What's your impression of 9.2: Eternity's End?

[Letdown]

Disappointment through and through. Art is very uninspired, it's just a very generic patch that seems to be trying to sell Warcraft's worst story as its primary selling point. I have very little confidence the team that brought us conduits & soulbinds is going to deliver on engaging class sets, and the concept art is exponentially better than the in-game render for the tier sets to boot.

The creativity just isn't there. It's another forced daily zone with probably bog standard kill/fetch quests and likely an annoying mini-game or too that they'll hotfix into not being miserable a few weeks into it, class balance will be annihilated by tier & double legendaries, covenants are effectively being re-locked by the covenant legendaries which is hysterical to me... just low confidence for me for the team to execute a patch that is honestly just a bog standard WoW patch, despite the "water unlike anything we've ever seen before."

[ParanoiD84]

Desided to try it out and its just meh all around, zm just lacks creativity i mean is that all they could make with all the freedom and inspiration in the world and thats what they came up with?, their idea of a alien place is pretty much just floating stuff so much lost potential.

Another lame daily hub and the tier sets looks like their straight from Diablo.

Story is still garbage.

I guess the qol fixes is good.

Doubt i resub for timewalking later on i mean reused content that we will be able to do every 18 weeks.

Very very disappointed overall with this expansion.

[pahbi]

Tier sets are to late.

This is the last patch, so the tier set is useful until the next expansion and then you vendor it.

The only good thing about 9.2 is its the last of shadowlands, and hopefully the next expansion will be all the sooner.

[Cwimge]

Title. Just wanted to get an overall picture of how (ex-)players are feeling about the final patch of Shadowlands.

Trash. Another timesink island doubling down on the bullshit we've seen all expansion. I choose to believe the unsourced leaks claiming the rep/icon bullshit will take some six months of artificially delayed grind to deal with

[Ethas]

I think we as a playerbase need to stop to expect another Suramar. That zone was just so great, I don’t think Blizzard will ever be able to replicate it. It’s my favorite zone in the game.

Why stop? It was their team who created the masterpiece. They can do it again if they have enough resources. They should try to attain such art and not produce something as generic as Mortis something something which is very bleak and have spheres everywhere. They should also be called out for that if they changed key professional artists in the wake of wokeness if that is the reason for why mortis looks so bad.

[Th3Scourge]

I just really dislike the aesthetics and theme of colour palette primarily used in Zereth Mortis, Korthia, Oribos etc for all the "First One" zones. It all looks incredibly bland and not very Warcraft (saturated colours, cartoonish, fantasy)

And the tier sets are a fucking joke. They are the most generic sets since like what? Tier 2.5? Nothing about any of the sets are discernible from one another. All the cloth looks the same.

They fail to understand WHY the player base loves tier sets so much and why people still hunt for them. It makes you want to play your class or roll a class to get the tmog.

These developers are fucking morons

- - - Updated - - -

I think we as a playerbase need to stop to expect another Suramar. That zone was just so great, I don’t think Blizzard will ever be able to replicate it. It’s my favorite zone in the game.

Suramar is by far the best zone they have ever created. It was lightning in a bottle and I'm convinced it was a fluke. Like Ulduar

[Darkeon]

Previous expansions' last patches are usually the best - unfortunately because they tend to "fix" the issues that they allowed to fester during the entirety of it.

9.2 seems to be following the same recipe.

[Chickat]

Between meh and good. 6 or 7 out of 10. Interest is piqued but im not overwhelmed with excitement either. Looks better than 8.3. Thats all I can say about it atm.

[Vilendor]

It's literally the Timeless Isle the 27th time. Or Korthia 2.0 if you will
-Run around
-Kill rares
-Do some dailies
-Farm a reputation
-Unlock some meaningless upgrades at reputation levels
-Collect some local resource
-Spend it to unlock the zone gimmick (robot language this time)
-Or spend it on random gear (set tokens/upgrades this time)

It looks shiny because the wall of smoke the announcement video created, but people will realize they did this exact same thing in Timeless Isle/Tanaan Jungle/Broken Shore/Nazjatar/Korthia and everyone will quit in a few weeks...

