WoD First Impressions

[Deleted]

First Impressions
I've started playing the WoD beta last night and want to put my impressions up as I play. I may end up streaming a bit over twitch but have not decided yet.

Disclaimer bit
These are my own personal impressions on the game. Nothing here is a targeted troll, etc, etc

New Character models
When I first logged in a spend a few minutes looking at the character models y playing with the toggle option I can see the different new and old models and the new ones looks a lot better. The questions I ask myself was "are they really all that different?". The short answers is No, and Orc is still an Orc, a Gnome is still a Gnome, etc.
After a few hours of playing I forgot the new ones where there and it still felt like I was playing WoW.
I have seen a lot of posts on the new faces and while I accept they could use some more work I didn't even notice the faces at all when playing (due tot he camera etc).

Performance
I'm using a GTX780 with up to date release drivers (not beta drivers) and I've set all the settings for graphics to Ultra. For the most part it runs Ok but there where a few places where frames would drop to about 30 (the areas where you first zone into Tannan Jungle for example). Most of the time the FPS was 60-80. Taking into account the beta is probably not fully optimised and there should be a driver release from nVidia when WoD is launches, but I'm thinking on a less powerful graphics card some PC's would really struggle.
Maybe I can get some feedback from others on this

Overall looks and feel / sound
It still looks and feels like I'm playing WoW. Sounds are a lot sharper and there are many times where I thought "oh thats a new sound". For example when I was questing a hunters Glaive Toss passed by my toon. The sound it made was very satisfying as it spun passed by.
Unfortunately the sound in general was a bit buggy. Some of the sounds levels where way off and clashing sounds where very sharp (like scrapping fingernails on a chalkboard). I ended up taking my headphones off as the sounds bugs where giving me a headache.

Questing
First impressions of this was a bit of a mixed bag.
The pros:
- There are not as many quests so your quest log doesn't feel like a glorified to-do list
- The zone in quest introduced in the Timeless Isle works well.
- The Champion mobs spans make questing feel worth while but only because there is no flying mounts. Finding a hidden one on a ground mount from exploring is somewhat satisfying. Flying mounts would trivialise this a bit which is bad.
- I never got bored questing because the quests where relevant to what is going on in the story and where I was going.
- The item squish - I didn't even notice it until I was 3 hours into playing

The cons
- Some of the quests could be clearer. There was several times where i wasn't sure if what i was doing was correct.
- Mob re span rate and placing. Some of the mobs are spread far apart with a lowish respan rate. For example the quest in Frostridge where you need to kill ice elementals for get 5 First shards (where the drop rate was 1/2). I can see on launch these quests will be a nightmare to do.
- The quest log is a little buggy because i was able to set the active quest.
- Zone phasing is a big problem. I was disconnect many times when flying in/out of a phased zone.

The Elemental Shaman
So I played a lot of Ele Shaman in Cata and BC and in WoD they played exactly the same. I was using a pre-made toon (a the EU character import is not working) and while the GCD did seems a little slow and I can see many spells removed form the spell book they played exactly the same.
I've nothing really positive or negative to say about them. Rotation was the same and the behaviour I adopt when playing didn't charge at all display the removal of casting when moving. Maybe the fact they are the same is a negative in itself? I'll revisit the Ele Shaman after I spend more time with other classes and get a better idea of power levels


Note that I'm not talking about Garrisons yet as I've only set it up and not spent must time in it.

Overall WoD is good, very good in fact. Yes there are a few issues where and three but there was nothing what made me want to stop playing.

[rda]

Thanks for the post, OP.

(Everyone seems to be an ele now... Just an observation. :-))

[Deleted]

Thanks for the post, OP.

(Everyone seems to be an ele now... Just an observation. :-))

Yes, ive noticed that as well in game too :-D. Although i didn't put in a lot of though into what i wanted to play.
What i really want to do is import my live toons and compare them between live and beta but the import tool isn't working for EU yet :-(

[Deleted]

Great post, although not too sure on your ele shaman opinion. On beta, my ele shamans damage seems ridiculously low...

