World of Warcraft: Retail, Classic and Private

[J1M]

Seems more like someone building a trilogy of patches out of something mostly finished and something else that set up what they really wanted to do. (AKA Metzen wants to return to the cosmic ideas that are explored in Netherstorm, but the dungeons and zones he has to work with are underground.)

They probably halted rootlands in preproduction to build something that connected to Midnight.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

God, I wish I could ally myself with Xal'atath.

I truly don't understand why so many people both in and out of universe like her. She has no charisma and lies and backstabs everyone she meets. Her official appearance is not attractive and you have to look to Asian fanart to see a pretty version of her.

[J1M]

3 more cinematics and she'll have a pointier chin than Jafar.

[rusty_shackleford]

raiding was terrible and I hated it

^Gray parser

If you're nice to me maybe I'll sell you a discount glad boost, kid

[Finarfin]

Val, I know you lean towards asians but depending on who is drawing her in the art department and models her, she looks quite nice and I sure like her voice a lot.

► Show Spoiler

[mercerxiv]

piece of trash with no redeeming qualities

High production value artbook fantasy RPG where you have over a dozen races to pick from which look really different from each other and aren't just reskinned humans like in most other fantasy RPGs. Hunched over broad shoulder orcs, hulking inhuman Tauren, etc. There are 20+ years of transmogs, mounts, pets, toys, and elixirs to augment the look of your character.

Dragonriding is pretty fun and the only other game that does it is GW2, but nowhere near as seemlessly or with a huge world or encounters designed for it. GW2's flying animations have better transistions, though.

Again, great looking fantasy zones, and great music.

Responsive controls

Spectacular 30 man encounters that you don't see anywhere else. No other game has 30 man fights like the gunship battle in ICC, Spine of Deathwing, Dark Animus, Siegecrafter Blackfuse, Oregorger, Hans'gar and Franzok, Jaina, Sylvanas, the ice spider in Vault of the Incarnates, Zskarn, Echo of Neltharion, Tindral, etc.

You don't need to rationalize why you like gay ****** libtard stories with scalies and girlbosses.

[rusty_shackleford]

piece of trash with no redeeming qualities

High production value artbook fantasy RPG where you have over a dozen races to pick from which look really different from each other and aren't just reskinned humans like in most other fantasy RPGs. Hunched over broad shoulder orcs, hulking inhuman Tauren, etc. There are 20+ years of transmogs, mounts, pets, toys, and elixirs to augment the look of your character.

Dragonriding is pretty fun and the only other game that does it is GW2, but nowhere near as seemlessly or with a huge world or encounters designed for it. GW2's flying animations have better transistions, though.

Again, great looking fantasy zones, and great music.

Responsive controls

Spectacular 30 man encounters that you don't see anywhere else. No other game has 30 man fights like the gunship battle in ICC, Spine of Deathwing, Dark Animus, Siegecrafter Blackfuse, Oregorger, Hans'gar and Franzok, Jaina, Sylvanas, the ice spider in Vault of the Incarnates, Zskarn, Echo of Neltharion, Tindral, etc.

You don't need to rationalize why you like gay ****** libtard stories with scalies and girlbosses.

That's no reason to be mean to Val

[mercerxiv]

High production value artbook fantasy RPG where you have over a dozen races to pick from which look really different from each other and aren't just reskinned humans like in most other fantasy RPGs. Hunched over broad shoulder orcs, hulking inhuman Tauren, etc. There are 20+ years of transmogs, mounts, pets, toys, and elixirs to augment the look of your character.

Dragonriding is pretty fun and the only other game that does it is GW2, but nowhere near as seemlessly or with a huge world or encounters designed for it. GW2's flying animations have better transistions, though.

Again, great looking fantasy zones, and great music.

Responsive controls

Spectacular 30 man encounters that you don't see anywhere else. No other game has 30 man fights like the gunship battle in ICC, Spine of Deathwing, Dark Animus, Siegecrafter Blackfuse, Oregorger, Hans'gar and Franzok, Jaina, Sylvanas, the ice spider in Vault of the Incarnates, Zskarn, Echo of Neltharion, Tindral, etc.

You don't need to rationalize why you like gay ****** libtard stories with scalies and girlbosses.

