We Have Time on our sides.

So here we are, It feels to me like everyone is over Warlords, and pining for Legion already...

     This week was fairly O.K.  On Saturday we went in and downed the first three bosses in Hellfire Citadel again.  I am still back and forth on saving progress here, because I know there is a couple pieces of gear folks could get from the first few bosses... but I want to move forward more quickly.

     Sunday we picked up on Council, and even with odds against us we started working on the Council fight again.  We only had 3-4 pulls when the tank we pulled from the nether dropped and left us stranded with 45 minutes left to go.  Rather than pull someone in for half an hour by the time we found them, we called it there.  Of course... we made some nice progress on council!  We might have downed them too if we hadn't lost the guest tank.  He dropped without a word.  Next week I'm pretty sure we will have that fight down.

      Now, with Legion on the way, and despite my tone here it is on the way, we still have some time to wait.  Beta hadn't dropped yet, and with Blizzard the betas for World of Warcraft tend to last a long while.  Several months in most cases.  So, supposing that the Beta for Legion starts right after Blizzcon, in November, we are still probably looking at a March release if they move quickly.  That is guessing at a 3 month long beta and that Blizzard might be very far along in their process.  Most likely the Beta will be longer and we will be looking at June for the time the next expansion drops.  I could be wrong, feel free to tell me I'm wrong, but I feel it's unlikely if we don't see the Beta by Blizzcon that we won't see the next expansion sooner.

     So what to do in the mean time?  I know I plan on sticking to raiding schedule.  Other then that Denarin and Scorpiack are working on openly recruiting to our guild "Fear Itself" on Zangarmarsh.  My hope is to get some of these folks that get abandoned as guilds start to go elsewhere and unsubscribe.  I'm looking at this time of "dulldrums" to do some building.  I haven't had a lot of time myself lately, but I'm managing to log in for an hour here and there.

     Other things that you can do right now? Level your characters.  Build up the character you want to play next expansion.  If  that's your main, you can always get an alt ready.  If you want to try something new, now is the time to get working on it.  Unless it's a demon hunter, demon hunters will have to wait.

     You can work on old achievement and content.   I know on my pally I can solo anything form original wow to dragon soul fairly easily and quickly.  If you ever wanted a rare mount drop off one of those raids, go start farming it.  There are several sweet mounts that are hard to find.  Go get 'em.

     Level something new from scratch.  1-100 still takes a little while.  Go experience the story from the beginning again.  Or start a character on the opposite factions side.  If you haven't played all the starting areas since Cataclysm you are missing out on some great stories.  I recommend the Forsaken starting zone.  It's the reason I have some a desire to see Blizzard do something big with Lillian Voss....

     If you can't find anything to keep you interested, then unsubscribe and wait.  The game will be here when you get back.  I'm a die hard and probably won't unsubscribe unless I literally have no more time to play.  As long as I can at least do raids I'm here for the duration.  My honest guess is that with Wow down to 5+million subscriptions right now, that before Legion drops we will be down to 3.5-4 million.  Once again I don't think this is a death knell in any way for Wow, because when Legion comes back the players will too.  And I think we will have a resurgence that quiets the naysayers until the next subscription drop.  But that is my guess as well.  Since this is all speculation and opinion, I could very well be wrong.

Lag.

Things I'd like to see in Legion.

So, I was at a wedding in Vegas last weekend, so I didn't raid.

      Now here is one of those things that bear asking before the launch of a new expansion.  What have they promised, and what do you want to see that hasn't been mentioned.  And I'll admit it is kind of a hard question for me this time, because it feels like everything has been thrown into this expansion that we have asked for.  It has been called the fanservice expansion in a few descriptions I've read, and I'm not sure how far from the truth that is.  But here are some things anyway....

      I want to see more dynamic professions.  Warlords gave us a neutered down, generic path for our character's professions.  It largely felt like it didn't matter what profession your character had, because you could just get a vendor in your garrison to make whatever you needed for the most part.  The only exceptions seemed to be the items used to level up the ilevel on gear.  Gathering professions where just laughable.  Your garrison pretty much gave you everything you needed on this front.

    Class specific quests.  It feels like we may be getting some of these with the class halls, but I'm not holding my breath.  I have walked in to to many things only to find that we have been supplied with the same quests as everyone else, just with a different starting point, or different faction.  I am hoping that each class with have a series of quests unique to each.  So my Paladin and Death knight can have very different experiences.

