I mean technically didn't the first level 60 get there by solo grinding a bunch of shit? He certainly wasn't getting in a group to kill an elite for some leveling quest.
no, he had a whole heap of friends inviting him to different layers to respawn mobs faster. it was a relatively unique case to wow classic specifically that wasn't present in vanilla, but as far as I know the ability to abuse layers to get quick respawns is the only reason the AOE grinding was quicker than dungeon grinding.
How does optimal play require you to be social, specifically
because in classic, killing mobs is dangerous and slow enough that having even one other person with you with extra buffs, extra damage, and some extra healing or utility can mean that two people can chew through mobs at a speed greater than the sum of their individual contributions.
for example, a warrior and a paladin questing together will kill mobs far more than 2x as fast as either of them alone, because they both buff each other with battle shout and blessings, the paladin can heal the warrior and the warrior keeps threat off the paladin.
it's always the right choice to group up for any content in classic, there is no scenario where you're better off alone
this is not the case in retail, because kill speeds are so low that there is massive diminishing returns, and two people more or less kill mobs about as fast as one + one, which means usually there's no real difference between grouping up and just killing separately in the same area
Plus multiple groups can tap the same mob in BfA, not so much in classic.
I mean technically didn't the first level 60 get there by solo grinding a bunch of shit? He certainly wasn't getting in a group to kill an elite for some leveling quest.
He had a whole team of people porting him from one layer to another.
the best part about wow classic finally coming out is that now the eternal "is classic more fun than retail????" argument can be made fully of anecdotes instead of emotions
the best part about wow classic finally coming out is that now the eternal "is classic more fun than retail????" argument can be made fully of anecdotes instead of emotions
And it’s still 100% subjective.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
+2
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
regardless of which side of the fence you come down on, or whether you even pick a side at all, the next 6-12 months are going to be fascinating
seeing how wow classic and retail can coexist
+6
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Currently Classic just has a massive upper hand. But depending on what the announcement actually entails, Blizzcon could swing it drastically with what will likely be both the next expansion and 8.3 being revealed.
I expect what happens then to be the balance. I think the timing of the next expansion would line up well with Classic being done all the release phases too, which would result in a full swing back.
Currently Classic just has a massive upper hand. But depending on what the announcement actually entails, Blizzcon could swing it drastically with what will likely be both the next expansion and 8.3 being revealed.
I expect what happens then to be the balance. I think the timing of the next expansion would line up well with Classic being done all the release phases too, which would result in a full swing back.
I think Blizzcon is a bit more important than you say. If they dont announce something amazeballs for 8.3 or the next expansion everyone is just going to give up on retail and classic will just be far more popular. Classic is big because it is the release, but people are also pretty much done with the get flying patch. If they dont announce a good reason to stick with retail theres no reason to stop playing classic at least until the last phase is released.
The warring factions thing hasn't really made any sense at all post Warcraft 3. I was alright with it because wooh faction war, but the lore to get there was always super dumb. It was just Thrall being chaotic stupid and empowering obviously evil people over and over again, with Blizzard just inventing new kind of xenophobic Alliance leaders to try to justify it. All of the named faction leaders in WC3 (barring Sylvanas who just became comic book evil) were pretty damn buddy buddy, and had every reason in the world to at least stay neutral towards eachother with the bonds formed fighting the Legion, and all of the world ending threats that pop up every two years.
Fiatil on
+9
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
I didn't downplay Blizcon though. I said it could swing it drastically FROM classic. Could meaning if the announcements go out like a wet fart, nothing will happen. Retail right now pretty much has like nothing interesting going on. I think everyone has seen enough of the new raid, and really feel zero need to grind for gear and stats that will just be irrelevant at 8.3 because we get catchup anyway. But that is off the point. Blizzcon will either change nothing (as in, Classic is hot right now and it stays that way), or show us something that reignites interest in the retail game for those who really never wanted Classic in the first place.
For me, I am about to dive into Classic as some friends told me they are playing, so I am prepping my catchup game. But my true devotion will be if and when a TBC project happens. I am honestly convinced with how Classic is going, they could easily early announce this will happen at Blizcon and I personally will go nuts. I just think TBC is as exciting as Classic, but upped to 11. Classes are so much better, there is more of the same style of content, and all of the group content is of high quality compared to Vanilla. Plus even if I don't get deep into endgame, Kara was sooooooo fucking good and is the first raid you step into. Not to mention I can not only get away with playing an Enhancement shaman, but they are much more entertaining AND actually good!
