9.0 General Discussion

[Shandodo]

It really should be this week. Perhaps there's more music than usual or something.

Oh how excited I am today... Login... Music... Had a interview for a job... its amazing.

[razorpax]

From what I understand secondhand via Towelliee today, #PullTheRipCord was a phrase that Preach invented to describe either

A) Nerfing covenant abilities so badly that you never used them, or

B) Allowing you to change covenants anytime in a rested area.

So basically it was the exact same solution the elitists have been bandying about all Alpha/Beta but with a snazzy hashtag to go with it now.



Addendum because I totally missed the last sentence:

SPriest was okay. Not a fan of the corner it painted them into lorewise, also feel like it took them a bit to get Insanity into the sweet spot.

Honestly, and I've been on this horse since basically the Legion rework happened, the classes need a total mechanical refresh at this point. The old systems got stale, then got stripped of everything that made them remotely interesting, then that got stale as well. Secondary Resources need more variety, talents either need to be made to matter more or just be removed, glyphs honestly should just come back, and most classes could use 1-2 more rotational buttons.

And Holy Power needs to die.

preach didnt invent it lol

some twitter bro did using the clip from the interview

[TheFirstOnes]

Btw, the end of the SL Login Music isn't as incredible underwhelming as BFA's.

With EVERY Login Screen, there has been a great ending:

Classic- The OG Legends of Azeroth stuff

TBC- Blood Elf badass music

WoTLK- Call To Arms + Black Temple

Cata- A choir mix of the Classic WoW theme

MoP- Badass Pandaren music

WoD- Blackrock and Roll

Legion- Demon Hunter Music with a slight nod to the Illidan theme

BFA- Nothing really unique at all tbh. Just ends with Drustvar's theme or whatever.

And now, SL- A badass Jailer Theme with a mystical Bastion-esc theme that plays after it, ending the theme off with a whimsical yet badass WC feel

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Personally, I think BFA's theme is the worst tbh. SL's theme being one of the better ones.

Imo as theme's go, it goes like this: Cata > WoD >= SL > WoTLK > TBC > Legion > Classic > MoP > BFA.

[Nagawithlegs]

And now, SL- A badass Jailer Theme with a mystical Bastion-esc theme that plays after it, ending the theme off with a whimsical yet badass WC feel

I wonder if the last theme is the Arbiter's theme to match with the Jailer's.

[TheFirstOnes]

I wonder if the last theme is the Arbiter's theme to match with the Jailer's.

Maybe? Tbf here, I don't even know if that is the actual Jailer's theme. I just say that cause it's badass.

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I really love how ambient yet awesome the SL Music is, tbh. Especially the Login screen.

[FlubberPuddy]

My brain read that as Grant MacDonald and I got excited for a second

Don't know who either of those are but now I'd like some McDonald's!

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I really love how ambient yet awesome the SL Music is, tbh. Especially the Login screen.

Yeah, tbh these tunes are hitting me more than most of BFA ones. I'm really enjoying the Shadowlands music!

[therumblings]

Don't know who either of those are but now I'd like some McDonald's!

They are very very different, trust me.

I really love how ambient yet awesome the SL Music is, tbh. Especially the Login screen.

Yeah it's a nice mix of both.

[Chickat]

https://www.wowhead.com/news=317913/...rit-animations

Yo

That is pretty cool. I also like the login screen.

[Hitei]

So in case people didn't immediately notice (because I definitely completely missed it the first listen): The very start of the title music is a pretty direct remake of the death music:


Really nice touch, making the first music you hear in the expansion the musical phrase players are used to hearing when they are dead/spirits.

[Tyze]

Why are they not announcing pre patch?

[Sarethion]

Well, they decreased the amount of world quests required for the calling from 4 to 3.

[razorpax]

so twitter is now worse than the forums

it seems ion has given juice to the people who like to say "just be quiet and play the game"

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Why are they not announcing pre patch?

because its not going to launch for 3 more weeks

[Sondrelk]

Why are they not announcing pre patch?

They announce it 2 weeks in advance with an end of season announcement. Not to mention that guessing that the pre-patch is at the 29th is not that difficult when you know that most pre-patches are 4 weeks and that we already know the actual release date for Shadowlands.

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Well, they decreased the amount of world quests required for the calling from 4 to 3.

I guess that given the expansive world quests in Shadowlands this is quite the timesave, wonder how it stacks up to the current version though.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Why are they not announcing pre patch?

Yeah I half expected them to announce the pre patch date when they said Beta would transition to 9.0.2

[Sarethion]

I guess that given the expansive world quests in Shadowlands this is quite the timesave, wonder how it stacks up to the current version though.

From my experience (but to be fair, I haven't really done a lot of callings so far), Shadowlands world quests are on average about 2-3 x longer than BfA ones, so having to do 3 of them should be equal to doing like 6-9 on live.

