9.0 General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

Isn't this the case since mop? I can't even remember what the legion and WoD rewards were.

WoD was especially boring, working as little more than as extra backstory for the various Orc clans. The system in Legion was probably more remembered for how terrible it felt not getting the rare finds from grinding, but instead having to wait for it on a 2 week rotation.

[Nefarious Tea]

I think August is a bit too early, I feel like a late September/October release might be possible though.

I would presume they were gunning for sometime in September before the world turned to shit (and the country in which Blizzard is headquartered especially so). But as time is now meaningless it's a little pointless to expect any kind of timeline; just enjoy the days going by.

Shadowlands will get here when it gets here - the dead cannot be rushed, as the saying goes. :P

[Syegfryed]

Hey guys, what if, just because they are in quarantine they have nothing to do other than work, and are actually doing a good expansion


on a serious note, i just want more of the customization, that shit is like crack, the more people datamine the more you need it.

[Sondrelk]

I would presume they were gunning for sometime in September before the world turned to shit (and the country in which Blizzard is headquartered especially so). But as time is now meaningless it's a little pointless to expect any kind of timeline; just enjoy the days going by.

Shadowlands will get here when it gets here - the dead cannot be rushed, as the saying goes. :P

There is also the fact taht with Blizzcon likely being cancelled Blizzard doesnt have to worry about pre-launch events and Blizzcon events overlapping and draining resources from eachother. Which could mean Blizzard might save some time. Or at least make a late october- early November release more likely.

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Hey guys, what if, just because they are in quarantine they have nothing to do other than work, and are actually doing a good expansion


on a serious note, i just want more of the customization, that shit is like crack, the more people datamine the more you need it.

Much of it will depend on how it all meshes together when the expansion actually gets here.

BfA would have been amazing if you only go by datamined customization options and loot. I bet you that most players were immensely hyped for Islands based on the pitch and reward system.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Hey guys, what if, just because they are in quarantine they have nothing to do other than work, and are actually doing a good expansion


on a serious note, i just want more of the customization, that shit is like crack, the more people datamine the more you need it.

I mean supposedly people at Blizzard living in their car and using the facilities at the HQ instead is a thing. I wonder how those fare work wise right now.

[huth]

I think hte problem is that it really only worked in Cata, when it gave you reason to go back into the updated areas that you might not have seen to dig for loot. It giving good gear and things like that also helped.

Generally i think that Archaeology doesnt really work as a "seasonal" thing like other expansion content, I think it would work better as something more like what Battle pets are. Each expansion adds content for it, but none of it really gets outdated, barring reward creep.

I think they should focus on the archaeology part over the rewards. Make it a series of various puzzle-type minigames, like actually having to dust off fragments carefully and piecing things together.

[LemonDemonGirl]

I'm betting by August (and after my birthday), most of the Alpha/Beta will be released. And hopefully De Other Side will be worked in more c:

[Sondrelk]

I think they should focus on the archaeology part over the rewards. Make it a series of various puzzle-type minigames, like actually having to dust off fragments carefully and piecing things together.

I think that could work, though honestly i think the main problem isnt that the profession itself is boring, it is that it is too rooted in being a profession instead of a sidething you do for fun like pet battles.

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Thinking more about it, what Archaeology really needs is what pet battles got over time, more in the vein of evergreen content instead of "[Insert expansion] Archaeology".

[Syegfryed]

Much of it will depend on how it all meshes together when the expansion actually gets here.

BfA would have been amazing if you only go by datamined customization options and loot. I bet you that most players were immensely hyped for Islands based on the pitch and reward system.

i at least knew bfa would be shit from the start, people called me a madman

[Cosmic Janitor]

I think that could work, though honestly i think the main problem isnt that the profession itself is boring, it is that it is too rooted in being a profession instead of a sidething you do for fun like pet battles.

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Thinking more about it, what Archaeology really needs is what pet battles got over time, more in the vein of evergreen content instead of "[Insert expansion] Archaeology".

Yeah, gotta agree there. I think all these secret mount/treasure hunts should be part of it and you should be able to gleam some cool lore tid-bits by following them. Not to mention I think there should be a more permanent and satisfying system in place to track your achievments. I kinda hope Blizzard will think about this once they eventually get around to toying with the idea of housing again, I want to fill bookshelves with my archeological findings and discoveries and display the best pieces.

They definitely could do more with the minigame though, something like a randomized treasure hunt like FFXIVs treasure maps might be good idea as well. The triangulation game got boring back in cata.

[razorpax]

I do wonder what people mean with professions "actually matter". Because it's very easy to make them matter to much, to the point of them being a requirement for a higher lvl of content.

what i mean by mattering is having a use throughout the expansion for more than 1 or two things

all crafting had a use for low level catch up gear in bfa
scribes had vantus runes and contracts
gem had gems

in shadowlands
the crafted gear doesnt have random stats
alchemy gets weapon oils
gem gets items to help determine armor stats

[FossilFree]

I do wonder what people mean with professions "actually matter". Because it's very easy to make them matter to much, to the point of them being a requirement for a higher lvl of content.

Being an [optional] requirement for a higher lvl of content is fine as long as the gear they create isn't soulbound to the crafter. Professions should be able to compete with mythic raiding, just make them really difficult to create, time consuming, and expensive. Professions should be every bit as epic as any other part of the game, not just a mindless rote task for gold.

[Noirebene]

Yeah I wasn't feeling BFA from the start neither. War plot was the most appaling to me, having the raw content (i.e. 6 zones ) cut in two was disapointing. And I was feeling that island and warfronts would be underwhelming, the type of content people wouldn't do... And I was kinda angry at allied races bcs void elves were coming out of nowhere and nightbornes were going to the horde even if both alliance and horde helped them.

