Upcoming Mount Changes, Algalon Loot, Blue posts

[aiyah03]

Honestly, what's everyone complaining about? Have any of you QQ'ers played through Classic content recently? I recently decided to level a new alt (and yes, I did play WOW back in the days of Vanilla), and anyone who has done the same recently should know that Classic content is DEAD.

If you don't believe me, try leveling an alt by the means that all the old timers used to level through Classic. It takes hours to get a party to run a Vanilla instance. A 60% increase in travel speed to offset the 1000% increased time spent in trying to organize players to do group quests and run dungeons? Seems like a pretty fair trade-off to me. New players are in NO WAY advantaged these days.

The fact that newbies are no longer getting the full experience of Classic is NOT due to the fact that Blizzard is implementing changes to help decrease things like travel time; it is simply due to the reason that WOW, like any other good product, has been out for awhile now and has reached a point where it has saturated its' market for new subscribers. At this point in time, it is critical that if Blizzard wants WOW to continue to succeed as a product, it has to focus its efforts on the installed base and quite honestly, it's existing base of subscribers is a community that is completely dedicated to end game content. In that sense, they need to make these changes, so when they do get new subscribers it helps to get those players to a point where they can play with the rest of the community. Remember that WOW after all succeeds because it is an MMO-RPG. Quite honestly, Classic content is no longer MMO as there is no one to play with. It is primarily solo play which no consumer would be willing to pay a monthly recurring subscription for.

To those that say the way WOW is going is affecting the "skill" of new players; I would have to say I disagree. If anything, leveling through Classic content these days is a daunting task that forces the player to know their character better. The fact that it is near impossible finding a 5 man group these days, means that a fair amount of runs through those instances are done in 4-man groups, which increases the difficulty of the dungeon. Also, it's pretty hard finding people to party for group quests, so you end up having to solo all of them...again more difficult. The people that are actually decreasing in skill, are those that are leveling alts and having high level guildies power level them through instances and the such. They are not necessarily newbies.

And for everyone that's saying its' unfair because there is no recognition of having to have worked for all that same stuff back in the days, whereas in today's WOW it seems that a lot of these things are just "given" to the player...well your reward is that you actually had the opportunity to play through the golden ages of WOW. You got to experience Vanilla content the way it was MEANT to be experienced, you got to down Onyxia, BWL, MC, AQ40 etc... in epic 40 man grps. New players simply don't have a chance to even get to experience that anymore even if they seriously wanted to. The best they'll get now is a 5 man run through those same raids with them and 4 other lvl 80 DK's all specced unholy.

[Zarzuur]

As someone who has gone through to lvl 75+ over 10 times now, the real problem is that WoW is not an alt-friendly game anyway. These changes are really for new players, who won't know what the old system was like, because they haven't even played yet.

No, the real problem is that once you have done 1-to-80, the only way to try out different parts of the game (beyond roles and talent specs) is to roll a new class and do it _all_ again: since classes and races are fixed. And then there is no benefit to having multiple alts since they made classes more similar, put achievements for single chars, and nerfed professions in Wrath.

WoW is great, it solved the level grind problem by using quests and made many improvements, but now I'm really waiting for a next-gen MMO to solve the issue of repeated play over 1 year.

[vonstein]

as much as i miss prebc i love that there making lvling easier espically because im working on my 3rd toon(yea only my third) although 3.2 is prolly gonna be out after my rogue hits 80 >.<...and hurray for no more 60% speed for 900g

[Shimnen]

what faction do i need reputation with in order to get my artisan riding skill for a more favourable price?

[Pwonatizer]

This is fine for new levelers, but I don't like it because everyone else had to spent a lot more time and a lot more money to get these mounts. If levelers aren't stupid with their money, they berly have to work to get the mounts (except for epic flying $). Anyway, I'm sure a large population of level 80s or long time players feel this way.

[Romeothecat]

5 gold for the normal mount...so does that mean I'll get back 95 gold from when it was 100g...or another couple hundred gold from the money I spent on epic mounts?...no?
Your making this game too easy I walked around eastern Kingdoms and kalimdor until level 40 new players can too.

[BoazPeleg]

Right, it took me a while but I somehow managed to read the whole thread and I've decided to register and contribute.

First off, so you know where I am standing here - I got 10 characters, 9 of them level 80, all of them got epic flying. One of them is level 75 at the moment of writing this. 7 of them have Northrend loremaster. One of them has loremaster of all continents. 1 of them is five group quests away from Northrend loremaster, another just needs to finish Icecrown. The level 75 has all 8 zones still wide open.

Most of my most recent characters didn't go to Northrend as soon as they were 70, but stayed in Outland to complete all quests in all seven zones that can be done solo. This means they start in Northrend at level 75, and end up being 80 with only doing Dragonblight, Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord.

So yeah, I'm pretty much a serious altoholic.



When I did loremaster of ALL of Azeroth, Outland and Northrend - I read the text of each and every quest.

Whenever I did a quest for the first or second time, or it's been a while and I forgot on any of my characters - I read the text.

To the person who said the new changes are "stealing content" I say to you that if you don't read quest text, or decide to skip quests or an area - it's entirely your decision and your responsibilty. The content is there if you want to do it, and making it easier for you to skip it doesn't take it away from you. Some group and dungeon quests will not be doable, though you could return when you are 80 and geared to do them if you want. It's all still there if you really want to do the content JUST FOR FUN.

