World of Warcraft: Retail, Classic and Private

[Oyster Sauce]

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Not sure how real this spoiler is but i find it in line what the writing team has done in the last years

OK you can't have night elves and nightborne elves

[mynameismortis]

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Not sure how real this spoiler is but i find it in line what the writing team has done in the last years

OK you can't have night elves and nightborne elves

They were made so the horde can have another elf race to their side and the void elfs = alliance.

[Reichspepe]

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Not sure how real this spoiler is but i find it in line what the writing team has done in the last years

This is so ******* feminized and gay. Jesus Christ

I would 100 % believe it.

[Reichspepe]

Reminder that the hag in charge of WoW and apparently Chris Metzen the **** himself said how they regret calling it World of WARcraft because it's too intimidating and making the wrong impression for what they want to go with

[mynameismortis]

Reminder that the hag in charge of WoW and apparently Chris Metzen the **** himself said how they regret calling it World of WARcraft because it's too intimidating and making the wrong impression for what they want to go with

That ***** was also in charge of EQ1 btw not sure what kind of internal rep she has but it must be really strong to get into blizzard high places

[Reichspepe]

Reminder that the hag in charge of WoW and apparently Chris Metzen the **** himself said how they regret calling it World of WARcraft because it's too intimidating and making the wrong impression for what they want to go with

That ***** was also in charge of EQ1 btw not sure what kind of internal rep she has but it must be really strong to get into blizzard high places

Gives me very similar vibes to Kathleen Kennedy, though not as horrible (yet).

[mynameismortis]

Reminder that the hag in charge of WoW and apparently Chris Metzen the **** himself said how they regret calling it World of WARcraft because it's too intimidating and making the wrong impression for what they want to go with

That ***** was also in charge of EQ1 btw not sure what kind of internal rep she has but it must be really strong to get into blizzard high places

Gives me very similar vibes to Kathleen Kennedy, though not as horrible (yet).

I hope the flop from the last titan is big enough that she is forced to leave

[J1M]

Haranir

they're literally just fat nightelves lmao

my sides are in orbit

They haven't made a new animation rig in a decade or more. Probably a lost skill at this point.

[mynameismortis]

► Show Spoiler

Its true

[J1M]

The evoker rainbow spell particles were just the beginning!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Apparently the level cap campaign has been timegated and will unlock next week with the raid. So I have started work on my second home, a castle.

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This is the most fun I have had with the expansion. I've wasted many hours working on my Tauren yurt and then this castle. It also made me go flat broke too buying huge quantities of 50 to 150 gold basic decorations from the NPC vendors in the housing zones. Drapes, walls, pillars, beams, trellis, stone, dyes, etc. And that's with the vendor decor items being a fraction of the cost of the auction house decor, which start at 3,000 gold for the cheapest items and then quickly escalate from there. So I ran out of money and had to start using undyed temp stand-in pieces.

Now I am frustrated. During Dragonflight, I was being showered in gold just doing things I found to be fun. I would get 1,200+ gold just for during a dragonriding race. So I thought that I'd do more of that to get the gold I need. Well it turns out that Blizzard has nerfed prior expansion world quest rewards into the ground. You now get a measly 120 gold for completing one.




And I have already exhausted all of the currently available Midnight world quests, which only gave 600 gold each. Worse, Dragonriding races in Midnight are gone. Apparently the dev who made them left the company. There weren't any dragonriding races in K'aresh either. Guess I have to go grind boar livers for 120 gold per WQ...

Overall I would say that housing has been fantastic. Very easy to use tools with the convenient handles and sliders from Spore. And, again, the music is very pleasant too. My only complaint would be the gold economy making it difficult to enjoy the feature.

---

I unlocked the other new feature in Midnight: Prey hunts.

First, I wish I had spent this expansion adventuring with Astalor instead of Arator. Astalor is way cooler. This guy is the only true Blood Elf in this entire expansion. He's not your friend. He is not a hero. He wants to rip anguish out of the souls of anyone he thinks he can get away with, including other Magisters. He gives no hoots. It's nice to have something like Wrathion from MoP again where you get to work for a dubious guy. Unlike Wrathion this guy seems to have absolutely no loyalty or friendships and would likely rip the anguish if you got on the public enemy list. His voice actor, Jason Marnocha, does a great job. Awesome characters like these need to be who you spend the main campaign adventuring with, not failadins who want to lay down their arms to save the enemy.




