this since TBCs last patch, when we were waiting for Wotlk.

They're called battle passes.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I've managed to get up to Fyrakk on normal PUGs. Will get him tomorrow.

I was surprised by the penultimate boss fight. I knew about the dragonflying segment (which was neat), but I was surprised that the boss seemlessly flew to another platform, and it didn't seem like the devs pulled the usual trick of phasing different copies of the NPC. They must've really upgraded their tech.

 

[ADL]

January 2024

 

[Caim]

Yes, and dragonriding is slower in the old world because they don't want players to go fast.

Not because any technical issues or problems with loading or popin, you can just go fuck yourself.

 

[Luzur]

WoW is still going on? how much can they milk out of people?

 

[Caim]

WoW is still going on? how much can they milk out of people?

They brought Chris Metzen with his powerful shovel hands to pull the udders even harder to get every last drop out.

 

[J1M]

I've managed to get up to Fyrakk on normal PUGs. Will get him tomorrow.

I was surprised by the penultimate boss fight. I knew about the dragonflying segment (which was neat), but I was surprised that the boss seemlessly flew to another platform, and it didn't seem like the devs pulled the usual trick of phasing different copies of the NPC. They must've really upgraded their tech.

Or they just hid the model transition in the mounting animation?

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I've managed to get up to Fyrakk on normal PUGs. Will get him tomorrow.

I was surprised by the penultimate boss fight. I knew about the dragonflying segment (which was neat), but I was surprised that the boss seemlessly flew to another platform, and it didn't seem like the devs pulled the usual trick of phasing different copies of the NPC. They must've really upgraded their tech.

Or they just hid the model transition in the mounting animation?

I don't lose target on Tindral during the fight so I think it's the same NPC from beginning to end, whereas on other fights when something complicated happens you lose target on the boss because they're being swapped out with a different NPC.

 

[Dr1f7]

WoW is still going on? how much can they milk out of people?

They brought Chris Metzen with his powerful shovel hands to pull the udders even harder to get every last drop out.

Chris "my wife has a daughter and all you gamers are sexist" Metzen

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I killed Fyrakk.

Not my favorite fight, but I liked it more than Sarkareth. At least Fyrakk is a little likeable in his cutscenes whereas I didn't care for Sarkareth. The final Amirdrassil fight does differentiate itself from prior final battles in that it's more of a battle rather than a boss fight, as rather than only fighting the boss you have to also prevent fire from spreading to the roots or else Amirdrassil burns and it's a game over, and you have to heal up the Night Elf souls so they can heal the tree. However, I thought that the flat, square arena with four conspicuous root nodes felt a little "gamey". The Fyrakk fight also doesn't have poorly differentiated AoEs like the prior Amirdrassil fights or the Sarkareth fight, which is a plus.

The music on Fyrakk was disappointing, coming off the Tindral fight where you had this playing as he flew away and you chased him to the next platform.

Half way through the fight, the Aspects appeared in the background but they didn't do anything while we were doing the fighting. It does feel bad to kill Fyrakk, and then we immediately get two cutscenes about the Aspects and them patting themselves on the back when they did nothing.

Overall: Raszageth (for the lightning dragon, platforming, and good background art design) > Fyrakk (less of a boss battle and more of a scenario with the roots and souls that have to be saved, also Fyrakk has good voice acting) >>> Sarkareth (poorly differentiated AoEs, meh character, overall meh).

 

[J1M]

WoW is still going on? how much can they milk out of people?

They brought Chris Metzen with his powerful shovel hands to pull the udders even harder to get every last drop out.

Chris "my wife has a daughter and all you gamers are sexist" Metzen

We are hoping the divorce and banging some fangirls has fixed him.

 

[Maculo]

The catch-up gear is much appreciated, but I have a lot to catch-up on between the raid and the new dungeon pool. I can already hear the screeching from the totem boss of Ataldazar. Personally, I enjoyed all of BFA’s dungeons, and I am looking forward to Waynecrest Manner again. That said, those dungeons had so many ways to kill the run.