That's no reason to be mean to Val

Not mean, just honest.

[Finarfin]

@ThulsaDoomer Don't misuse the 404 reaction, you ******. Both picture work and can be seen.

[ThulsaDoomer]

@ThulsaDoomer Don't misuse the 404 reaction, you ******. Both picture work and can be seen.

This level of simping for a mary sue designed by ugly ***** might as well cause a 404 error in my mind.

[Reichspepe]

@ThulsaDoomer Don't misuse the 404 reaction, you ******. Both picture work and can be seen.

Hey friend, don't be mean to ThulsaDoomer

[Finarfin]

@ThulsaDoomer Don't misuse the 404 reaction, you ******. Both picture work and can be seen.

This level of simping for a mary sue designed by ugly ***** might as well cause a 404 error in my mind.

Hope it does and you kick the bucket, dumb ******.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

11.2.7 The Warning

We start off with a cool Xenoblade Chronicles-esque vision of the future to hype up Midnight. Hopefully like with Xenoblade, these scenes will actually happen? Will we get Endwalker-esque scenes of civilians in the streets being horrifically massacred by abominations?

Too bad the cutscene was one of the lower quality ones. Why can't they be consistently higher quality?

It is also odd choice to have Vereesa - an NPC - be the one who hears the Radiant Song and gets this vision from the Azeroth Worldsoul. Not the player character. When lots and lots of people across the globe have been getting visions since the start of this expansion.

We travel around with Arator, the son of Alleria and Turalyon. He was an NPC you could find at the first Alliance base in The Burning Crusade, but didn't really do anything. He has been a non-character in WoW's story up until this moment.

Arator is a little strange. He was already an adult by TBC, which was canonically 16 years ago. So he should be at least in his 30s. But he sounds and talks like the teenage Ben 10. His way of talking is also a little out of place for this franchise.

Arator wants to consult aunt Sylvanas, so off we go to The Maw. We get to see Sylvanas interacting with a few people who died in the BFA war, including a Tauren soldier who looked up to the Warchief. It is dispiriting to see Sylvanas tell him that the Horde is safe and that he is free of his duty so he can pass on, but then turns around and says "I only told him what he wanted to hear". Feels bad to be a Horde player.

Sylvanas is very well animated. Why isn't this the standard quality?

Another day, another sob who makes a critical failure in character judgement and trusts Xal'atath. Why do people keep believing her?

I also don't understand what Blizzard is doing with all of these in-engine cutscenes that focus on NPCs. They could just make them pre-rendered as usual. The entire point of in-engine cutscenes is that you can make the customizeable player character the star of the show, which you can't do with pre-rendered cutscenes. A strong part of FF14's appeal is that YOU get to be the star of the show, not you just standing to the side and watching everybody else be up there on stage.

That is the last part of the TWW story. Next is the Midnight prepatch story and event.

[rusty_shackleford]

Why do people keep believing her?

So true.

@Finarfin ?

[Finarfin]

I don't like her because I believe her, she just is less annoying than most of the people on "our" side. Alleria is a whiny moody hag who acts impulsively, Anduin is a mopey pushover.

[ThulsaDoomer]

Hope it does and you kick the bucket, dumb ******.

Truth hurts, slop man.

[Stack of Turtles]

It is also odd choice to have Vereesa - an NPC - be the one who hears the Radiant Song and gets this vision from the Azeroth Worldsoul. Not the player character. When lots and lots of people across the globe have been getting visions since the start of this expansion.

Making PCs special is "fashy".

[Val the Moofia Boss]

12.0 Midnight prepatch story and event

► Show Spoiler

We are summoned by Magister Umbric to Stormwind. He is investigating a new cult movement that is trying to recruit people on the streets. You have to make sure you don't accuse the wrong people.






With some digging, we find that the cultists are gathering in the Twilight Highlands. So we go there, kill some cultists, take their robes, and show up to the orientation.




An army of them are being trained for war, taught to swing weapons and how to sacrifice chickens to summon void monsters.


Due to the hills, you can't see all of the other formations training all over this place.