I don't think we will see a TBC announcement until Blizzcon 2020.
They will tick-tock content out:
2019: 9.0 announce
2020: TBC announce
2021: 10.0 announce
2022: WotLK announce
2023: Retail moves to maintenance + annual server relaunches of early expacs.
I just hit Exalted with Proudmoore today, and then did the Embassy Quest to formally make the Kul Tirans a part of the Alliance.
I gotta say, this little mini series is one of the best scripted, best written, and most fun quest chains I've ever done in all of WoW. This quest really is great and I wish we had a lot more content like this.
Classic is basically having the “new expansion” wave right now; there’s new* content! People like leveling! and etc. The measure is what it’s doing 4-5 months from now, at the point in every expansion cycle when “subs dropping, ded gaem” becomes the take to have.
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Classic still has a series of patches left to unlock the next raid tiers, so they'll probably alternate those with the main version patches through this year and next. They can then do the same thing with the TBC announcement, release, and TBC's raid tier unlocks. Assuming they go through with expansions, this gives them an entirely alternate path to fill out their release schedule for years to come.
+1
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
I don't think we will see a TBC announcement until Blizzcon 2020.
They will tick-tock content out:
2019: 9.0 announce
2020: TBC announce
2021: 10.0 announce
2022: WotLK announce
2023: Retail moves to maintenance + annual server relaunches of early expacs.
Announcement wouldn't coincide with release though. An announcement is MUCH less impactful than release. They had the vanilla announcement with the BFA reveal. I think that the Vanilla announcement actually garnered more interest than that expansion.
It would make more sense to announce that they are going to go forward with the idea now, and then RELEASE it sometime after. Then again I guess that would mean the release steps on the toes of the expansion release.
I did mean to imply it was not very likely but I REALLY want to hear it.
0
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
I just hit Exalted with Proudmoore today, and then did the Embassy Quest to formally make the Kul Tirans a part of the Alliance.
I gotta say, this little mini series is one of the best scripted, best written, and most fun quest chains I've ever done in all of WoW. This quest really is great and I wish we had a lot more content like this.
This kind of makes me think, because I agree. It almost feels like the faction war was padding for this expansion. Like, the main stories on the new zones are great. This background story for each faction was great. I think the overall plot got much better once it moved toward the void and Azshara story.
But the whole Sylvanas war shit, the war campaign, and the war based raid were all meh story wise. And all could easily be removed from this expansion and it would all still work. It seems like it to me anyway. And if they were, the expansion would like, actually be better off for it? Or am I crazy.
Storytelling wise, I think that there’s been more good than bad or ugly this expansion, it’s just that the ugly has been really, really ugly.
For example, the initial six zones ranged from at worst very uneven (Stormsong Valley) to fantastic (Drustvar). Jaina’s character recovered immensely this expansion, as she’s just about back to being a wiser version of the idealist she was before the mana bomb went off, and she had some major moments of butt-kicking along the way. The Old Gods stuff has been fun. Some great new characters like Talanji and Lucile Waycrest and Flynn have been introduced.
But then you have things like Sylvanas‘ heel turn, the disaster of the Darkshore warfront storyline, and Liadrin going from one of the most willing to work with the Alliance to being apparently 100% pro war. It’s a weird mix.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
+2
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
That's because Blizzard's characters are not characters, they are plot devices designed to hold whichever set of beliefs and attitudes is required by the current story direction.
+4
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I love the shit out of Bwonsamdi, but holy shit the Sylvanas stuff has turned me off this expansion so much.
That and I hate the design of M+ and how that's part of the endgame loot.
And also the ding dang grind.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I agree, but I actually loved Stormsong. Most of that zone was not campaign related, but the campaign stuff there was fun. Palling around with Brother Pike was a lot of fun and I loved that quest chain. And honestly, to me, I even liked the non campaign stuff. Just getting to immerse myself in the lore and find out about the Kul Tirans in that zone was tons of fun. Plus, as a general rule of thumb, Stormsong has some serious Old God problems, and there's a delightful amount of cultists and face-huggers there.
