"So what need does a garrison fill, then?"

[gestapo]

EDIT: Please have the patience to see that the words below the line are NOT mine as we've already had two brilliant posters, "Pull My Finger" and "Raelbo" think they are because of their impatience/inability to read.

I've been increasingly underwhelmed by the entire garrison feature as time goes on. I still want to reserve judgement but I'm not getting worried about a lot of WoD content that seemed very exciting at first. Without delving into other areas I wanted to share an excellent post I saw on the US forums from poster Amyiss and I wanted to get everyone's thoughts

Please note everything below this line is from the original post, word for word, which can be found here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...4870703?page=1
==========================================================================================



I admit it. I have no idea. What exactly does a garrison do that anyone asked for?

What we know thus far:

-Garrisons are not player housing, despite them literally saying it was ( here's the original powerpoint! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxR5...youtu.be&t=35s) - as they lack much in the way of individual customization - aside from the functions of the buildings, yours will be exactly like your neighbors.

-Garrisons are not optional: https://twitter.com/OccupyGStreet/st...07123273076736

The intent is to make them fun but they are not optional the way pet battles or brawlers guild was.

To give credit to Mirs, who said it best (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/12188428946):

03/22/2014 03:59 AMPosted by Mirs
If they don't force participation, how can they show off their high percentage of participation while trumpeting the feature as a success?

-You are limited to either orc or human architecture, dependent on your faction. There's a possibility of more race options in the future. I'm sure there's a raid tier meme to be had.

-Because they're no longer optional and heavily integrated with questing, you can't choose where yours is located anymore: https://twitter.com/mumper/status/458701369939996673

We moved away from the choose your zone model once we realized we wanted heavily integrate the Garrison into the leveling flow.

-Presumably since they're now integrated with questing, you can look forward to maintaining them on your alts, too - it's unclear, but it seems impossible for this to end up any other way at the moment - so you can expect Sunsong Ranch, now with more Ranch!

Ghostcrawler is, of course, no longer the face of Blizzard, but I run on the assumption that his confusion expressed last year on twitter with why people play alts still represents how the company as a whole approaches them:
https://twitter.com/OccupyGStreet/st...33893842878464

No, it's cool. I'm just trying to unravel the apparent paradox of wanting to have an alt but not wanting to have to play that alt.

(the conversation as a whole is good to read, this is an out of context quote, but still makes me facepalm every time)

So I can't customize it, I can't build it where I want, I can't skip it without gutting a character, I can't use my alts as followers because you don't understand why I'd be attached to my own characters over the pile of nobodies you want me to use, it's going to have architecture I don't want, and I get to repeat this process any time I feel like playing a character other than my main.

....So why, exactly, am I supposed to be excited anymore?

Edit: They also apparently find my disenchantment with wasting resources on this to be funny.

06/23/2014 11:27 AMPosted by Kezmaefele

The price for having Garrisons.

http://i.imgur.com/EHE5ZMS.jpg

Yeah my mood is not improving.

Edit 2: Fairadey has given us a good link of combined information about the garrison:

06/23/2014 04:40 PMPosted by Fairadey
http://www.alternative-blog.net/2014....R6M23doE.dpbs

A review by someone in the Alpha.

... so maybe the 'need' it fills is keeping you from relying on other players and alts for profession goods?....I.... is that a thing I needed?

[Noctifer616]

Yes, it's not player housing, it's a player stronghold. I loved the stronghold in Neverwinter Nights 2, was an amazing part of the game. Very much looking forward to the Garrisons.

[Rosstafa]

It seems very much like a 'build your own quest hub' at this point. I am not as excited for garrisons as I initially was, because I thought there would be a lot more customisation, but it's starting to feel a lot more impersonal.

Would like to add though, that while you may not get to choose which zone to place it in initially, they have said that later on you unlock outposts in all the other zones which are essentially duplicates of your main garrison I believe. So essentially, you can still choose to base yourself elsewhere I guess. Would be better if you could just move it, but I suppose this compromise is cool.