[Osmeric]

https://kaylriene.com/2021/11/14/why...9-2-unveiling/

The core issue of Shadowlands is that Blizzard focuses on flavor and shitty lore at the expense of the actual gameplay. Covenants were a disaster for many because you made players choose a flavor that could impact power and force players to make a decision they disliked, the story pivots around Sylvanas frustrate people who hate her character (just die already) and those who love her character (you sucked all the meaningful personality and character traits out of her to make a warmonger and then made her dumb as rocks), and the joining of these ideas in gameplay is bad, because a lack of focus seemingly permeates every gameplay corner of this god-forsaken expansion.

[Sondrelk]

Suramar is by far the best zone they have ever created. It was lightning in a bottle and I'm convinced it was a fluke. Like Ulduar

Given how vehemently the playerbase complains whenever a zone that is intentionally difficult to navigate is added I imagine Blizzard has not made another Suramar simply because it's seemingly not worth the effort when players will just loudly complain that they are waiting until flying is available so they can ignore the lovingly crafted stuff eventually.

Beyond that though the actual Suramar bit was mostly a tiny chunk where the questing actually happened. Even the city itself was just a chunk of the larger zone, which overall was nothing to really write home about when discounting the city part.


That being said it would be nice if Blizzard gave another shot at making a well realized and claustrophobic city landscape again. Boralus is the closest, but you never really did any questing there are Alliance at least, and it seemed like such a shame when so much of the city looked amazing from the ground.

- - - Updated - - -

It looks good.

I think people are just exhausted with this whole xpac. It could become a better end to sl than 8.3 to bfa
Let's see

I think this is about where I am too.
The zone looks like it will be fantastic, and I can tell alreayd I will enjoy spending time there more than I did in Korthia. And if the cypher thingy is as wwell realized as it sounds in regard to making open world exploration better than I am all for it.

In the end the problem is just that I dislike Shadowlands. I was never sold on the idea that an expansion taking place entirely within it could work. And though much of the blame lies on Covid creting long droughts, I still think I was right in thinking the concept wouldnt work.

I will enjoy 9.2 well enough I imagine, certainly more than 8.3, but I doubt I will switch on a dime to be invested in the expansion as a whole like I was for Legion or BfA.

[Cracked]

The only, only thing I would be excited about is if they came out of the gate with ranked solo shuffle thing. Everything else is sub-par to average.

[Nyel]

Suramar is by far the best zone they have ever created. It was lightning in a bottle and I'm convinced it was a fluke. Like Ulduar

I fear so, yes. They outdid themselves, because they needed to.

[Makaloff]

uninspiring and bland, lots of PR talk and hilarious detachment "we have done something youve never seen before" meanwhile new place looks like a morph between bastion, korthia and some floating stuff from nagrand, very inspiring. New tier sets are also bland and nowhere near interesting. all in all its nothing to come back to and just cemented that this game is done for, but atleast it gives me more time to enjoy my new home in Eorzea atleast so thats something.

[Zulggun]

I just wonder what people would like to see as patch content, what new stuff that would make them excited.

[Boddhi]

So funny people are complaing the patch being a cramped zone filled with daily/weekly chores + a raid. That's what's fuckn content patches and the overall game is about for years now idiots! There is nothing else to come and to expect :facepalm:!

[ippollite]

It seems like a bit of a mixed bag. Overall, the patch itself is pretty generic. A new zone, a new system to open up in the world, a new raid, new mounts, pets, cosmetics et al. Oh, and tier sets.

Its pretty much what you'd expect if it was a normal patch cycle and a normal release schedule. There's nothing on the surface that seems particularly surprising or... aggressive in bringing players back. I guess it seems like a holdover so that the majority of their team can be focused on 10.0.

But there are some interesting things under the surface in relation to their 'philosophy'. The first being the cypher system of course. I always felt that this was the last throw of the dice on the single multifaceted theme park experience. By which i mean, you do a bit of everything to get the best experience out of the game. It seems, assuming the intention is correct, to give solo players, alts and non-3-pillar players their own progression system.

Ive no idea what Korthia's system was, but im assuming it was less elaborate than this one (and more heavily rep grindy - where rewards opening up take far longer to accrue as opposed a multiple talent system like the legion weapons - which is what i think they've gone back to). Basically, you can unlock gear doing the world content, hit a cap on it as you likely open more challenging areas (or receive more buffs/abilities through the talent system) eventually taking you up to 249 (i think that was it), and then the accumulation of those talents and that gear set means you have something on a par with at least heroic level gear but only in the open world content (its just bog standard 249 gear in mythic plus and raids).