Having started as Horde this expansion, my experience was very negative. I feel that the Horde zones largely felt unimportant, and irrelevant to well, anything. Sure, they weren't necessarily bad, although I thought Vol'dun was pretty bad. But overall, none of their 3 zones felt like they had much impact on the story. Everything storywise for the Horde felt pre-determined and fairly set in stone no matter what you did in the 3 zones.
Back on Vol'dun for a minute: I picked that zone first, because at the outset, when you're standing at the top of the pyramid and they present you with the situations in each of the zones, Vol'dun honestly felt like the biggest threat to me. There's a rogue general who wants to overthrow the King and he seemed like a mean and nasty guy. So I picked that zone cause I wanted to stop the coup and I wanted to save the king and the kingdom. Then, as it turns out, General Jakrazet has less than 5 minutes of face time in all of Vol'dun and the entire zone was spent palling around with murderous fox people and helping some random guard get her memory back. Those were not the things I signed up for, and it was a very disatisfactory experience from a story perspective. I'm not saying I didn't like palling around with the Vulpera. I did. They're great. But the entire story also felt entirely superfluous and irrelevant to anything, and the Jakrazet stuff was so minimal that he might as well have not been there at all.
And anyway, starting from a Horde perspective in this expansion gave me a very negative outlook on the story, the writing, and the entire expansion. I didn't like feeling like the villain, because that's not what I signed up for when I picked Horde. When I started on Horde, I signed up for Thralls' Horde, which were noble yet fierce warriors. And now my faction's going around committing major war crimes every other day. And I didn't like it.
But then I took a break from all of that, swapped to Alliance, and I've had a much more enjoyable perspective. Everything about the Alliance feels like it matters to the overall story. The writing, in general, is just better. And it just has such a much better flow. Not to mention Boralus is perfect.
I give Christie Golden a lot of shit for bad writing, but honestly, if she's the head writer for the Alliance side of the story, which is what I've been led to believe, she's done an all-right job. It's those Horde writers that ought to be ashamed of themselves.
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Speaking as somebody who played Horde, the actual leveling zones were mostly fine for story, some of the war story wasn't that bad either.
The problem is that Blizzard can't write the faction war to save their lives, so you see them doing three things:
Repeat story beats
Radically shift characterizations
Flanderize the absolute shit out of the factions
Here we have Blizzard repeating the major story beats from Cata and Mists, radically shifting characters (even retconning in some cases) to justify their story choices, and having the Horde kick puppies while the Alliance goes Lawful Stupid to justify not wiping them out with their space ship and god tier special characters.
+3
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Speaking as somebody who played Horde, the actual leveling zones were mostly fine for story, some of the war story wasn't that bad either.
The problem is that Blizzard can't write the faction war to save their lives, so you see them doing three things:
Repeat story beats
Radically shift characterizations
Flanderize the absolute shit out of the factions
Here we have Blizzard repeating the major story beats from Cata and Mists, radically shifting characters (even retconning in some cases) to justify their story choices, and having the Horde kick puppies while the Alliance goes Lawful Stupid to justify not wiping them out with their space ship and god tier special characters.
Yeah but see
It would have been laughably easy to write a better story here.
Greymane takes the initiative and invades Undercity first with Anduin reluctantly supporting him and trying to make peace. Sylvanas attacks Teldrassil in a counterattack. Escalation continues.
Greymane already had shittons of motive to attack the Undercity and was constantly pressuring for it. Make Sylvanas do a full heel turn into Dr. Evil was the dumbest possible execution of the war.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
+8
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Also escalates tensions within the Alliance, as the night elves and worgen would then have a reason to splinter apart.
"After we sheltered you when Sylvanas burned Gilneas, you repay us by provoking a counterattack that burns our home"
Speaking as somebody who played Horde, the actual leveling zones were mostly fine for story, some of the war story wasn't that bad either.
The problem is that Blizzard can't write the faction war to save their lives, so you see them doing three things:
Repeat story beats
Radically shift characterizations
Flanderize the absolute shit out of the factions
Here we have Blizzard repeating the major story beats from Cata and Mists, radically shifting characters (even retconning in some cases) to justify their story choices, and having the Horde kick puppies while the Alliance goes Lawful Stupid to justify not wiping them out with their space ship and god tier special characters.