Okay. So this addresses one of the major criticisms with the Dragonflight prepatch event, where you had armies of Primalist cultists coming out of absolutely nowhere and warring across the globe. Well at least here we get to see an army being trained, and them recruiting in a city. But... why? Why are there so many people who would want to join an outlaw organization (in a world where 99.8% of outlaw organizations are destroyed by superman aka the player character in a zone questline or a dungeon)? Why would they want to help Xal'atath destroy their world? It's the exact same problem as the Primalists from Dragonflight, where suddenly there are hundreds to thousands of people trying to help the Primal Incarnates to destroy civilization and return Azeroth to ye good ole days of tentacle empires that enslave everybody.


Do hundreds of people really want to quit their job, walk away from their families, and go laboriously dig ditches and get yelled by a drill soldier and then probably get AOEd down to bring back this? I don't think they are even being paid.


It does seem hypocritical for Rommath to criticize Umbric for embracing the Void, when Rommath himself - a Blood Elf mage introduced in TBC - embraced the use of the Fel back then and the Belves vampirically drained a Naaru of its power. Umbric and his lust for power by any means - a now Alliance aligned character - is ironically more Blood Elf than the official Blood Elf characters. The sides should be reversed. Umbric should be a Horde character, and Rommath an Alliance character.




The story is pretty short, and is mainly an introduction to the event. As usual, it involves flying around in a zerg to AOE down mobs to get currency to buy some pets and mounts (nothing really appealing), or to level up alts really fast. I do like the somewhat war feel of the event, as each battlefield you fly to has many different cultists, and they can hit pretty hard and kill you. I was surprised given that I was geared enough to do the last raid on heroic. At least there wasn't any jawdropping 15 second long lag this time.

What's the lesson supposed to be here? That after Shadowlands, the IQ of Azeroth dropped 50 points, and now people with no charisma can just convince people to give up everything and become their suicide soldiers?


Last up is the prelease materials, and then Midnight's launch tomorrow.

[Finarfin]

This pre patch event sucked. The rewards were trash, the story nonsense.

[rusty_shackleford]

This pre patch event sucked. The rewards were trash, the story nonsense.

whoa… so it was exactly like the 8 expansions before it…

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I listened to the Umbric audiobook. It was pretty decent.




When Rommath and Umbric were mage students at Dalaran (why is it always Dalaran? Did no important Blood Elf magisters study within Quel'thelas?), they stumbled upon an old tome. When Umbric uses it to make contact with the Void, he immediately begins fantasying about unlimited power, killing his best friend Rommath, and becoming god emperor.

"Possibilities still flowed over him, but he could understand them fully now: visions of futures that could be his if only he were bold enough, clever enough, sly enough. He could rule over Silvermoon as a god- magister, beloved by those he had saved with the gift of the Void. The people sought solace in him as they once had the Sunwell, singing praise upon their knees as he nursed them on a controlled drip of the Void's energy.

...

No. This voice he thought was his own was in fact the shadow presence, Umbric realized. In one way, it had saved his sanity by standing between him and the raw everything they had foolishly named "Void." But what possibility he touched now filtered through it. This was its offer, the Void tamed and measured out, and yes he could of course use it to save the blood elves, but he could do so much more"

And this happens two more times in the audiobook.

And yet in the prepatch story, Umbric keeps insisting that the Void is not inherently corruptive or evil, and is just another tool that can be used for good.



Sure, I believe you.

I did like how Umbric called out the Blood Elf hypocrisy post TBC where they act like they were totes good guys and that dubious methods or forbidden magicks is foreign to them.

"Fatigue replaced the fear in his heart. He was tired of lying, of hiding, of acting as if the necessary pursuit of knowledge was wrong. He was tired, too, of the hypocrisy of each magister who proclaimed the sanctity of the Sunwell, this second chance they had been served on the tormented heart of a naaru."

The scene where Umbric gets banished from Silvermoon is pretty well done.

---

They retroactively made Turalyon look old during the Second War! He looked young!





Xal'atath betrayed and killed this guy in the Manaforge raid btw. Why do people keep trusting her?

It would be more credible if she elaborated on what apocalyptic threat she and the Jailer might have been referring to. I wouldn't jeopardize my civilization based on some evil cackling villain suddenly saying "actually I am not bad! I am trying to save us all! Just trust me!"

As with TWW, this appears to be the only Lord of War styled short we get. It seems like modern Blizzard does not want to do the gritty Lords of War artstyle anymore.