     More involved story lines.  A lot of Warlords felt like we were watching events unfold, but not necessary to the story.  This was a departure from the feeling of places like, say Jade Forest where we did something, and felt like we were personally responsible for the consequences at the end.  In warlords despite being called general etc... it felt like we were watching others achieve thing for us, and we just happened to be helping a little.  In order to feel involved our characters need to feel like the driving force in the game.

     Involvement from characters in Warlords  or Mists, or.... Rather then having great character like Yrell disappear from this point on, I would love to see them pop in here and there as we move forward.  Even if it's just running into her while visiting the king on a quest that takes me back to Stormwind. I hate that we get invested in characters and storylines just to see them abandoned for the next big flavor.

     That is the list on my mind, what would you like to see in Legion when it drops?

Lag

Speed Versus Quality.

I have a ponderance about this....

     Saturday night and Sunday both went well.  (Yes, I'm combining this blurb this week)  Both nights we raided.  I had saved from the previous week so  it was all council fight both nights.  We still haven't downed the fight, but we are on the way there.  Now if everyone would watch the strategy for this upcoming week to help out.....

     This week I want to discuss one thing that occurred to me the other day.  Do you think that Blizzard's more quickly released content had effected the quality of the game?  Hear me out here.  I know I have often said that I think the more quickly released content has had a negative effect on the game itself.  It ramps up expectations and now content that would have been fine for a six month span until the next big patch is being hailed as old with in two months.  That is not what I'm discussing here though.  I want to look at quality.

    First of all, let's go to the first expansion to accomplish this.  Mists of Pandaria was fantastic all the way through.  We had scenerios, lot's of endgame content, and the story felt like it had a direction that our characters mattered in.  The big patches were release, Landfall, Throne of Thunder, Escalation, and Siege of Ogrimmar. That is four big patches in what was a great expansion.  However, let's be honest here.  Before Pandaria launched we had a year of Dragon Soul in which Blizzard had time to work on this content.  I honestly don't know how much was done before hand, but I feel a lot more prep time was given for everything we experienced.  That being said, look at the last couple of patches.  Escalation had a couple of scenarios. Siege had a raid and the Timeless Isle.  While siege was big, Timeless Isle I would argue is just reskinned content with a theme that could be explored and experienced within a couple of hours.  Yes there are rewards for sticking in and working there longer, but overall, there was no reason to hang out there unless you needed some gear or had time to kill.

      Now we are in Draenor, and I think it has been less successful.  The leveling game was fantastic, but after that there is little compelling reason to leave the garrison.  Yes there was in game content, with dungeons, weekly garrison quests, etc... but to me it never felt necessary.  I had out geared heroic dungeons in two or three weeks and never looked back.  Garrison quests took a couple hours a week, and then done.  There was no reason to go out and farm since my garrison gave me adequate amounts of ore and herbs.  I've never been a part of PVP so I haven't experienced the Ashran mess.  But by all accounts I've heard it's a mess.  The raiding has been good, but that is a small part of anyone's week for the most part.  Tanaan Jungle has been fun, but once again it was basically in game at launch, and they have just had to populate it with npcs.  We walked through a large part of it in the opening cinematic, so we know at least a large part of it was finished.

     So what happened?  I suspect that without as much time to develop content that we are getting the abridged version of things.  The story lines are there, but they aren't the great bits of unfolding we saw in Landfall, or Throne of Thunder.  Instead we get little bits that last about an hour a week if we are lucky.  To me it just feels like not as much time as been spent on keeping people engrossed.  And yes before you say it, I know they have added Mythic dungeons.  Which, once again I have no reason to run because in a week of grinding in Tanaan they had no gear for me.  I do like the timewalker dungeons, but those are once every three weeks for a weekend?  On top of that, both those and Mythic can all be chalked up to re-skinned content.

    So my question is, will this be what we are looking forward to in Legion? Is everything going to be short, condensed and abrupt?  Is the content feeling like this because of the speed of releasing content, or is there something else behind it.  I have to believe the speed is part of it.  I have no evidence other then my suspicions, but if there is another reason I'm not seeing it.  Blizzard has stated they have the largest group of people working on World of Warcraft then they ever have, so it can't be manpower.

     The other problem is that if speed of release is the issue here, there is no good cure.  I've often been told that you can't do something for a customer, unless you expect to be able to do it every time.  Because once you've done something once, it becomes that customer's expectation they will get it again.  You think flyinggate was bad, see what happens if Blizzard goes back and says they are spending more time on content, rather then releasing it quickly.