Yeah but see
It would have been laughably easy to write a better story here.
Greymane takes the initiative and invades Undercity first with Anduin reluctantly supporting him and trying to make peace. Sylvanas attacks Teldrassil in a counterattack. Escalation continues.
Greymane already had shittons of motive to attack the Undercity and was constantly pressuring for it. Make Sylvanas do a full heel turn into Dr. Evil was the dumbest possible execution of the war.
Oh you'll find no disagreement from me. I don't think there's a single person who'd disagree with that alteration to the story.
Speaking as somebody who played Horde, the actual leveling zones were mostly fine for story, some of the war story wasn't that bad either.
The problem is that Blizzard can't write the faction war to save their lives, so you see them doing three things:
Repeat story beats
Radically shift characterizations
Flanderize the absolute shit out of the factions
Here we have Blizzard repeating the major story beats from Cata and Mists, radically shifting characters (even retconning in some cases) to justify their story choices, and having the Horde kick puppies while the Alliance goes Lawful Stupid to justify not wiping them out with their space ship and god tier special characters.
Yeah but see
It would have been laughably easy to write a better story here.
Greymane takes the initiative and invades Undercity first with Anduin reluctantly supporting him and trying to make peace. Sylvanas attacks Teldrassil in a counterattack. Escalation continues.
Greymane already had shittons of motive to attack the Undercity and was constantly pressuring for it. Make Sylvanas do a full heel turn into Dr. Evil was the dumbest possible execution of the war.
Oh you'll find no disagreement from me. I don't think there's a single person who'd disagree with that alteration to the story.
Hi, I'm a person who disagrees with that alteration to the story.
If you give Genn an inch, he'll take a mile, but as Sylvanas likes to say, he's a dog. He's an attack dog, but he's a dog. He follows. Besides, he wouldn't have the forces to attack Undercity himself, and he knows it. Having Genn launch an attack on Undercity is worse than Sylvanas' attack on Teldrassil. Now, you could have Genn landing in force in Gilneas, to try to take back all of that, and Sylvanas pushing him out and then destroying Teldrassil in a counterattack. That would at least also make some sense. But the story as-is makes a lot more sense than Genn kicking everything off by invading Undercity.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
0
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Speaking as somebody who played Horde, the actual leveling zones were mostly fine for story, some of the war story wasn't that bad either.
The problem is that Blizzard can't write the faction war to save their lives, so you see them doing three things:
Repeat story beats
Radically shift characterizations
Flanderize the absolute shit out of the factions
Here we have Blizzard repeating the major story beats from Cata and Mists, radically shifting characters (even retconning in some cases) to justify their story choices, and having the Horde kick puppies while the Alliance goes Lawful Stupid to justify not wiping them out with their space ship and god tier special characters.
Yeah but see
It would have been laughably easy to write a better story here.
Greymane takes the initiative and invades Undercity first with Anduin reluctantly supporting him and trying to make peace. Sylvanas attacks Teldrassil in a counterattack. Escalation continues.
Greymane already had shittons of motive to attack the Undercity and was constantly pressuring for it. Make Sylvanas do a full heel turn into Dr. Evil was the dumbest possible execution of the war.
Oh you'll find no disagreement from me. I don't think there's a single person who'd disagree with that alteration to the story.
Hi, I'm a person who disagrees with that alteration to the story.
If you give Genn an inch, he'll take a mile, but as Sylvanas likes to say, he's a dog. He's an attack dog, but he's a dog. He follows. Besides, he wouldn't have the forces to attack Undercity himself, and he knows it. Having Genn launch an attack on Undercity is worse than Sylvanas' attack on Teldrassil. Now, you could have Genn landing in force in Gilneas, to try to take back all of that, and Sylvanas pushing him out and then destroying Teldrassil in a counterattack. That would at least also make some sense. But the story as-is makes a lot more sense than Genn kicking everything off by invading Undercity.
Genn literally launched an attack on Sylvanas personally while the Alliance and Horde were teamed up to fight the Legion.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
+7
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Besides, he wouldn't have the forces to attack Undercity himself, and he knows it.
Who said anything about attacking it himself? The point would be Genn strongarming Anduin into doing it first, and the Alliance as a whole obviously has the resources to do it since, well, they did.