In the previous patch they did start this process with the domination shards and the pvp ilvl boosts for conquest gear. effectively negating the advantage one had over the other So it seems this may be the direction of travel going forward. I mean it does solve one of the core issues for the past 2 expansions... funnily enough i remember preach talking about this with benthic gear way back when: 'Benthic gear should have cool buffs to nazjatar and the current open world content, not have essential power for raiding'. So i guess he can again say "I TOLD YOU!"

They also seem to be talking about a LOT more account bound stuff or catch up for alts. Again, this is something that seems like a footnote but is kinda big. I figure they watched max and scripe's final fantasy 14 streams with great care. And hell, you just need to ask anyone who plays ff14, its an idea long overdue.

For as long as i've played, wow has always been very sensitive to the idea of players running out of content. Well, not always i guess, wasnt there the keynote with... i forget... but it was one of the main designers at the time (around 2006). He talked about how they knew 'those players existed, and he knew they'd do exactly that... but that they cant design around it. They just had to let that player do their thing, and if they ran out of content, they ran out.' Since... cataclysm (and the ghostcrawler era) they started adding in more and more busy work, and by the ion era it became systems of busy work with more egregious timegating and retention mechanics.

I think they got trapped in a loop: If we dont make them do all this, theyll run out of stuff to do, raid log and play the game less. However, particularly in the last two expansions, the wall alts need to climb (even with catch up) is always too high. I always played alts. But i couldnt do it in this expansion (which is supposed to be the alt friendly expansion). There's just too much stuff to grind. Too many micro annoyances you need to deal with. On one character (a la ff14) i might be like 'oh, i think i'll do some blue mage stuff today', in wow it was main or bust. Far from making me play more, it made me play WAY less. Im not even a 3 pillar player. The amount of stuff i need to do is stupid just to start up an alt now. It's not that i ran out of stuff to do. Its that there was a mountain of stuff that i needed to do. It felt psychologically overwhelming.
So this change to more alt friendliness (which we've heard often, perhaps this time we'll see the results), with more account bound stuff is a positive change.

And with that change comes an important cultural and design change summed up by Morgan Day's comment on the cypher system. "If you're a raider, you won't need to engage with it at all if you dont want to". That subtext: "you can raidlog". Blizzard are finally giving you permission to raid log by DESIGN. You CAN also do the cypher stuff because its fun or you like exploring or you just want mats and pots of gold, but if you dont wanna, no problem. It really does seem like they're philosophically changing course, and thats all i wanted to see in 9.2.

So yeah, generic patch, but some genuine buds of optimism for what may come.

[Alanar]

Very meh tbh...

All I see is lots of reused stuff, same models but prototype with a new skin..

Lorewise it will be a giant shit show as expected and for the rest.. I was hoping for some closure with allied races or something to look forward to..

Instead some weird ass drag system that is gated so every week we unlock the meaning of a cypher or something.

Tier sets look shit compared to the super shiny store transmog.

So what is there to be excited about honestly?

[Accendor]

Given how vehemently the playerbase complains whenever a zone that is intentionally difficult to navigate is added I imagine Blizzard has not made another Suramar simply because it's seemingly not worth the effort when players will just loudly complain that they are waiting until flying is available so they can ignore the lovingly crafted stuff eventually.

You know, there is always the possibility to not make everything completely annoying to be in. Not every area needs to be clustered with mobs like it have been done for the last 6 years.

- - - Updated - - -

So funny people are complaing the patch being a cramped zone filled with daily/weekly chores + a raid. That's what's fuckn content patches and the overall game is about for years now idiots! There is nothing else to come and to expect :facepalm:!

That does not mean we should not complain about it.

[Kralljin]

So funny people are complaing the patch being a cramped zone filled with daily/weekly chores + a raid. That's what's fuckn content patches and the overall game is about for years now idiots! There is nothing else to come and to expect :facepalm:!

Maybe it's because a lot of players are disappointed with Shadowlands and would've expected a bit more, rather than "just the usual"?

I think a lot of players want to get the feeling that Blizzard makes a genuine attempt at winning them back, you don't win people back with "the usual".

Disregarding that:
-News about "more chores" is hardly appealing to a lot of players
-The cosmic theme of the patch finds little resonance
-The Warcraft 3 tie-in also finds little resonance
-Blizzard not acknowledging that they were the ones who removed tier-sets and now act as if they're "finally" back