[Makabreska]

Being an [optional] requirement for a higher lvl of content is fine as long as the gear they create isn't soulbound to the crafter. Professions should be able to compete with mythic raiding, just make them really difficult to create, time consuming, and expensive. Professions should be every bit as epic as any other part of the game, not just a mindless rote task for gold.

Will the crafting profs really matter, if crafted gear can be sold on AH? You can just buy it w/o having any prof yourself.

[Cosmic Janitor]

what i mean by mattering is having a use throughout the expansion for more than 1 or two things

all crafting had a use for low level catch up gear in bfa
scribes had vantus runes and contracts
gem had gems

in shadowlands
the crafted gear doesnt have random stats
alchemy gets weapon oils
gem gets items to help determine armor stats

Alchemy pretty much is the single best job all expansion, every expansion. Every character I made my main has always had it. In the very far distance you can see enchanting following and even further away inscription/jewelcrafting. All the armor professions are pretty much just dogshit since cata, maybe wrath. They had a slight renecaiance recently because you could proc utterly broken corruption powers, but they are still awful besides that.

Here is imho what Blizzard should do:
If you shredder stuff from raids you get two currencies.
You get one for the armor type and one overall for the raid.
The first currency requires you to shredder about 2-3 items the other one 2-5 (depending on how much you want to limit the system, maybe more).
These items are NOT soulbound (maybe the armor type currency, certainly not the generic one - actually the first one should be soulbound probably).
Instead of limiting players to only 2 items of the current tier crafters can craft (BoE!) all pieces.
The second currency also dictates the iLvl (LFR, normal, heroic, mythic).
Maybe you can merge and refine these items once the tier is no longer current.
Ideally there would be a certain raid progress required or like back in the day a reputation to enables you to learn the higher tier recipies (minimize impact on the stupid world first race.. i guess). Another way could be that you need to dismantle a piece first before you can craft it, though that comes with other issues.

The reason behind these points:
The first currency is used to require you at least to have had 2 or more pieces of loot of that armor type before you can craft a piece that you actually want. You can't substitute this by disenchanting/shreddering all that mail rubbish no one wants or milking single item groups from alt raids.
The second currency is used to create an overall limit on how many items you have to disenchant, to delay this at the beginning of the raid. The point is to avoid cases where everyone just deletes their items and goes for BiS via half the progress speed instead of accepting what they had. This way you will naturally build some resources over time.
By making these items BoE guilds on one hand have options to compensate bad luck of individual item groups while also selling these items for profit to sustain the raid (they are already okay with selling raids and achievments, this way they can auction off certain pieces to armor collectors as well).
Edit: Oh btw, shredding crafted item would either yield no currency or only reduced of the next lower tier. Obviously there shoueldn't be a perpetual cycle with this system.

This way crafting would be meaningful and supplement the raid, but not mandatory for everyone to have. You can't just craft yourself every piece of gear until way down the line, but you can fill the gaps make some bank. The only issue I see here is that if you make all of the currencies soulbound you will see the case where hardcore loot nazis will give suboptimal pieces only to crafters, hence robbing people of the chance to finish their mog sets. If you make neither soulbound you have the issue of maybe running even more alt raids than neccessary, though individual people could still at least get the mog and just mail the items to the crafters/guild bank, potentially making crafting on mains still not attractive. Though the later is best servered with a small quality of life buff in raids, main reason why everyone is alchemist is because it halves their consumable costs.

[Rend Blackhand]

Hey guys, what if, just because they are in quarantine they have nothing to do other than work, and are actually doing a good expansion


on a serious note, i just want more of the customization, that shit is like crack, the more people datamine the more you need it.

Secretly terrified that the current skins datamined are all we’re getting and they’re putting each category in at a time. All skins done, soon all hairstyles before the beards come in.

It’s just 100% blizzards style to have so many great and obvious player character choices and then just ignore them. Case in point: player Nightborne.

They had the NPC faces right there, they were great, nothing wrong with them but some doofus decided to make a run of shit faces and that’s all we have.

[Caerule]

Honestly I'm mostly done with the Shadowlands coverage itself. I'm hooked. I don't need to know no more. At this point I'm mostly just avoiding story spoilers that'll spoil the questlines.

For me, it's just about the models now.
-Gear models. I'm still eager to see more. And perhaps a fun few extra things they can stuff in at the end of things. Like holiday stuff.
-Shadowlands Models. Most seems in, but maybe there's still a creature or two out there somewhere. Doubtful.
-Updated Old Models. Some stuff in vanilla wow looks super old. Specifically, every time I cross my fingers for new Gnolls, Skyboxes and drake models.
-Player model updates.

Of course the last I am most eager for. Specifically Blood Elves, Goblins, Orcs and Tauren. It's the highlight of this expansion for me. Of the stuff we do not yet know.

[tristannarutofan]

i at least knew bfa would be shit from the start, people called me a madman

Yet no one agrees with you

Maybe if u matured a little and said what u meant "bfa isnt as good as we wanted" youd het your point across

[Hack-Attack]

@Bwonsamdi the Dead I just pray that they don’t kill off Hakkar as the first boss. That would imo just be ridiculous for him to be spam killed in mythic + for a whole expansion.

[Porimlys]

@Bwonsamdi the Dead I just pray that they don’t kill off Hakkar as the first boss. That would imo just be ridiculous for him to be spam killed in mythic + for a whole expansion.

Maybe De Other Side will be like shrine and destroy pugs and his legacy will live on (on tyrannical weeks) haha