+1
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited September 2019
The way it plays out in my mind is that Genn starts mobilizing forces and Anduin, being kind of a weak an ineffectual ruler at the start, follows along with him and is under the impression that they can talk with Sylvanas and get the Undercity peacefully.
Then Genn uses an excuse to start the attack and Anduin not realizing that bringing an entire army to the doorstep of a nation is not a great way to start off talks of peace. Sylvanas goes total burned earth because she is a spiteful banshee queen and knows that her reinforcements won't arrive in time from the horde.
She uses her position as warchief and the fact that the majority of horde forces are on Kalimdor to attack Teldrassil and burns it down, using the excuse that she was 'forced' into burning her home, so now she is 'forced' to burn down theirs.
This makes the elves super angry, of course, and they want even more war in revenge.
EDIT: You can even use Jaina in this story by have her being super for the war then seeing all the casualties mount up realize 'hey maybe revenge ain't so spring fresh'
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Besides, he wouldn't have the forces to attack Undercity himself, and he knows it.
Who said anything about attacking it himself? The point would be Genn strongarming Anduin into doing it first, and the Alliance as a whole obviously has the resources to do it since, well, they did.
Except Anduin wouldn't do it. It's pretty much 100% against who he's been established to be as a character. So, all this does is move the preemptive attack's originator from Sylvanas to Anduin. And while it did a disservice to Sylvanas' character and it was a dumb plot development, it's incredibly laughably out of character for Anduin to sign off on an attack on the Horde. It would exceed Darkshore for the worst writing in BFA if they went that route.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
The way it plays out in my mind is that Genn starts mobilizing forces and Anduin, being kind of a weak an ineffectual ruler at the start, follows along with him and is under the impression that they can talk with Sylvanas and get the Undercity peacefully.
Then Genn uses an excuse to start the attack and Anduin not realizing that bringing an entire army to the doorstep of a nation is not a great way to start off talks of peace. Sylvanas goes total burned earth because she is a spiteful banshee queen and knows that her reinforcements won't arrive in time from the horde.
She uses her position as warchief and the fact that the majority of horde forces are on Kalimdor to attack Teldrassil and burns it down, using the excuse that she was 'forced' into burning her home, so now she is 'forced' to burn down theirs.
This makes the elves super angry, of course, and they want even more war in revenge.
EDIT: You can even use Jaina in this story by have her being super for the war then seeing all the casualties mount up realize 'hey maybe revenge ain't so spring fresh'
I mean, it's not even that much of a stretch either. Anduin is extremely inexperienced and doesn't command the loyalty/respect his father did. Genn and Jaina tag-teaming Anduin to get him to agree to get troops to Undercity is something I'd expect a competent writing team to deliver.
0
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Besides, he wouldn't have the forces to attack Undercity himself, and he knows it.
Who said anything about attacking it himself? The point would be Genn strongarming Anduin into doing it first, and the Alliance as a whole obviously has the resources to do it since, well, they did.
Except Anduin wouldn't do it. It's pretty much 100% against who he's been established to be as a character. So, all this does is move the preemptive attack's originator from Sylvanas to Anduin. And while it did a disservice to Sylvanas' character and it was a dumb plot development, it's incredibly laughably out of character for Anduin to sign off on an attack on the Horde. It would exceed Darkshore for the worst writing in BFA if they went that route.
It is 100% in character for Anduin to be bossed around by a stronger, more charismatic leader.
That's basically the entire vanilla Onyxia subplot.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Except Anduin wouldn't do it. It's pretty much 100% against who he's been established to be as a character.
Anduin's character is that of an uncertain leader, inexperienced, thrust into the mantle of leadership decades before he should have been thanks to Varian's untimely death, leaning heavily on his more experienced advisors, Tyrande and Genn. It is entirely plausible that a revenge-hungry Genn could talk Anduin into supporting the moves that Munkus is talking about. It's not the most elegant story, but it's a hell of a lot more elegant than what they did do, which is Sylvanas burning the tree on a whim.
Except Anduin wouldn't do it. It's pretty much 100% against who he's been established to be as a character.
Anduin's character is that of an uncertain leader, inexperienced, thrust into the mantle of leadership decades before he should have been thanks to Varian's untimely death, leaning heavily on his more experienced advisors, Tyrande and Genn. It is entirely plausible that a revenge-hungry Genn could talk Anduin into supporting the moves that Munkus is talking about. It's not the most elegant story, but it's a hell of a lot more elegant than what they did do, which is Sylvanas burning the tree on a whim.