It would have been awesome to have different racial buildings, but the amount of time and resources that it would take to do this would be unreasonable. Besides, we're part of the Horde, and our architecture should reflect that. The buildings of Orgrimmar are not Orcish buildings, they are Horde buildings, representative of all the races. From what I have seen, some of the buildings do have racial themes, for instance the skinning building/tannery is Tauren themed, which becomes more obvious at stage 3.



I am still looking forward to it, because I'm viewing it now as a quest hub that we control. We choose what NPCs to have around, which dailies we have access to, what buildings we have. That sort of control over a questing area is really interesting. We spend a tonne of time in questing hubs anyway, at least garrisons give us control on how we spend our time there. They offer a tonne of utility, and having followers and defending your garrison looks pretty fun too.

It's not quite as customisable as we expected, but I still think it has a lot to offer and we should be open to it. We spent the majority of MoP in the Shrine or at quest hubs. If we're going to spend all our time in a place doing professions or dailies, it would be nice to give that place a lot of depth and some customisation. Garrisons offer that. It's hard to know just how good or bad they'll be until we've spent a few months there. By that point, the novelty may well have worn off, but until then I look forward to them. I realise they're not player housing anymore, but customisable quest hubs, and I'm okay with that.

[Pull My Finger]

Seriously, how are you even able to have any fun in life at all? You're talking it to death because you're obviously really, really trying to not like it and see something bad or faulty in it. And the fact that you're talking your time to construct long ass posts about it makes it even worse.

How about just checking it out when it's out. But I'm sure you're already gonna be utterly and completely opposed to it and viewed it as the downfall of the gaming industry by that point.

Brilliant nick, by the way.

[eillas]

As a human rper, it helps with role players.

[NuLogic]

It's like the stronghold in assassins creed 2. You could also recruit assassins, send them on missions, level them up and call them for help. In AC you could take over other buildings but you couldn't customize the buildings only choose what to use them for.

Wow is always mechanics over story or art. Can you actually do something with it, be hooked on it for a long time and not just stare at it.

[gestapo]

I'm looking forward to it, dislike having any type of customization including not being able to pick a location. Vehemently against it being 'mandatory' and worried about the 'build-your-own-quest-hub' thing it's looking like. Some say it's a cop out of developing more compelling leveling content. Hope that isn't true. I don't want Garrisons to take away from potentially good content in the world.

[eillas]

I'm looking forward to it, dislike having any type of customization including not being able to pick a location. Vehemently against it being 'mandatory' and worried about the 'build-your-own-quest-hub' thing it's looking like. Some say it's a cop out of developing more compelling leveling content. Hope that isn't true. I don't want Garrisons to take away from potentially good content in the world.

The quest hub thing is really only the low level feel and as you start the garrison.

[Raelbo]

Ghostcrawler is, of course, no longer the face of Blizzard, but I run on the assumption that his confusion expressed last year on twitter with why people play alts still represents how the company as a whole approaches them:
https://twitter.com/OccupyGStreet/st...33893842878464

"No, it's cool. I'm just trying to unravel the apparent paradox of wanting to have an alt but not wanting to have to play that alt. "

(the conversation as a whole is good to read, this is an out of context quote, but still makes me facepalm every time)

Since you don't seem to get it. He wasn't confused. He was trying to find a polite way to say that the point of alts is to do the content again and if you want to roll an alt that has everything your main has, leaving you nothing to do on your alt, that is being a bit retarded.

[gestapo]

Seriously, how are you even able to have any fun in life at all? You're talking it to death because you're obviously really, really trying to not like it and see something bad or faulty in it. And the fact that you're talking your time to construct long ass posts about it makes it even worse.

I have plenty of fun. However, I think you should be more concerned by your in ability to read or inability to comprehend the written word. How did you make it onto a forum?

[Deleted]

You forgot that we won't be able to rename *our* Garrison.

[gestapo]

Since you don't seem to get it. He wasn't confused. He was trying to find a polite way to say that the point of alts is to do the content again and if you want to roll an alt that has everything your main has, leaving you nothing to do on your alt, that is being a bit retarded.

What is with you people and reading comprehension even after I said this?

Please note everything below this line is from the original post

Do you not take the 10 seconds to read the first bit of text and jump to pick apart words of a post that isn't mine?