 

[Keshik]

Yes, and dragonriding is slower in the old world because they don't want players to go fast.

Not because any technical issues or problems with loading or popin, you can just go fuck yourself.

Still is pretty fast though, 80% of the current top speed is still above the taxi speed I believe.

 

[J1M]

Yes, and dragonriding is slower in the old world because they don't want players to go fast.

Not because any technical issues or problems with loading or popin, you can just go fuck yourself.

Still is pretty fast though, 80% of the current top speed is still above the taxi speed I believe.

It's about double. People are whining over nothing. Blizzard bad at giving reason. Nothing new on either side.

 

[J1M]

The catch-up gear is much appreciated, but I have a lot to catch-up on between the raid and the new dungeon pool. I can already hear the screeching from the totem boss of Ataldazar. Personally, I enjoyed all of BFA’s dungeons, and I am looking forward to Waynecrest Manner again. That said, those dungeons had so many ways to kill the run.

I firmly believe catch up gear is a primary rot in the game. Waaaaaayyy too many resources go into that nonsense. All they need to do is crank up the drop rate of previous content to create catch up gear. If players knew they could complete an old raid and have a drop from nearly every boss they would do that. Same with whatever scam M+ has for loot.

 

[Caim]

Yes, and dragonriding is slower in the old world because they don't want players to go fast.

Not because any technical issues or problems with loading or popin, you can just go fuck yourself.

Still is pretty fast though, 80% of the current top speed is still above the taxi speed I believe.

It's about double. People are whining over nothing. Blizzard bad at giving reason. Nothing new on either side.

Then why can you move at 100% in Dragonflight? Because the zones were made for it? The Classic zones were never made with flying in mind, even with Cataclysm.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I did the Emerald Dream epilogue quest. Once again feels awkward for me - the champion who slaughtered countless Night Elves in the name of the Horde, and then broke a peace and slaughtered his way through Ashenvale and Darkshore and burned Teldrassil - to be handing out drinks at a Night Elf party and the NPCs are saying thanks to me.

Looks like Jaina heard Azeroth's voice too. I thought Khadgar did as well but then later it he says he was just wondering about Iridikron and Xala'tath. Also looks like The War Within takes place immediately or very soon after Dragonflight and there won't be a timeskip as Khadgar says his old friend (Alleria) is going to investigate.

Malfurion went to the Shadowlands so he could trade places with Ysera so she could get to Azeroth. Now that Ysera has gone back to the Shadowlands, Malfurion can come back to Azeroth, right?

I also did the Wrathion and Vyranoth questline. It was sadly unvoiced except for the last part. Odyn was disappointing. The prior Titan Keepers we fought in Ulduar and Ra-den were fearsome warriors with their own cool abilities, but Odyn just autoattacks you and doesn't do anything, and you get him down to 80% HP and then Vyranoth interrupts your duel and snaps her fingers to freeze Odyn. Come on, if she was going to do that then why hype up the duel in the first place? Either let me duel him to the end or she should have snapped her fingers from the getgo.

It also feels weird for Vyranoth to talk about how dragons serving other people is bad, and we see the storm dragons killing their riders, and then the storm dragons and Vyranoth fly away... and then in the cutscene I'm riding my proto-drake and following them. Is my proto-drake sentient? Before Dragonflight they were treated as mindless beasts, but now in Dragonflight we have proto-drakes transforming into humanoids and preaching libertarianism, so why is my proto-drake giving me rides? Because I'm going to kill him if he doesn't and the other dragons don't care? Because he has nothing better to do than to be my mount? Because he wants to tour the world but never transforms into humanoid form to take in the local cuisine or drink?

 

[Maculo]

The catch-up gear is much appreciated, but I have a lot to catch-up on between the raid and the new dungeon pool. I can already hear the screeching from the totem boss of Ataldazar. Personally, I enjoyed all of BFA’s dungeons, and I am looking forward to Waynecrest Manner again. That said, those dungeons had so many ways to kill the run.