But that's my opinion, what's yours?

Lag

You Can't Save Me.

So, this week happened.

     Saturday we went back into Hellfire Citadel and once again downed the first three bosses.  I was very happy to do so, but we didn't get any further in.  So, on a high note we ended the night.

    And ended up not raiding again Sunday because we were short once again.  I know we won't progress well on a one night a week schedule, so I saved the raid.  This week we will be starting on the Council fight.  Should be fun.  Have I mentioned my extreme "love" of council fights.  Yeah, not a fan.

     So, getting down to business.  I am at that point where I'm completely frustrated with this.  I am hoping with school getting back in we might get a slightly bigger pool for raiding, but I'm not a hundred percent hopeful at this point.  It does come down to this though, in order to save our guild's raiding, we need some fresh blood.  So, we have a plan.  (Well, a slight one.)
   
    Denarin in our guild has been given the task of guild recruitment.  With my schedule and other's lately I haven't been on to do much recruiting.  I'm hoping to get one more person in the guild attached to this as well.  It's time to grow things back up and to prepare for Legion when it drops.  I'm betting right now on a March/April release at this point.  They are trying to fast track it, but I don't see the expansion dropping for a while yet.  I'm guessing they are going to have to fast track the Beta this time around, and I would be surprised if they waited until after Blizzcon in a couple months to launch it.  Most of the time the Beta's have lasted several month, so if we get a Beta drop after Blizzcon, that will mean June or later for the expansion by my guess.

    That would mean almost a year of Hellfire Citadel.  Exactly what Blizzard has said they want to avoid.  That would be very bad for an eroding player base that has now dropped to less then half of the record subscription numbers.  Not that I think we are looking at the end of Wow by any means, I think however that Blizzard isn't planning on another 10k subscriptions again.  I think they are now focusing on several games instead of one big cash cow.

     I do think when Legion drops we will see another subscriber gain.  I don't think it will be as high as Warlords, but I don't think 7-8K subscribers would be out of the question.  I don't think Blizzard needs saving.

     Our raid team though, we are getting to that edge where I start going crazy over  the fact we aren't running like we should.  In that case no one will be able to save me. So save yourself.

Lag

Is Harder Better?

Such a weird question... here we go.

      Saturday we mounted up and headed into Hellfire Citadel. It was a good night, very few issues and we downed Kormoc for the first time.  A good raid night all around, I was very happy and my tanking didn't kill us all.  We had a new raider and a person we pulled from the nether with us as well.  It was nice.

     Sunday didn't happen as a raid night.  Not enough showed so we split up and rand timewalking dungeons.  I pulled my DK Illyrea out for a tank test (I haven't DK tanked since Wrath, when I could duel wield tank.  Thank you Blizz) and only wipe us a couple of times.  To me the tanking feels a little clunky on the DK at the moment, but I haven't developed the timing and muscle memory for the class.  Had fun anyway.

      So this week Topic is one that has been on my mind.  With Illidan and a lot of old stuff being brought back again, there seems to be a lot of people wishing for the old days of World of Warcraft.  You know, where there were 40 man raids and everything was mind numbingly hard, because only the elite raided, and they stood apart for it.  And the grinding man, if you didn't spend hours getting herbs and ore making your eyes bleed with all the pixels they were taking in just so your character could be their best.... Well, I think you can already tell where my opinion is on this.

     I think there should be some challenges in game.  And I think we have them, there is Mythic raiding, PVP, and some bigger achievements.  Do I think we should go back to the days of having to CC every pull, spending a couple hours in a dungeon, and wandering around Dallaran yelling in trade for a group? No.  Not at all.

     This game, like all successful things has evolved with the player base.  I would imagine for every person who yells about how easy this game is now, there are a could hundred who roll their eyes and close their ears as soon as the song of the glory days of vanilla comes on.  While I started playing at the end of Vanilla, or original Wow, I sure don't miss the days of grinding and praying I could get one character to level 60.  To me, getting one, being able to get a couple things done, and getting off in an hour or two is perfect.  Heaven knows I can't spend hours upon hours on the game anymore.  Call me a casual.  I'm cool with that.  I hardly believe though the people calling for things to be like the old days are the majority.  I think it's more a vocal minority with a lot of folks who just as soon don't want to engage in a long pointless debate.