Ha, nope. We're going to have to disagree on this.
There's no way in hell I see Anduin signing off on starting a war. He may be young, but he's always done his own thing, from the point at which his character gained any agency back in MoP. Whereas Sylvanas has a long history of attacking things she perceives to be threats and twisting the knife when she can.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
Besides, he wouldn't have the forces to attack Undercity himself, and he knows it.
Who said anything about attacking it himself? The point would be Genn strongarming Anduin into doing it first, and the Alliance as a whole obviously has the resources to do it since, well, they did.
Except Anduin wouldn't do it. It's pretty much 100% against who he's been established to be as a character. So, all this does is move the preemptive attack's originator from Sylvanas to Anduin. And while it did a disservice to Sylvanas' character and it was a dumb plot development, it's incredibly laughably out of character for Anduin to sign off on an attack on the Horde. It would exceed Darkshore for the worst writing in BFA if they went that route.
well that's certainly how they've written him in BFA, since they decided the alliance is All Good and the Horde is Always The Antagonist
+1
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Except Anduin wouldn't do it. It's pretty much 100% against who he's been established to be as a character.
Anduin's character is that of an uncertain leader, inexperienced, thrust into the mantle of leadership decades before he should have been thanks to Varian's untimely death, leaning heavily on his more experienced advisors, Tyrande and Genn. It is entirely plausible that a revenge-hungry Genn could talk Anduin into supporting the moves that Munkus is talking about. It's not the most elegant story, but it's a hell of a lot more elegant than what they did do, which is Sylvanas burning the tree on a whim.
Ha, nope. We're going to have to disagree on this.
There's no way in hell I see Anduin signing off on starting a war. He may be young, but he's always done his own thing, from the point at which his character gained any agency back in MoP. Whereas Sylvanas has a long history of attacking things she perceives to be threats and twisting the knife when she can.
My storyline would be that Anduin doesn't start the war, but he's complicit in it and feels he needs to back up his allies and after things goes too far he realizes the mistakes he's made.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
have Genn unilaterally attack or conspire with Jaina, and claim the backing of the alliance afterwards to force Anduin into backing him or risk splintering the alliance while his leadership is still untested and the other leaders don't think he's earned his spot at the head of the table yet.
BahamutZERO on
+4
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Shit you could even just pull a World War I and make it so that Anduin starts mobilizing his troops because Genn tells him it gives him more bargaining power, then realizes the folly of it but by then Sylvanas is mobilizing her troops and Genn tells Anduin they can't stop mobilizing their shit because if they did they would be at a severe disadvantage and then whoops an overzealous forsaken attacks Genn's cousin or some shit and then whoops Genn and Sylvanas do war crimes at each other.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Posts
no, he had a whole heap of friends inviting him to different layers to respawn mobs faster. it was a relatively unique case to wow classic specifically that wasn't present in vanilla, but as far as I know the ability to abuse layers to get quick respawns is the only reason the AOE grinding was quicker than dungeon grinding.
Plus multiple groups can tap the same mob in BfA, not so much in classic.
He had a whole team of people porting him from one layer to another.
And it’s still 100% subjective.
seeing how wow classic and retail can coexist
I expect what happens then to be the balance. I think the timing of the next expansion would line up well with Classic being done all the release phases too, which would result in a full swing back.
I think Blizzcon is a bit more important than you say. If they dont announce something amazeballs for 8.3 or the next expansion everyone is just going to give up on retail and classic will just be far more popular. Classic is big because it is the release, but people are also pretty much done with the get flying patch. If they dont announce a good reason to stick with retail theres no reason to stop playing classic at least until the last phase is released.
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For me, I am about to dive into Classic as some friends told me they are playing, so I am prepping my catchup game. But my true devotion will be if and when a TBC project happens. I am honestly convinced with how Classic is going, they could easily early announce this will happen at Blizcon and I personally will go nuts. I just think TBC is as exciting as Classic, but upped to 11. Classes are so much better, there is more of the same style of content, and all of the group content is of high quality compared to Vanilla. Plus even if I don't get deep into endgame, Kara was sooooooo fucking good and is the first raid you step into. Not to mention I can not only get away with playing an Enhancement shaman, but they are much more entertaining AND actually good!