It's a shame that the Prey targets are unvoiced, though. From the quest description and Astalor's remarks about them, they sound like neat villains.




As for the Prey feature itself, I undertook the initial set of hunts at level 89 as a Frost Death Knight. So I didn't have the last Apex talent yet, and ofcourse I was undergeared. By themselves, they are straight forward enough to solo. Not a problem. My stress came from when I was doing world quests in an area with elites like the Twilight's Blade base in Eversong. The elite mobs for the WQ are too HP spongey to burst down fast, and then you are fighting for your life trying to survive. And then the Prey target ambushes you. In some cases, I was able to use my CCs and cooldowns and finish off the adds just in time and then make a recovery with Death Strike to heal back up while dueling the Prey Target. Other times I had to flee from the elites and death grip the Prey target to me and solo him alone. It felt pretty neat when other players doing the elite area world quests would come to help me.




I never died, and didn't have any close calls outside of when I was in those elite areas. I suspect that once I reach 90 and get geared to do the raid that the Prey will become a nothingburger even while in the elite areas. But again, I was playing a DK with strong survival capability with Death Strike. I wonder how hard the hard and nightmare difficulties will be. I wonder if other classes might be in for a rough time.

[Rienen]

My stress came from when I was doing world quests in an area with elites like the Twilight's Blade base in Eversong. The elite mobs for the WQ are too HP spongey to burst down fast, and then you are fighting for your life trying to survive. And then the Prey target ambushes you.

Reading this made it sound like Blizzard programmed this PvE mob to act like a PvPer/ganker. Gave me a good laugh.

[Norfleet]

Reading this made it sound like Blizzard programmed this PvE mob to act like a PvPer/ganker. Gave me a good laugh.

Honestly, games would be better if the mobs behaved and fought like player entities rather than just being giant anemic hitpoint bricks.

[J1M]

Placing rings in the sky is a skill nobody else could figure out? Generational transfer is a world (of warcraft)-ending threat.

[mynameismortis]

@Val the Moofia Boss not sure where to ask you but with this whole paladin becoming evil in wow etc made me think something about paladins. Do you know any mmorpg or a game that you can paladins really as the good guys?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

@Val the Moofia Boss not sure where to ask you but with this whole paladin becoming evil in wow etc made me think something about paladins. Do you know any mmorpg or a game that you can paladins really as the good guys?

There are lots of other games with "paladin" looking characters. But I am hard pressed to think of any that had an actual emphasis on the holy part. Early Warcraft is sadly unique in this regard.




If you play a GW2 Guardian, a ESO Templar, a FF14 paladin, etc, nothing ever happens like the TBC Return to Durnhole dungeon where the characters witness the Silver Hand discovering the Ashbringer. Or reading the early Warcraft novels where Turalyon receive a vision from angel Naaru. Or the Crusader Bridenbrad where you are commanded by A'dal to walk in the Light. Or characters constantly talking about the Light. Or being called to join the Argent Crusade and bring Arthas to account. Etc. You just get the same secular story experience as playing any other class, except you get some yellow colored spell effects.

The only other good looking fantasy RPG I can think of in which the not-Catholic Church has a positive portrayal and story relevance is the Trails series. That setting is monotheistic with Aidios as the only religion. The Septian Church has an order of 13 knights called Gralsritter who have received superpowers that are said to be from the goddess. Six Gralsritter have been playable party members across the 13 games so far. Across 13 games, the Septian Church have always been a force of good in the setting and have never, ever been insinuated to be evil/corrupt/misguided/mistaken/etc. But there is not an emphasis on being a holy crusader like in WoW like in WoW.

[Norfleet]

The only other good looking fantasy RPG I can think of in which the not-Catholic Church has a positive portrayal and story relevance is the Trails series.

In most fantasy RPGs, the Church is typically portrayed as a positive or neutral institution which the player is expected to align with, particularly when tied to a class, although negative portrayals are not uncommon.

BUt you wanna know where it's really rare? In NON-fantasy games. I don't think I've seen any game set in the post-industrialization where religion is portrayed as a generally positive influence that the player would wish to align with and promote. Usually there will be some whackadoo religious faction that serves to oppose the player and function as a source of orcs.

[Tangerine]

The only other good looking fantasy RPG I can think of in which the not-Catholic Church has a positive portrayal and story relevance is the Trails series.