- - - Updated - - -

The quest hub thing is really only the low level feel and as you start the garrison.

Glad to hear it. Do you have any alpha poster feedback on this? Would love to hear (or even see) more!

- - - Updated - - -

It seems very much like a 'build your own quest hub' at this point. I am not as excited for garrisons as I initially was, because I thought there would be a lot more customisation, but it's starting to feel a lot more impersonal.

Would like to add though, that while you may not get to choose which zone to place it in initially, they have said that later on you unlock outposts in all the other zones which are essentially duplicates of your main garrison I believe. So essentially, you can still choose to base yourself elsewhere I guess. Would be better if you could just move it, but I suppose this compromise is cool.

It would have been awesome to have different racial buildings, but the amount of time and resources that it would take to do this would be unreasonable. Besides, we're part of the Horde, and our architecture should reflect that. The buildings of Orgrimmar are not Orcish buildings, they are Horde buildings, representative of all the races. From what I have seen, some of the buildings do have racial themes, for instance the skinning building/tannery is Tauren themed, which becomes more obvious at stage 3.



I am still looking forward to it, because I'm viewing it now as a quest hub that we control. We choose what NPCs to have around, which dailies we have access to, what buildings we have. That sort of control over a questing area is really interesting. We spend a tonne of time in questing hubs anyway, at least garrisons give us control on how we spend our time there. They offer a tonne of utility, and having followers and defending your garrison looks pretty fun too.

It's not quite as customisable as we expected, but I still think it has a lot to offer and we should be open to it. We spent the majority of MoP in the Shrine or at quest hubs. If we're going to spend all our time in a place doing professions or dailies, it would be nice to give that place a lot of depth and some customisation. Garrisons offer that. It's hard to know just how good or bad they'll be until we've spent a few months there. By that point, the novelty may well have worn off, but until then I look forward to them. I realise they're not player housing anymore, but customisable quest hubs, and I'm okay with that.

Good post. You raise some interesting points and I encourage a reasonable counter to the complaints from the person I quoted in my OP.

[Icathian]

Blizzard will shoot themselves on the foot again, just like they did with the MoP daily system. They were so proud to announce "No more dailies!" for wod, but the garrison system is pretty much a "build your daily hub" system that you can't skip. I can totally see myself being annoyed when I'm logging in an alt just to get some profession mats, only to find garrison notifications about how jimmy came back from his quest.

They keep making things harder than what they have to be.


Dailies are fine. Just make them optional, quick, and give them rewards that doesn't involve tier or profession progression. That's it. Make it so they give a nice amount of gold, or cool vanity items, or transmog items, and that's all you need to have a healthy daily system.


The idea of being forced to do things like that is a big turn off. I --HATED-- how I had to do annoying, boring dailies in MoP for months, with alts that I barely play with just so I can get a profession pattern, and now It looks like they're going to a not so different road with WoD. I really really hope that I'm wrong though.

[Fang7986]

The whole point of Garrisons is for Blizz to give the whiny, crybaby little bitches on MMO-champ forums some more sand to put into their vagina. How can you think anything else by looking at the multiple threads here complaining about Garrisons because "they aren't 100% exactly what I wanted."

- - - Updated - - -

Blizzard will shoot themselves on the foot again, just like they did with the MoP daily system. They were so proud to announce "No more dailies!" for wod, but the garrison system is pretty much a "build your daily hub" system that you can't skip. I can totally see myself being annoyed when I'm logging in an alt just to get some profession mats, only to find garrison notifications about how jimmy came back from his quest.

They keep making things harder than what they have to be.


Dailies are fine. Just make them optional, quick, and give them rewards that doesn't involve tier or profession progression. That's it. Make it so they give a nice amount of gold, or cool vanity items, or transmog items, and that's all you need to have a healthy daily system.


The idea of being forced to do things like that is a big turn off. I --HATED-- how I had to do annoying, boring dailies in MoP for months, with alts that I barely play with just so I can get a profession pattern, and now It looks like they're going to a not so different road with WoD. I really really hope that I'm wrong though.

except you didn't have to do them and you didn't need that profession pattern you wanted it, you didn't need it. Blizz's job is to give you options (which they do) not babysit you and hold your hand and give you every thing you think you need (which is what the vocal minority here expects them to do)

I enjoyed the MoP daily system greatly and it was awesome IMO

[Pull My Finger]

I have plenty of fun. However, I think you should be more concerned by your in ability to read or inability to comprehend the written word. How did you make it onto a forum?