They will tick-tock content out:
2019: 9.0 announce
2020: TBC announce
2021: 10.0 announce
2022: WotLK announce
2023: Retail moves to maintenance + annual server relaunches of early expacs.
I gotta say, this little mini series is one of the best scripted, best written, and most fun quest chains I've ever done in all of WoW. This quest really is great and I wish we had a lot more content like this.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Announcement wouldn't coincide with release though. An announcement is MUCH less impactful than release. They had the vanilla announcement with the BFA reveal. I think that the Vanilla announcement actually garnered more interest than that expansion.
It would make more sense to announce that they are going to go forward with the idea now, and then RELEASE it sometime after. Then again I guess that would mean the release steps on the toes of the expansion release.
I did mean to imply it was not very likely but I REALLY want to hear it.
This kind of makes me think, because I agree. It almost feels like the faction war was padding for this expansion. Like, the main stories on the new zones are great. This background story for each faction was great. I think the overall plot got much better once it moved toward the void and Azshara story.
But the whole Sylvanas war shit, the war campaign, and the war based raid were all meh story wise. And all could easily be removed from this expansion and it would all still work. It seems like it to me anyway. And if they were, the expansion would like, actually be better off for it? Or am I crazy.
Notably however it did not really deal with sylvanas et al, and when the story does return to her it turns increasingly dumb
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Storytelling wise, I think that there’s been more good than bad or ugly this expansion, it’s just that the ugly has been really, really ugly.
For example, the initial six zones ranged from at worst very uneven (Stormsong Valley) to fantastic (Drustvar). Jaina’s character recovered immensely this expansion, as she’s just about back to being a wiser version of the idealist she was before the mana bomb went off, and she had some major moments of butt-kicking along the way. The Old Gods stuff has been fun. Some great new characters like Talanji and Lucile Waycrest and Flynn have been introduced.
But then you have things like Sylvanas‘ heel turn, the disaster of the Darkshore warfront storyline, and Liadrin going from one of the most willing to work with the Alliance to being apparently 100% pro war. It’s a weird mix.
That and I hate the design of M+ and how that's part of the endgame loot.
And also the ding dang grind.
Having started as Horde this expansion, my experience was very negative. I feel that the Horde zones largely felt unimportant, and irrelevant to well, anything. Sure, they weren't necessarily bad, although I thought Vol'dun was pretty bad. But overall, none of their 3 zones felt like they had much impact on the story. Everything storywise for the Horde felt pre-determined and fairly set in stone no matter what you did in the 3 zones.
Back on Vol'dun for a minute: I picked that zone first, because at the outset, when you're standing at the top of the pyramid and they present you with the situations in each of the zones, Vol'dun honestly felt like the biggest threat to me. There's a rogue general who wants to overthrow the King and he seemed like a mean and nasty guy. So I picked that zone cause I wanted to stop the coup and I wanted to save the king and the kingdom. Then, as it turns out, General Jakrazet has less than 5 minutes of face time in all of Vol'dun and the entire zone was spent palling around with murderous fox people and helping some random guard get her memory back. Those were not the things I signed up for, and it was a very disatisfactory experience from a story perspective. I'm not saying I didn't like palling around with the Vulpera. I did. They're great. But the entire story also felt entirely superfluous and irrelevant to anything, and the Jakrazet stuff was so minimal that he might as well have not been there at all.
And anyway, starting from a Horde perspective in this expansion gave me a very negative outlook on the story, the writing, and the entire expansion. I didn't like feeling like the villain, because that's not what I signed up for when I picked Horde. When I started on Horde, I signed up for Thralls' Horde, which were noble yet fierce warriors. And now my faction's going around committing major war crimes every other day. And I didn't like it.
But then I took a break from all of that, swapped to Alliance, and I've had a much more enjoyable perspective. Everything about the Alliance feels like it matters to the overall story. The writing, in general, is just better. And it just has such a much better flow. Not to mention Boralus is perfect.
I give Christie Golden a lot of shit for bad writing, but honestly, if she's the head writer for the Alliance side of the story, which is what I've been led to believe, she's done an all-right job. It's those Horde writers that ought to be ashamed of themselves.