[LemonDemonGirl]

Ok, why are there electric guitars at around 4:40? Damn that sounds awesome

Also, 8:37 kinda reminds me of Luigi's Mansion lol

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

From my experience (but to be fair, I haven't really done a lot of callings so far), Shadowlands world quests are on average about 2-3 x longer than BfA ones, so having to do 3 of them should be equal to doing like 6-9 on live.

As someone without beta are they actually an interesting 2-3x longer or is it just instead of "kill 6 troggs" it's "kill 15 troggs?"

[LemonDemonGirl]

That track HAS to be De Other Side.

Troll person here lol.

It dosen't really sound like it to me. Maybe it's for the Maw? Will all of the 'breathing' sounds it would fit there

[Sarethion]

As someone without beta are they actually an interesting 2-3x longer or is it just instead of "kill 6 troggs" it's "kill 15 troggs?"

I'll give you an example of a longer one - it started off with having to kill some mobs, then it updated to collecting some stuff, then you reactivate a robot with that stuff and finally you go kill some tougher guys together. But then there was also one where some guy was showing poses and you had to stand in the circle and press buttons matching his poses to mimic them, which went super fast.

Overall, I wouldn't say that they're super interesting or innovative, but a lot of the longer ones that I tried had some kind of a structure and felt more like a series of connected tasks you had to do to help out an area rathet than a mindless "grind 15 mobs".

[Delever]

So after seeing the dev update post and every change that they ve made and the comments that people still make underneath those I want to say one thing. I ve really given up on this community. There is literally NOTHING that will satisfy these people anymore. And I mean absolutely nothing. I ve been pessimistic about the game too and about blizzard not listening etc etc. But for the first time since nearly cataclysm, this seems like one of the most genuine developer update posts we ve ever gotten. They have been incredibly fast to fix problematic things, they adress almost every problem of the community and in general have been incredibly communicative about everything compared to te past. They literally announced pvp changes the moment people complained about the vendor. They could have just let it be and have people be forced to pve once again to earn pvp rewards. The only thing they ve stuck to their guns on is covenant abilities. And honestly if they manage to make all of them at least viable options in every scenario I dont think people will have a problem with the coenant system. And what I mean by viable is not perfectly balanced but at least good contenders. There will always be something that is better than something else but as long as the difference is small people will not care.

Also people on Wowhead and these forums make incredibly uninformed responses about things that they dont understand. Three examples come to mind.
1.) Thorghast: There are people who legit think the infinite mode is just a repeated 18 floor run when in reality you can keep climbing but you just have your powers reset every 18 floors. This is the best of all worlds to make it more challenging. WoW is fundamentaly a tab target MMO and making it into a roguelite that scales indefinitelly and still keep it challenging is not easy. Games like risk of rain 2 can have their game endlessly scale and still be challenging despite your crazy builds because at some point you get one shot but you can keep dodging stuff if you re skilled. How would you dodge stuff in WoW to make it challenging yet fair in a roguelite environment? Make everything a telegraph? That does not sound too interesting. I agree that they have to fix the problem where floor one takes 40 mins and the rest is a breeze. They have to smooth it out more. But I m sure they ll keep tuning it.

2.) Systems: People complain that the new systems are too much or too complicated. The only expansion where I ve felt that systems have been incredibly complicated is BfA. Where you had weekly chest, azerite traits, essences with different ranks and each rank unlocked via different means and corruption effects with different corruption tiers and titanforging etc etc. The systems in shadowlands tied to character power are INCREDIBLY simple. Gear is now gear and the changes to sockets that they just made based on feedback is incredible. PvP gear is now not random and the vendors are being fixed. You now have weekly chest that is less random than before and is powered by every activity you do, renown which is literally do your weekly shit for 3 renown per week and you can treat it like any similar system we ve had every whether it be badges, currency or whatever except now its again CAPPED, thorghast which you can treat like another dungeon that gives your your legendary crafting mats and conduits for your soulbinds which drop from all forms of content and instead of their ranks working like essences they are literally just ilvl upgrades like artifact weapon gems. I dont know how much more simple it can get without reaching the point where there is nothing to do in terms of content.

3.) Alt friendliness: People keep saying it will be an incredibly alt unfriendly expansion. Yet the man who historically has complaiend about this the most in previous expansions (aka preach), has said in one of his latest videos that the amount of things tied to character power are very simple to do and this will be one of the most alt friendly expansions to date. The catch up systems for renown allow you to reach the renown level of everyone else as long as you re willing to put in a little extra time to do some world quests, dungeons etc. Which from what I knew from before, people prefered this rather that being time gated because htey did not play for a few weeks.

So why on earth all this negativity??? WHy all the hate towards the devs??? Honestly I am just so happy that they ve been so transparent about what they re doing for once and for how much they ve been listening to feedback and how many changes they ve made every 1 month before the release.
Sure some things are not perfect (looking at my main ret paladin and survival hunters) but with the way they ve been responding to feedback and acting upon it I have much more confidence than before.