In most fantasy RPGs, the Church is typically portrayed as a positive or neutral institution which the player is expected to align with, particularly when tied to a class, although negative portrayals are not uncommon.

BUt you wanna know where it's really rare? In NON-fantasy games. I don't think I've seen any game set in the post-industrialization where religion is portrayed as a generally positive influence that the player would wish to align with and promote. Usually there will be some whackadoo religious faction that serves to oppose the player and function as a source of orcs.

For fantasy, he meant JRPGs without saying JRPGs.

[Norfleet]

For fantasy, he meant JRPGs without saying JRPGs.

Filthy weeb.

[buttfucker 3000]

pinktax.PNG

[mynameismortis]

Im 100% sure this is a furry/******

[Norfleet]

Imagine buying something just because it's marketed to you, instead of balking specifically because they're trying to take your money.

[mercerxiv]

Man, peeking into this thread is like peeking into coprophilia observation study... It's disgusting, but curious how the participants are oddly drawn to it and sustain continued interest with the, well, excrement.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I began working on the Midnight sidequestlines, and wound up dinging level 90.


I find a line of paladins who want to get tailored. This is a little confusing, because the main story only presents there having been about ~50 people max who got teleported to the Sunwell. You run over the dead bodies of about a dozen paladins during the Sunwell intro questline. A dozen paladins stay inside the central building on Quel'danas to channel into the Sunwell (Velen, Anduin, Faerin, etc). Turalyon is the only paladin we always see outside of the Sunwell, standing in the Sanctum of Light. And there are a couple moments in the story where we see about a dozen more paladins in Silvermoon (when you first go to the Sanctum of Light and the Arathi captain is standing out front with some paladins. And then when Magister Umbric is captured, we see about half a dozen paladins there).

Here, it seems like over a dozen more paladins just manifested out of thin air, and then disappeared after that.



It is interesting that the questline is about repairing yet another magic cloak. WoW seems to have a thing for magic cloaks.

• First with MoP culminating not in you forging a legendary weapon, but in working with Wrathion to make the legendary cloaks imbued with the power of the August Celestials. The cloaks also gave you the exclusive ability to cross the broken to the Ordon Sanctuary.
• Then BFA once again culminated in you working with Wrathion to make artifact cloaks, which would allow you to resist old god corruption and enter Ny'alotha.
• Then we had MoP remix where Eternus uses Bronze magicks to make new cloaks based off of the MoP legendary cloaks.
• Then we had the K'aresh storyline, which was about getting Reshii ribbons from the Ethereals so Xal'atath could weave for you a cloak that would allow you to resist void corruption and approach Dimensius.

And now we have this questline, where Gaari's cloak is imbued with the memories of its previous wearers, passed down from person to person.




It's just interesting. Legendary cloaks is what WoW does as an alternative to weapons. Not helmets, rings, belts, amulets, etc. I can't think of any other fantasy property with an emphasis on magic cloaks like WoW.


I did the Void Elf demon hunter unlock questline. A Demon Hunter named Adarus admires' Illidans thirst for power, and wants to explore new frontiers of power acquisition. So he works with one of Umbric's apprentices trying to find if this Void stuff is worth exploring. He winds up successfully acquiring void magicks, though we had to kick him through a portal to prevent the cave from collapsing. So maybe he will come back as a future dungeon boss. The rest of the Illidari apparently think that playing around with void magicks that whisper and try to corrupt you sounds like a good idea.





It is odd that there is nothing you can say to this guy. The great saviour of Azeroth - the one who started out as a nobody in a starter zone just like him, and then went on and saved the world 20x over from the Scourge, intergalactic demon legions, resurrected Mogu emperors, the genocidal Horde, cultists who want to make everyone explodes into purple tentacles, world ending dragons who want everyone to burn, etc. Is standing right here in front of him. This guy might not have even been born yet if your character began his adventure in Vanilla. So you fought, and many of your comrades like Taylor and Nazgrim died so that he could live and be here right now. That right there would be motivational.




The evil warlock quest was neat. It was neat travelling from magical platform to platform, and seeing the magical wards inside the offices of the Magisters.

An issue with the new Silvermoon is the new Murder Row, which is huge and takes up about 20% to 25% of the city, with several dozen homeless elves. In the story, you find that Magisters like to pay the homeless elves a few gold coins (apparently 5 gold pieces can sustain you for several months) to do their dirty work, like planting incriminating documents on rivals to get them ousted from positions within the Magister hierarchy. Apparently people in Murder Row being abducted and experimented upon and then killed is a regular occurrence and the Magisters pay to hush it up.