The animation in this one was pretty decent.





The animation is good, but the writing, oh dear. Once again, Arator is a grown man. Why is he being written - and sounding like - a teenager who needs his parents? And why all of this focus on his identity and individualism? Didn't he JUST say that he spent years fighting with the Alliance and for the Light? Wouldn't he be more focused about the collective and his fellow comrades, and his devotion to the Light, rather than "I am not half anything" or "my dragons"?

Lor'themar got retroactively made to look old during TBC too! He used to look younger!









Overall kinda lame, but it is cool seeing monsters from the game like Voidwalkers depicted in a more realistic artstyle and presented as being terrifying.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This pre patch event sucked. The rewards were trash, the story nonsense.

whoa… so it was exactly like the 8 expansions before it…

The War of Thorns was fantastic. It added two full zone length questlines. One of the few times that this game has felt like WARcraft in which you got to participate in a pivotal war battle.

As Horde, I got to get called up for an army march that was supposed to turn left at the intersection and go to Silithus, but instead unexpectedly turned right. We committed perfidy, crossing over into Night Elf territory. Then I was sent to massacre a Night Elf village in Ashenvale. Then we hit Darkshore proper and there was a huge battle with hundreds of orcs and elves fighting and giant treants lobbing boulders across a ravine at our catapults, and then finally we wiped out the Night Elf settlements on the Northwestern coast. And we did it. We did what has never before been done in any other MMO (and what few story RPGs do either). We destroyed the enemy faction's capital city and wiped out 90% of the Night Elf civilization.

On the Alliance side, the "A Flicker of Hope" quest at the end was one of the most memorable experiences I have had in games. Fire was spreading throughout Darnassus. I had 3 minutes to save 960 people. I was grabbing buckets of water to throw at patches of fire so people could escape their homes. Running around telling people to go to the portal. Etc. When I noticed that the timer was halfway finished and I only had 90 seconds left, I realized that I had only saved 30 people. That's when you start getting that sinking feeling in your heart. By the end, I had saved 60 people before there was too much heat and the PC had to retreat through the portal, and everybody else died. Up until that point, I had mostly mained Horde, but that quest made me really motivated to go through the BFA story Alliance. Unfortunately, the BFA levelling questlines sucked as it was not more war content like the War of Thorns, but instead you are running around two new random islands doing sidequest chores.

The couple weeks of big war mode battles at the crates in Darkshore were also fun. Too bad war mode died shortly after.

[rusty_shackleford]

This pre patch event sucked. The rewards were trash, the story nonsense.

whoa… so it was exactly like the 8 expansions before it…

The War of Thorns was fantastic. It added two full zone length questlines. One of the few times that this game has felt like WARcraft in which you got to participate in a pivotal war battle.

As Horde, I got to get called up for an army march that was supposed to turn left at the intersection and go to Silithus, but instead unexpectedly turned right. We committed perfidy, crossing over into Night Elf territory. Then I was sent to massacre a Night Elf village in Ashenvale. Then we hit Darkshore proper and there was a huge battle with hundreds of orcs and elves fighting and giant treants lobbing boulders across a ravine at our catapults, and then finally we wiped out the Night Elf settlements on the Northwestern coast. And we did it. We did what has never before been done in any other MMO (and what few story RPGs do either). We destroyed the enemy faction's capital city and wiped out 90% of the Night Elf civilization.

On the Alliance side, the "A Flicker of Hope" quest at the end was one of the most memorable experiences I have had in games. Fire was spreading throughout Darnassus. I had 3 minutes to save 960 people. I was grabbing buckets of water to throw at patches of fire so people could escape their homes. Running around telling people to go to the portal. Etc. When I noticed that the timer was halfway finished and I only had 90 seconds left, I realized that I had only saved 30 people. That's when you start getting that sinking feeling in your heart. By the end, I had saved 60 people before there was too much heat and the PC had to retreat through the portal, and everybody else died. Up until that point, I had mostly mained Horde, but that quest made me really motivated to go through the BFA story Alliance. Unfortunately, the BFA levelling questlines sucked as it was not more war content like the War of Thorns, but instead you are running around two new random islands doing sidequest chores.