I firmly believe catch up gear is a primary rot in the game. Waaaaaayyy too many resources go into that nonsense. All they need to do is crank up the drop rate of previous content to create catch up gear. If players knew they could complete an old raid and have a drop from nearly every boss they would do that. Same with whatever scam M+ has for loot.

Likewise, I viewed catch-up gear as rot in the past, but I have since softened my stance in Dragonflight. Gear is not what it used to be. Rather than a reward for more difficult content, gear greases the wheels for mid or more casual players to overcome content (i.e., allows for more mistakes). Meanwhile, higher-skilled players pressed ahead with 20s mythic+ and heroic/mythic raids without it (there are exceptions - trinkets, etc., or in the context of RWF). The great divider is mythic+ rating and achievements more so than gear. While this may be an issue unto itself, it allows two very different playerbases to move at their own pace.

Also, my friends will resub later in the season, and so it will be nice to push challenging content with them sooner as opposed to later.

 

[Minecrawler]

Odyn was disappointing. The prior Titan Keepers we fought in Ulduar and Ra-den were fearsome warriors with their own cool abilities, but Odyn just autoattacks you and doesn't do anything, and you get him down to 80% HP and then Vyranoth interrupts your duel and snaps her fingers to freeze Odyn.

Well, Odyn wasn't a punching bag back in the Legion days either. He only became one now.
This entire scene is basically Shadowlands intro all over again:

Also, lol at the fact that she turns into a dragon only after efortlessly one-shotting (sorry, "incapacitating") the chief titan keeper while in female humanoid form. Gotta hammer home the message really hard.

 

[Cheesedragon117]

So what's the new thread title for this new expansion gonna be? The Desperation Within (Blizzard's Offices)???

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So what's the new thread title for this new expansion gonna be? The Desperation Within (Blizzard's Offices)???

The current meme title for TWW floating around on the official forums and MMO-Champion is Warthin, since people have noticed that this will be the second expansion in a row with little content of substance. Four questing zones, and then you hit level cap and there will be nothing to do but speedrun the current raid and half dozen dungeons over and over. I'm not sure how much longevity Delves will add to the game.

 

[J1M]

So what's the new thread title for this new expansion gonna be? The Desperation Within (Blizzard's Offices)???

The current meme title for TWW floating around on the official forums and MMO-Champion is Warthin, since people have noticed that this will be the second expansion in a row with little content of substance. Four questing zones, and then you hit level cap and there will be nothing to do but speedrun the current raid and half dozen dungeons over and over. I'm not sure how much longevity Delves will add to the game.

What would you need to see to feel differently?

Serious question because delves are the most significant change to the game since Legion.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So what's the new thread title for this new expansion gonna be? The Desperation Within (Blizzard's Offices)???

The current meme title for TWW floating around on the official forums and MMO-Champion is Warthin, since people have noticed that this will be the second expansion in a row with little content of substance. Four questing zones, and then you hit level cap and there will be nothing to do but speedrun the current raid and half dozen dungeons over and over. I'm not sure how much longevity Delves will add to the game.

What would you need to see to feel differently?

The game needs to be more than just the current patch, more than just the latest raid and half a dozen dungeons.

In classic, the game isn't just the latest patch, Naxxramas. You progress through Molten Core to Blackwing Lair to Zul'Gurub to Ahn'Qiraj and then to Naxxramas.

Mists of Pandaria kept the earlier expansion raids relevant by having your farm them to progress the legendary questline. Even when you outgeared Terrace of the Endless Spring, you still needed to do it to get Sigils of Power to progress the questline. Same with Throne of Thunder for the Secrets of the Empire drops.

Serious question because delves are the most significant change to the game since Legion.

It sounds like they're just another iteration of either MoP scenarios or BFA Island Expeditions, or more Zskera Vaults. Either way that's bitesized content and probably won't have the longevity to keep people subbed year round.