[Deleted]

Great post, although not too sure on your ele shaman opinion. On beta, my ele shamans damage seems ridiculously low...

I may end up saying that and agreeing with you in a near future post but its my first beta toon so i haven't compared damage with anything else yet :-)

[Darknessvamp]

Nicely written post OP. I also got to test the beta for the first time yesterday as well but only did so for a short while as I was having some net issues and stopped just after the establishment of my plot for the Garrisons.

I'm interested in what you thought about the Tanaan intro sequence to WoD, ignoring the lack of environmental music, some of the obvious bugs such as the teleport back one and broken cinematics and the placeholder mobs and missing big finale. IMHO it felt weird. Really really weird. It seemed a bit out there for WoW with the Horde and Alliance fighting side by side in complete contrast to what the better part of the expansion suggests in addition to Khadgar and Thrall both acting like they were complete allies whilst we freed some big name characters like Drek'thar and Yrei from imprisonment. Add on how nearly all the Warlords make an appearance throughout the zone almost as if it were the title card for some show "introducing Gul'dan, etc.... and finally Blackhand, Blackrock Clan Warlord" in areas that seemed to be just dropped in to be thematic backdrops for their introduction and it seems out of tune with what the rest of expansion plans to offer. That and also Maraad saying that we are here to dominate Draenor for the Alliance by order of Varian when setting up the garrison seems really out of place but that might just be me. Also seeing Malkorok all around the first area of Tanaan as placeholders was humourous.

[Deleted]

(Putting my lore nerd hat on now)
"Khadgar and Thrall"
I had to think about this one for a bit and I've come to a conclusion i can accept. So we look at Thrall. He stepped down as Warchief of the Horde and became the leader of the Earthen Ring. At the end of MoP he did not become WarChief again so all we know for sure is he is still Earthen Ring and Earthen Ring are a natural fraction.
So we look at Khadgar, he was Alliance in Warcraft 2, in Outland for Warcraft 3 / Vanilla WoW and appears in BC working with the Naru. From there he sits on the Kin'Tor council which is once again a natural fraction......(kind of).
Everyone is associating them as Horde or Alliance but forgetting they are both natural fractions. Also we also don't know what happens on the Azeroth side of the Dark portal, for all we know the met, said "let just deal with this and not fight" and then we jump in at Tanaan Jungle.

In terms of the random Warlords showing up, them being there makes sense but they appears felt a little forced. Its like someone in Blizzard has a hat with their names in it and are pulling names out randomly. As for Yrel it was an nice introduction for her as i wasn't expecting to see her as a horde toon.

"dominate Draenor for the Alliance by order of Varian", yea this is odd. by the end of MoP and in war Crimes Varian is very much a piece maker. This would give justification to the existence of Ashran and Horde and Alliance fighting each other. But this is a bit confusion to me as well.

In terms of the zone itself it was ok/good, Keeping it mind its the start zone for lvl 90 boosted characters as well the moves very quickly, getting a base set of gear together, and you don't stay in one area for too much time.

[Poppincaps]

I think the biggest thing that people should know is that it is still WoW. I think there is this hope that everyone has before an expansion where they hope the expansion will reinvent WoW. If you think that, then you are going to be disappointed. From the dungeons I've done and the quests though, it definitely seems well done. Obviously we haven't gotten close to the full picture yet, but the game is looking great so far. Can't wait to test raids.

[Hyve]

Just a quick point;

New Character models
The questions I ask myself was "are they really all that different?". The short answers is No, and Orc is still an Orc, a Gnome is still a Gnome, etc.
After a few hours of playing I forgot the new ones where there and it still felt like I was playing WoW.

That's the intention. They want people to log and feel like their character has been updated, not changed. Some of the new animations look really clean and awesome, and the models I think are a nice addition. It feels like an excessive amount of work for something we rarely see, but in my opinion it needed to be done, and now that it is, Blizzard can relax knowing their models are set for another ~10 years.

I'd honestly hate to come on and find my Orc (If I had one) looked totally different, completely different stance, facial features, hair and design. Like I said, this isn't amount re-building the models, it's about updating them.

Big difference.