    But I could be wrong.  I admit it.  I mean, I know raiding wise as a leader I'm not lighting any fireworks.  We have fun, which I thought was the point of this game, but compared to a lot of the "big raiders" we are mediocre.  I will take mediocre and fun any day over stress, yelling, and treating this game like a job.  Obviously if you want something harder there are other options out there.  Wildstar is going free to play in a couple of months, and it is supposed to be very punishing and hard on the raid content.  Of course, like I said, it's going free to play so there might be a reason for that.

     Alright, my rant is over.  I meant it to be an argument and it's all one sided.  Sue me.  I just can't justify a discussion on making the game harder and more grindy for a few special snow flakes.  In other news....

     Get your pathfinder done.  6.2.2 drops on Sept 1st.  That means we are getting close to flying in Draenor.  If you haven't gotten your achievement, now is the time to get 'em done.  If you don't care, it doesn't matter what I say anyway.

See you in game.
Lag.

Regaining The Fire

So, raiding happened.  I'm very happy that raiding happened.

     The first night we ventured in may have had a couple of issues.  I brought in a new raider who was geared but inexperienced, and it showed a little.  Also, the first boss just kept outright destroying us and we couldn't figure out why.  The healers couldn't keep the tanks up through the first few mobs, and I think we only got to the second siege weapon once.  finally called it.

     The second night our mystery was solved.  On the way in my wife noted that there was a skull in front of the portal.  Somehow I had my raids turned to heroic, and we were all expecting normal. To put it lightly, I screwed up.  But that second night we downed the first two bosses and had our best attempt on the third we have seen so far.  More importantly, we managed to raid two days in a row.  I am hoping this means more happy things to come.

     Now, I've been thinking of the next expansion in reference to the subscription drop.  For those living in a cave Wow is now down to just over 5 million subscribers.  Now, I do not think this is unexpected.  The game is ten years old and we see a lot of drop off as expansions go on.  Warlords itself feels like an expansion that just has aged prematurely to me too.  While it's been out for less then a year, for some reason the content just hasn't felt lasting.  Normally we get some excitement, you feel content to log in every day and do stuff, but this time it feels like it's all been done pretty quick.

     Part of it is the shock of how the end game feels after the great leveling experience.  You hit level 100, and half the stuff you want to do is tied into your garrison.  There are rep grinds, but you really don't need them.  There are daily apexis, but while they are fun the first couple of times they just don't feel great after a while.  The dungeons felt ok, but I wasn't enthralled.  And raiding, as always is fun, but that is only a couple nights a week.  Overall the experience people got after a while was, log in, check garrison, log out.  There was no benefit to hanging around in game for the most part, other then visiting with you guild mates.

     I also think this is where the faster content expectation they built hurt them.  When it feels like very little is coming, and it's coming quickly it just isn't a wonderful experience.  In Pandaria it worked because we had things like the Isle of Thunder, or the invasion of Krasarang Wild as our factions showed up.  All that had direction and felt like it had purpose behind it.  Then we got the wild treasure hunt that was Timeless Isle.  

     Now the best we have is Tanaan Jungle, which is fun, but feels as directionless as the rest of the expansion.

     Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed Warlords, but I wanted to take a look before I went forward at the issues I have had, and that I have heard discussed before I moved forward.  Because there are a lot of things that Legion is going to have to be in order to keep the current subscriptions they have.  Let's be honest too, we know when the expansion drops those subscriptions are going to go up again.  I don't know if they will go all the way to ten million, but no one expected to see that with Warlords and it happened.

     Legion is going to have to have direction and purpose.  We need to feel like we are interacting and controlling the story, not just witnessing it.  Being called general, master, etc... doesn't make up for the fact you don't feel like your character is important to the story.  I want to feel like the driving force behind taking down the baddies, not like I'm holed up in my castle giving orders and surfing chat.

     It is going to have to play on our nostalgia, and keep a hold of it.  The themes we are seeing so far are familiar and exciting.  Demon hunters, Illidan, Tomb of Sargaras, are all fan favorites and great memories from Warcraft III and early World of Warcraft.   Blizzard needs to make sure that these places and people feel enough like the original that we don't feel cheated.  It also has to feel shiny and new enough that we don't get the, "It's all been done" feelings.  Right now the excitement is high, and i'm hyped up, but I need a good pay off for that excitement.  If I hop on my new demon hunter and I feel like, "Well, I've played this class before" it's not going to be so great.  If I go into the Tomb of Sargaras and say, "Oh, I seen this cave skin since vanilla." It will be disappointing.