It gives the impression that Silvermoon has a severe poverty and crime problem, the most severe of any city in the setting. It also makes Lor'themar look like a bad ruler. Which is at odds with how the narrative and aesthetic intent presents Silvermoon as one of the best cities in the world, only rivalled by Dalaran, Suramar, and Valdrakken. Silvermoon is clearly supposed to be better than Stormwind/Ironforge/Boralus/etc. Murder row in TBC was nowhere near as big (and the layout of TBC Silvermoon gave the impression that the city was much bigger than the playable area, so Murder Row would have been a much smaller percentage of the city), and it also made more sense as TBC took place in the immediate aftermath of the Scourge just a few years before. Whereas this Silvermoon is supposed to exist over two decades later. Seeing dozens of thousand+ year old elves slumming on the street needing 5 gold coins to get food for several months is bonkers. Stormwind/Ironforge/Boralus/etc aren't that bad.

[LemonDemonGirl]

It gives the impression that Silvermoon has a severe poverty and crime problem, the most severe of any city in the setting. It also makes Lor'themar look like a bad ruler. Which is at odds with how the narrative and aesthetic intent presents Silvermoon as one of the best cities in the world, only rivalled by Dalaran, Suramar, and Valdrakken. Silvermoon is clearly supposed to be better than Stormwind/Ironforge/Boralus/etc. Murder row in TBC was nowhere near as big (and the layout of TBC Silvermoon gave the impression that the city was much bigger than the playable area, so Murder Row would have been a much smaller percentage of the city), and it also made more sense as TBC took place in the immediate aftermath of the Scourge just a few years before. Whereas this Silvermoon is supposed to exist over two decades later. Seeing dozens of thousand+ year old elves slumming on the street needing 5 gold coins to get food for several months is bonkers. Stormwind/Ironforge/Boralus/etc aren't that bad.

Dazar'alor is FILLED with homeless Casteless Zandalari

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It gives the impression that Silvermoon has a severe poverty and crime problem, the most severe of any city in the setting. It also makes Lor'themar look like a bad ruler. Which is at odds with how the narrative and aesthetic intent presents Silvermoon as one of the best cities in the world, only rivalled by Dalaran, Suramar, and Valdrakken. Silvermoon is clearly supposed to be better than Stormwind/Ironforge/Boralus/etc. Murder row in TBC was nowhere near as big (and the layout of TBC Silvermoon gave the impression that the city was much bigger than the playable area, so Murder Row would have been a much smaller percentage of the city), and it also made more sense as TBC took place in the immediate aftermath of the Scourge just a few years before. Whereas this Silvermoon is supposed to exist over two decades later. Seeing dozens of thousand+ year old elves slumming on the street needing 5 gold coins to get food for several months is bonkers. Stormwind/Ironforge/Boralus/etc aren't that bad.

Dazar'alor is FILLED with homeless Casteless Zandalari

I never finished the BFA levelling questlines. When BFA launched, I did Vol'dun on my Orc DK and then lost interest by the snake temple. Then I switched to my Worgen druid and finished Drustvar and lost interest in doing the other levelling questlines. Then I spammed island expeditions to reach 120, did an Uldir normal PUG, and then found out that because I didn't do the levelling campaign, I couldn't do worldquests. So I wound up unsubbing and jumped ship to FF14. I didn't come back until Shadowlands and Dragonflight. I remember coming back to Dazar'Alor to take some screenshots, but I do not recall seeing a large ghetto. The residential area outside of the pyramid seemed fine.

[mynameismortis]

I find a line of paladins who want to get tailored. This is a little confusing, because the main story only presents there having been about ~50 people max who got teleported to the Sunwell. You run over the dead bodies of about a dozen paladins during the Sunwell intro questline. A dozen paladins stay inside the central building on Quel'danas to channel into the Sunwell (Velen, Anduin, Faerin, etc). Turalyon is the only paladin we always see outside of the Sunwell, standing in the Sanctum of Light. And there are a couple moments in the story where we see about a dozen more paladins in Silvermoon (when you first go to the Sanctum of Light and the Arathi captain is standing out front with some paladins. And then when Magister Umbric is captured, we see about half a dozen paladins there).

Here, it seems like over a dozen more paladins just manifested out of thin air, and then disappeared after that.