The couple weeks of big war mode battles at the crates in Darkshore were also fun. Too bad war mode died shortly after.

It was joyslop, you were tricked into enjoying it.

[Finarfin]

******* hate this homosexual trend of adding slop to every ******* word. We'll probably get to a point where ******* will say slopslop

[Finarfin]

Also umbric will 100000000000% become evil and kill rommath

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Also umbric will 100000000000% become evil and kill rommath

Depends on whether or not Blizzard will commit to this vision of the future or if it was a whatever scene that they wrote for rule of cool with no actual intention to deliver on. WoW has a terrible track record for following through on visions of the future. In Hellfire Citadel, Kilrogg shows you a vision of your death where you and Khadgar are being overrun by the Legion in the Undercity and blow yourselves up. That never happened in Legion. And then there was the Son of the Wolf comic that showed us old Anduin leading the Army of the Light to the final battle alongside Velen. Which never was paid off on. The Illgynoth whispers that Bellular kept theorizing about for 5 years never went anywhere either. "Five candles to light our path" and "the false king is a pawn" and all that.

We start off with a cool Xenoblade Chronicles-esque vision of the future to hype up Midnight. Hopefully like with Xenoblade, these scenes will actually happen? Will we get Endwalker-esque scenes of civilians in the streets being horrifically massacred by abominations?

[rusty_shackleford]

******* hate this homosexual trend of adding slop to every ******* word. We'll probably get to a point where ******* will say slopslop

This is just hateslop

[Finarfin]

******* hate this homosexual trend of adding slop to every ******* word. We'll probably get to a point where ******* will say slopslop

This is just hateslop

And this is just Rustyslop

[Maledict]

So many ******* girl bosses and female OCs in these questlines. No clue how you stomach all of this slop Val. I quit in Catacylsm after the Goblin Hitler and other nonsense finally pervaded whatever was left of the original games sovl. Blizzard is the singular greatest example of the feminisation of game developers and society at large. As soon as they started smashing down estrogen shots while having another coworker grope party, it was over.

Val malds when I speak of the woke in Guild Wars 2. Val is the Woke Slop Aficionado

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Well we are in the final hours of The War Within. I did the Outland dragon racing cup, cleaned up my quest log and my bags, and then did the Pandaren heritage questline.

It was... okay in the moment. Overall pleasant, and had some neat points. But the more I think about it, the more I am disappointed.

First, Li Li has finally grown up, after she was introduced 14 years ago. That's neat.

On the other hand... well. You get to see Aysa and Ji again (your friends from the Pandaren starting zone way back when) and go back to the turtle together. At the festival party, Ji flirts with Aysa. Annnnd that's it. Really? After 12 in universe years since MoP, these two STILL have not matriculated their romance subplot? What? So only Li Li escaped the status quo.




What is also disappointing is that Ji and Aysa, and by extension, the rest of the Wandering Isle Pandaren, have absolutely zero questions or interest in what happened to their friend, the Pandaren PC who left the isle all those years ago to go fight for the Horde or the Alliance. No interest in a 12 year retrospective by the Pandaren PC on the wider world or which side the Wandering Isle Pandaren should align with. No stories to be told about visiting alternate timeline Draenor, Argus, fighting the Legion, fighting a world war, going to the Shadowlands, etc. What's even worse is that I played this as a Pandaren Death Knight. Canonically, Pandaren DKs were Horde/Alliance warriors who died in the BFA war, and were then dug up and revive by Bolvar for the war against the Jailer. But Ji and Aysa don't seem to care that their friend died and became undead.

We get no exploration whatsoever of what is happening to the Tushui or Huojin Pandaren communities in Stormwind and Orgrimmar. Hearthstone had Pandaren Chinatowns popping up across Azeroth, but no such thing is insinuated to be happening in the actual WoW game. Also, Ji and Aysa were the leaders of their factions, and then at the end of Legion got promoted to being ambassadors towards the allied races and even sat in the Embassy next to the Warchief/High King. But now they appear to be just ordinary civilians now with nothing else going on.

So overall it's just a MoP memberberries questline.

The one neat thing is that the Wandering Isle is now permanently accessible to any race/class. You just have to go to Stormwind/Orgrimmar and click on the hot air balloon to go to there. And you can fly now too.