The problem is that Blizzard can't write the faction war to save their lives, so you see them doing three things:
Here we have Blizzard repeating the major story beats from Cata and Mists, radically shifting characters (even retconning in some cases) to justify their story choices, and having the Horde kick puppies while the Alliance goes Lawful Stupid to justify not wiping them out with their space ship and god tier special characters.
Yeah but see
It would have been laughably easy to write a better story here.
Greymane takes the initiative and invades Undercity first with Anduin reluctantly supporting him and trying to make peace. Sylvanas attacks Teldrassil in a counterattack. Escalation continues.
Greymane already had shittons of motive to attack the Undercity and was constantly pressuring for it. Make Sylvanas do a full heel turn into Dr. Evil was the dumbest possible execution of the war.
"After we sheltered you when Sylvanas burned Gilneas, you repay us by provoking a counterattack that burns our home"
Oh you'll find no disagreement from me. I don't think there's a single person who'd disagree with that alteration to the story.
Hi, I'm a person who disagrees with that alteration to the story.
If you give Genn an inch, he'll take a mile, but as Sylvanas likes to say, he's a dog. He's an attack dog, but he's a dog. He follows. Besides, he wouldn't have the forces to attack Undercity himself, and he knows it. Having Genn launch an attack on Undercity is worse than Sylvanas' attack on Teldrassil. Now, you could have Genn landing in force in Gilneas, to try to take back all of that, and Sylvanas pushing him out and then destroying Teldrassil in a counterattack. That would at least also make some sense. But the story as-is makes a lot more sense than Genn kicking everything off by invading Undercity.
Genn literally launched an attack on Sylvanas personally while the Alliance and Horde were teamed up to fight the Legion.
Who said anything about attacking it himself? The point would be Genn strongarming Anduin into doing it first, and the Alliance as a whole obviously has the resources to do it since, well, they did.
Then Genn uses an excuse to start the attack and Anduin not realizing that bringing an entire army to the doorstep of a nation is not a great way to start off talks of peace. Sylvanas goes total burned earth because she is a spiteful banshee queen and knows that her reinforcements won't arrive in time from the horde.
She uses her position as warchief and the fact that the majority of horde forces are on Kalimdor to attack Teldrassil and burns it down, using the excuse that she was 'forced' into burning her home, so now she is 'forced' to burn down theirs.
This makes the elves super angry, of course, and they want even more war in revenge.
EDIT: You can even use Jaina in this story by have her being super for the war then seeing all the casualties mount up realize 'hey maybe revenge ain't so spring fresh'
Except Anduin wouldn't do it. It's pretty much 100% against who he's been established to be as a character. So, all this does is move the preemptive attack's originator from Sylvanas to Anduin. And while it did a disservice to Sylvanas' character and it was a dumb plot development, it's incredibly laughably out of character for Anduin to sign off on an attack on the Horde. It would exceed Darkshore for the worst writing in BFA if they went that route.
I mean, it's not even that much of a stretch either. Anduin is extremely inexperienced and doesn't command the loyalty/respect his father did. Genn and Jaina tag-teaming Anduin to get him to agree to get troops to Undercity is something I'd expect a competent writing team to deliver.
It is 100% in character for Anduin to be bossed around by a stronger, more charismatic leader.
That's basically the entire vanilla Onyxia subplot.
Anduin's character is that of an uncertain leader, inexperienced, thrust into the mantle of leadership decades before he should have been thanks to Varian's untimely death, leaning heavily on his more experienced advisors, Tyrande and Genn. It is entirely plausible that a revenge-hungry Genn could talk Anduin into supporting the moves that Munkus is talking about. It's not the most elegant story, but it's a hell of a lot more elegant than what they did do, which is Sylvanas burning the tree on a whim.
Ha, nope. We're going to have to disagree on this.
There's no way in hell I see Anduin signing off on starting a war. He may be young, but he's always done his own thing, from the point at which his character gained any agency back in MoP. Whereas Sylvanas has a long history of attacking things she perceives to be threats and twisting the knife when she can.
well that's certainly how they've written him in BFA, since they decided the alliance is All Good and the Horde is Always The Antagonist
My storyline would be that Anduin doesn't start the war, but he's complicit in it and feels he needs to back up his allies and after things goes too far he realizes the mistakes he's made.
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