    The last thing Legion needs to do is find a way to find new players.  Most of us who have been playing for years don't have the time we did long ago.  I know I can't spend hours upon hours questing like I used too.  I have also debated lately dropping my subscription for a while with work and school just so I don't have one more thing pulling at me.  (I'm not dropping, don't panic raid team)  We need to find a way to get new blood into Wow.  I don't know if it's possible but getting those late teen and early twenties crowd to hop in would build a player base with more time, and durability then those of us die hards who have been logging in for years.  At some point we generally move on to other things, there needs to be players coming in, to slow the number drop of those going out.

     Not that Wow is dead or dying.  They still have more subscribers by far then any other MMO out there.  That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be looking to the future a bit more.  I imagine this game will still be going on in some form ten years from now.  I also think with the MMO market what it is, we will never see another MMO with 12 million subscribers that dominates the market like Blizzard has in days past.  I would love for them to prove me wrong.

    That is my thoughts on it anyway, what are you all thinking at this point?

Lag

World of Warcraft:Legion. The Newly Announced Expansion.

      So, needless to say, as this was all announced as information leading into the next expansion, I 'm not going to worry about anything that might be considered a spoiler.  So, if you don't want to know what is coming stop reading here.  I am not filtering, I am not avoiding, I am talking about what was shown and what I'm still looking through.

      So, I am giddy with excitement.  I just watched and looked through some information for this expansion and I'm very happy with what I'm seeing.  I don't think I've been this excited for any other expansion, and I've been excited for most of the expansions... let me explain.

     When you watch the expansion trailer it is voiced by Illidan.  Just to hear him doing the voice over made me insanely happy.  If you watch the teaser cinematic you see Gul'dan going into revive someone who looks strangely just like Illidan.  Pair that with the voice, and we can be sure that the other Stormrage is returning to our World of Warcraft.  I am not sure what role he is playing however, but we will discuss this in a moment.

      We are witnessing the return of the Burning Legion on Azeroth.  While we have tangled with them before, in Wow it was limited to Outland in BC, and the end of Draenor.  Sure there has been the odd demon or two popping out of the nether and earning a sword to the gut, but for the most part that has been the extent of our interactions in this game.  Of course, before BC, they were the ending focus of Warcraft III.

      We are going to the Lost Isles.  If you played Warcraft III you have been here, it's where the Tomb of Sargaras lies among other things.  If I remember correctly, this continent was between Kalimdor and Northrend, but it's been a few years so if I'm wrong I apologize.

      While this is being marketed as, "The burning legion has returned we must defend ourselves" it's very apparent we are going after Gul'dan right off.  He is in one of the first two raids, and I am hoping we put him down.  But I'm not counting on it.

      This expansion seems to be pulling on the heartstrings of those like me who remember playing in Burning Crusade.  From the Illidin voice over to the familiar legion mobs it smacks of new mixed with familiar.  Once again I think Blizzard is playing with Nostalgia to try and bring people back into the game.  But they are also giving us new shiny stuff like my favorite thing... The Demon Hunter Quest.

      The new class looks pretty cool.  With only two specs, the Demon hunter is either Melee or tank.  I am disappointed that they went with leather for armor, since mail is the types that has the least users right now.  Other then that, from the characteristic green glow from where the character's eyes had been to glaves the class looks awesome.  They metamorphose into demon forms while fighting, can double jump, and they even mentioned using your wings to glide down from areas.  This class is supposed to be all about mobility and in the minor game play video they showed, the Demon Hunter can bounce around and fight with the best of them.  However, they mentioned that the Demon Hunters we play (limited to the two elf races) are the Illdari that followed Illidan back in Outland.  This brings us to the big question.

     If we are fighting for the Horde and Alliance, and Illidan is back, does that mean that Illidan is flipping sides to help us against the Burning Legion?  While I've always found his story somewhat not convincing in making him an outright villain, (yes he betrayed people for power in the war of the Ancients, not forgetting here) I felt more that he took opportunity in Warcraft III to grab power and then used it to help, I don't see him as a "good" guy.  He may fit in the Anti-hero role fairly well though and I imagine that it might be safer for him, and for us, to ally for at least a little while.

    But what do you all think?  There are many things that I haven't mentioned like Class halls (garrison where you hang out with the other members of your class in game), and artifact weapons (because you know you want to wield Doomhammer or Ashbringer), and many other things.  Level cap 110, etc...

    Are you guys excited too here? or is it just me?

Lag