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.