Aren't mmorpgs in general inconsistent with npc numbers? Like the game world is made really small but in lore it says there are hundreds of thousands of npcs.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I find a line of paladins who want to get tailored. This is a little confusing, because the main story only presents there having been about ~50 people max who got teleported to the Sunwell. You run over the dead bodies of about a dozen paladins during the Sunwell intro questline. A dozen paladins stay inside the central building on Quel'danas to channel into the Sunwell (Velen, Anduin, Faerin, etc). Turalyon is the only paladin we always see outside of the Sunwell, standing in the Sanctum of Light. And there are a couple moments in the story where we see about a dozen more paladins in Silvermoon (when you first go to the Sanctum of Light and the Arathi captain is standing out front with some paladins. And then when Magister Umbric is captured, we see about half a dozen paladins there).

Here, it seems like over a dozen more paladins just manifested out of thin air, and then disappeared after that.

Aren't mmorpgs in general inconsistent with npc numbers? Like the game world is made really small but in lore it says there are hundreds of thousands of npcs.

No. When WoW wants to make it clear that there are supposed to be A LOT of soldiers, they depict it onscreen. There are hundreds of NPCs on screen during the War of Thorns, the Warfronts, the Battle of Ardenweald, the war against Fyrakk, the huge horde of Nerubians invading Hallowfall, etc. Or the huge numbers of Void creatures overrunning Quel'danas at the end of the Midnight intro questline.

For WoD and Shadowlands, the story was very clear that you went through the portal on a suicide mission with only a few dozen other volunteers. There is no vast offscreen army that is supposed to have gone with you, so you have to source additional allies from the local Draenei or the Covenants.

Midnight is similar in that you and a few dozen paladins get teleported by the Light to the Sunwell as it is being attacked, and then quickly become outnumbered and have to hole up inside the building. You and Arator are the only people who Turalyon can spare to go check out the surrounding areas. A large army of Lightforged Draenei beam in at the end of the Voidstorm storyline, so presumably they were from Stormwind abd took until the end of the levelling quedtline to reach Quel'thelas.

Logistics has been a major plot point in three expansions. In MoP's levelling questline, it would rake months to organize the navies to invade Pandaria, so you are sent on advance team to scout it. The armies do not srrive until 5.1.

BFA's levelling questline is that both factions need large navies ASAP, so you are sent to Zandalar abd Kul'tiras to recruit them before you get back to the war in the patch story.

At the start of TWW's levelling questline, Dalaran teleports to Khaz Algar and is then blown up and the survivors captured by Nerubians. Thrall and Jaina leave to go organize the Horde and Alliance militaries, and thet do not arrive until the level cap questline. One of the Red Dawn's list of grievances is that Arathor is having to supply the Alliance army in Khaz Algar.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The upcoming Monk set looks cool.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I opened LFG and found a raid group that was touring through people's houses and letting people buy from each other's endeavor vendors. The first house we visited was already pretty crazy.

► Show Spoiler

Apparently you can break out of rooms by placing clipping a chair through the wall. Then you click on the chair to get teleported into it, then press space bar to jump up out of it, and volia. You can get outside of the rooms.








All of this stuff is placed out of bounds over the evening room.










He used the chair trick to allow us to get into the space between rooms and walk on invisible ceilings, and again he was able to place decor there.










He also had a lot of motorbikes.

Some other builds I visited

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This one had a neat theater, like something you would find the Blue Men playing at in Las Vegas or something.




Neat floral exterior using the new $2.50 cash shop cherry blossom trees.




I think this person was using the mirrors to try to simulate Ethereal energy pipes.




Using the daylight room, a cave that opened up into a beach cove with a ship.








Plushie in the guillotine




It's not well conveyed in this static image, but the window here is animated with purple rain in the back using an upside down Netherlight Conclave Voidwell.




This guy placed gryphons and wyverns perched on top of the skylights.




This person used the holographic Prey busts to simulate NPCs, with their missing lower halfs hidden behind a counter.






Same build also had a neat cracked open window in the attic with a view of an autumnal forest.






I think this is a marijuana store?




Hookah den




Poker table




Chair positioned inside the mouth of the dragon head to make it appear that the blood elf was eaten when sitting inside.




Neat carved kitchen countertop.




Another neat looking window.




Another neat kitchen.




Scrolls used to simulate place-settings at the dinner table.




Sound system




A gym