I personally at a certain point decided to use a questing guide (Jame's stuff on wow-pro.com btw, highly recommend it) after having already done all the content at least once. All it did was give me the optimal route to perform my quests in the most orderly and quick fashion to minimize travel time. I know all the quests anyway and what to do. The travel time is boring once you know every nook and cranny in Azeroth, and I was glad for it. And guess what - since I didn't have to worry about knowing where to go next, and I could predict how much time it took me to finish a zone, I felt more relaxed and ready to read the quest text. Yes, I could still emerse myself in the content if I wanted to even though I was using a guide.

The fact is, if you want to read the quest text, and if you want to do all the quests - 90 percent of the content you can do it and no one is stopping you but you.

In fact, keeping my toons in Outland until level 75 paid off great in realms where I had money problems, since I had 5 zones of northrend left to do at 80, rather than 3. That translated into 3-5k more money from quests. since I also did 3-4 more Outland zones than others do. Because I was higher level than the area I was in, I didn't get held back by dying a lot and I could often solo group quests. Most of the xp at higher levels is from quest xp, not kill xp, and these give the same amount of xp for many levels after they are green. Even when the xp is reduced, as long as it's green it's still good xp especially with BoA shoulders.

By the way, this makes epic flying at 70 anything but useless, since you can use your epic flying in Outland all the way and then you only need to bare two levels in Northrend without epic flying.

But that's besides the point. It's hard to convince people that questing is fun (especially if you hear your own music collection while doing it once you've grinded the in-game music enough) and that it's nicer if you actually read the text, and that it's profitable to stay in Outland as long as possible. People widely regard questing as a chore and want to get out of it ASAP. People skip through whole parts of Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra, and instead of finishing the lower level 70s quests which are better for xp than money, they just switch zones as soon as they meet the minimum level requirement. Is the zone design to blame? No! It was designed that way so that if you finished the low level areas first then by the time you were 80 you would have lots of quests to get cash from to buy your epic flying, gear - whatever you might need.

I never do dailys for money and try to minimize the amount of time I'm playing the AH. The one time quests give me more than enough money provided I don't skip content in Outland and Nortrend and do them in the proper order. I only do dailys for reputations that my characters need. I would argue that the time others spend doing dailys from being short sighted and zipping to 80 would be better spent completing zones at the appropriate level. You would make that money faster and you wouldn't be repeating the same quests as often. So to each his own, I know lots of people think doing dailys and playing the AH is more exciting and less time consuming, but I beg to differ and most people are too afraid to commit to serious zone grindage to find out. They are like OMG NO WAI I gotta move on to the next zone this is like SO BORING.

People skip content like that, leaving zones incomplete, doing Icecrown and Stormpeaks when they are level 77 and then end up with gray quests in Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra which they end up doing later anyway to get cash. But guess what, you lost cash - because those quests are worth less cash than the Icecrown ones but could have given you easy xp back before you were 80. Then they QQ OMFG it's like SO HRAD to get money for epic flying!

So in conclusion, if you skip content it's your fault. Not anyone else. The content is still there. You can still do it. No one is taking it away. They are just giving you a means to reduce downtime between quests, and yes you don't have to clear your way to the objective. You can just swoop down. But believe me, if you aim to finish all the quests in each zone you get a good grasp of the terrain even when you're flying. In fact, a better grasp because the lands of Outland and Northrend look stunning from high up above in my opinion more than they do on the ground.

It makes for faster paced leveling, much like it is in Northrend. In Northrend you have a big xp bar to fill but it gets filled fast because you complete more quests per hour than in Outland or Azeroth. This change in my opinion really just makes Azeroth and Outland more exciting like Northrend where you can complete more quests per hour and have less downtime travelling.

And yes, many quests, mostly Northrend ones, which I have completed over 6 times already very recently I don't read the quest text because I already know it by heart. Most people don't read it even once but it's their fault and has nothing to do with questing guides, mount nerfs, xp required to level nerfs, BoA gear being handed out and whatever. It's YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO QUEST THE WAY YOU PREFER, and if you zipped through not reading anything then IT'S YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM. Go back and read the quest text in wowhead, mmmkay?

So to conclude, even though I have leveled 10 alts and they all got their epic flying paid full price, I fully endorse and support this change. The game has gotten bigger, and it's logical to maintain a certain amount of time required to reach endgame. There are more levels now so it makes sense to make the old zones go faster so that overall the same amount of time is overall needed for a new character to reach endgame.

The only problem is now it tempts me to level alts for the four classes that I don't have yet when I was planning to call it quits with my current 10 characters. Eek!

GG Blizzard and to all you whiners, get over it.

[Malania]

I'm not so bothered about the change in mount levels, more in the prices. I assume my main and my alts who paid for riding when it was still a good 600-1000 gold will be getting a fucking refund?

[Max Rebo]

I'm not so bothered about the change in mount levels, more in the prices. I assume my main and my alts who paid for riding when it was still a good 600-1000 gold will be getting a fucking refund?

No. Things change. Get over it.

If you want to take advantage of changes that were meant for players who are leveling, then simply roll another toon.

[Barington]

WOOHOO CHEAP MOUNTS AFTER THIS PATCH HOW'S ABOUT WE DROP IT DOWN TO LEVEL 10 YOU CAN PUT A HARNESS ON MY BACK AND A BALLGAG IN MY MOUTH AND YOU CAN ALL RIDE ME ALL AROUND AZEROTH?