What a whitty answer ... uh. not. Whine on.

[Vynestra]

I posted in that thread, and my point ended up being stop saying why should I like this? And start saying "do this this and this, and I'll like it".

People are saying this is wasted dev time they could be using on other things. But yet no one has mentioned a single thing this time could have been used for. I think that thread's op may think they've made a good thread, but in blizzards eye it is not constructive, and doesn't even help the problem that the OP has.

[gestapo]

What a whitty answer ... uh. not. Whine on.

1. It's spelled "witty".
2. In your rushed attempt at providing your worthless input (may want to wipe the drool from your mouth) you didn't read the post properly and you're trying to backtrack by dismissal.
3. You lack simple comprehension seeing as you whined with your first post in this thread and are trying to accuse me of doing so.
4. I recommend you refrain from any meaningful discussion and unsubscribe from this thread, it's clearly not your strong suit.
5. Have a nice day.

- - - Updated - - -

I posted in that thread, and my point ended up being stop saying why should I like this? And start saying "do this this and this, and I'll like it".

People are saying this is wasted dev time they could be using on other things. But yet no one has mentioned a single thing this time could have been used for. I think that thread's op may think they've made a good thread, but in blizzards eye it is not constructive, and doesn't even help the problem that the OP has.

Do you agree or disagree with the general sentiment of the original poster? If you agree, do you have any suggestions?
And if you disagree, could you please elaborate on your reasoning? For e.g. Rosstafa offered a very constructive counter-complaint post and it's helped me see things from both sides.

- - - Updated - - -

The whole point of Garrisons is for Blizz to give the whiny, crybaby little bitches on MMO-champ forums some more sand to put into their vagina.

Do you have a source for this?

[zorkuus]

I enjoyed the MoP daily system greatly and it was awesome IMO

Nobody gives a shit when you're in the minority, not even Blizzard it seems because they changed it due to overwhelming negative feedback. Funny how that works?

[eillas]

Glad to hear it. Do you have any alpha poster feedback on this? Would love to hear (or even see) more!

Sadly no, and I lack a alpha key, but I have followed all the news sources.

The way it works. At low level, your going to use it a lot. Due to questing, Mission-quests, and buildings being done quick. Once you reach lvl 95, things start cooking. You will get your 2nd garrison outpost, and have to choose between armory and mage tower. Armory offers artillery strikes, while the mage tower offers a guardian orb.

Work orders for profession buildings is you have to get 20 blackrock ores and 20 frostweed for one daily shipment.

Followers have a fun filled role, as you really have to mix them up to get good epics.

- - - Updated - - -

You also will be wanting to hunt for illustrious mining follower with a lvl 2 mining trait.

[gestapo]

Sadly no, and I lack a alpha key, but I have followed all the news sources.

The way it works. At low level, your going to use it a lot. Due to questing, Mission-quests, and buildings being done quick. Once you reach lvl 95, things start cooking. You will get your 2nd garrison outpost, and have to choose between armory and mage tower. Armory offers artillery strikes, while the mage tower offers a guardian orb.

Work orders for profession buildings is you have to get 20 blackrock ores and 20 frostweed for one daily shipment.

Followers have a fun filled role, as you really have to mix them up to get good epics.

- - - Updated - - -

You also will be wanting to hunt for illustrious mining follower with a lvl 2 mining trait.

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. What you've posted does sound quite interesting. I'm sure I can have fun with this feature, but what are your thoughts on it turning out like a Farm 2.0 ? I really enjoyed the farm at first, but as I started to do it on alts I sort of lost interest. Combined with having to log in daily to maintain it, I simply stopped caring about it altogether.

Luckily my playtime was infrequent at the time, so it never affected me much, but I imagine if I was a less casual player I would feel compelled to maintain my farm. I did however, enjoy the daily quests that took you up into the mountains to fight those monkeys and goats. Lots of good pvp action there.