9.1 Content Drought begins!

[muto]

That's not even close to being done.

New Torghast levels still locked. Megadungeon still unreleased yet. Raid still unreleased. Several chapters of the new Covenant campaigns to be done. There's still a ton to do.

Most people will run the mega dungeon once to see it and wait until next patch when it’s in the mythic plus rotation. Torghast was boring after the first month when it turned into Island Expeditions in a tower. Renown is a garbage system, so don’t even get me started on that. The fact you have to wait to change Conduits, you know how you used to have to do with Azerite Powers until they realized that was stupid, but yet went right back to the stupidity. All the conduits should be cross spec if you’re going to be limited on how often you can change them.

[Jester Joe]

Most people will run the mega dungeon once to see it and wait until next patch when it’s in the mythic plus rotation. Torghast was boring after the first month when it turned into Island Expeditions in a tower. Renown is a garbage system, so don’t even get me started on that. The fact you have to wait to change Conduits, you know how you used to have to do with Azerite Powers until they realized that was stupid, but yet went right back to the stupidity. All the conduits should be cross spec if you’re going to be limited on how often you can change them.

People will definitely run it more than once since the hard mode drops some pretty solid gear. You're saying this as if people weren't running Mechagon and Kara before they became m+ dungeons.

Torghast being enjoyable or not is up to each person, but even if you don't like it, it's still something to be done in 9.1.

Same as just said for renown though. Although the point was the campaign anyway, not renown itself, since there's so much catch up if you really hate renown that much you can just wait at that point.

Conduits have almost nothing to do with what I even said though. Azerite power as in the necklace, or azerite traits as in the armor? Either way, traits always had a gold sink if you kept trying to change them, that never went away?
And the neck/power could always be freely as far as I recall

[Villager720]

I just resubbed Friday and so far I like what I've seen in 9.1 more than: 8.3, 8.1, 7.3, 7.2, 6.2, 5.3, 4.3, 4.1, and 3.2.

It's certainly early days, but even still, relative to how I've felt in the past during "early days", I've immediately had a better feeling towards their approach with Korthia, the Maw, and Torghast than how they've traditionally handled patch content.
It's nice to feel like they're building, tweaking, and grafting on new stuff to older content instead of just leaving it to collect dust.

I will fully acknowledge Korthia could be bigger and I'm not particularly wild about it's aesthetic - but it is least new. And yes, it was a long time coming. I was unsubbed for many months.

But still, compared with other patches - I think 9.1 shines. 8.3 was old zones and fill the bar quests. 7.2 was more fel rocks with almost zero story content (aside from the mage tower, what was good about any content outside of ToS {with its meta-pet achieve.}?).
7.3 was even more fel rocks with new sky-boxes and more "rares" to kill hidden amongst janky-ass terrain.
None of those patches reworked, let's say, Island Expeditions or the Legendary system to be more relevant/progression oriented while trying to address some of the complaints around previous incarnations. (Unless adding a currency to buy legendaries counts.)
They just gave us new factions with bad, generic quests to kill rares in mostly recycled asset zones.

[Azerate]

Some dudes are not even trying at this point, lol

[Lolites]

Patch 8.2 was humongous both in quantity and quality. I believe I still haven't fully exhausted the content of that patch. If Blizzard does that for 9.2 even a jaded and bitter person like me would resubscribe.

https://www.wowhead.com/guides/patch...a-wow-overview

But to be fair. I consiHeart of Azeroth Essence syder 8.2 an outlier. Clearly a lot of this content has been in the works for much longer than an ordinary patch development cycle. It wouldn't be reasonable to expect something as massive every patch. But once in an expansion would definitely amend a lot.

well yeah, 8.2 was probably the biggest (or one of) in wow history so using it as referenece of what every patch should be would be unreasonable, its outlier as you said, but lets use it anyway, the hightlights from wowhead you posted to compare it (somewhat subjectively):

Heart of Azeroth Essence system - well, people complain about systems (and they did about essences A LOT) so getting only domination as system + upgrades to soulbinds seems appropriate, i would call this point "neutral"
Two outdoor zones - Nazjatar and Mechagon - 9.1 only have one + mild rework of parts of maw, so +1point for 8.2
New Raid - Azshara's Eternal Palace, and Megadungeon - Operation: Mechagon - new raid and megadungeon is in so neutral
Unlock flying via Pathfinder Part 2 in all zones including new ones - no flying in korthia BUT afaik no rep grind to fly so again neutral
Mount Equipment Slots - kinda pointless and kinda hated change, nothing of sorts in 9.1 (is there?) so neutral
Continuing the War Campaign - continuing covenant campaign, neutral
Gnome and Tauren Heritage Armor - yeah we could definitely get some in 9.1, shame, +1 for 8.2
Stratholme Battle Pet dungeon - nothing in 9,1 afaik, not that i really care, ill say +0.5 for 8.2 (i cant seriously consider pet batle content as important as other)
Dozens of pets, mounts, toys, new transmog, and other collectables - same in 9.1, and there is more that need to do something other than "go wait and kill rare", but its not more so neutral
New and upgraded items for all professions - same profesions are neglected since tbc or so, neutral here

so to sum it up 8.2, biggest or one of biggest doesnt really came that much ahead for mem and as we said, that patch is OUTLIER, not average wow patch...
so yeah, as i said even before this comparison, 9.1 is good patch, not great, not terrible, kinda "average"

[FelPlague]

So you nearly completed all of the Korthia meta achievement content in a week, but yet boast how 9.1 is full of stuff to do…

Sorta? but ive been no lifing, and also this is only KORTHIA there is still the rest of the maw stuff, the events there, the new torghast stuff, the mega dungeon ,the raid, the campaign.

[Arainie]

Start asking for EA to release 21.5 of their sports games while you're at it, there's obviously an unacceptable content drought between each release.

[Lolites]

with the amount of time it was held back for i expect almost no issues

(knock on the wood) i encountered single (minor) bug since launch (already fixed) and no technical issues like lags, lets hope next week is the same

[kodemonkee]

9.1 Content Drought begins!

Full 9.1 patch isn't even out, how can you talk about 9.1 drought?

[Lolites]

i was also hoping for las of a rep grind was hoping blizz learned their lesson from the emperor rep on timeless isle.....

also i kind of expected there to be more deaths advance things to do this week than a few quests and then just 3 dailies a day. I didn't play ptr so i have no idea if more are on the way

i enjoy "shaohao style" rep, so to me that one is a plus, as for death advance, tormentors and assaults are part of that, and the wagon event is kinda neat, but yeah, could be more things, something directly in korthia wouldnt be amis (i think "pvp" event like the towers in nazjatar wouldnt be bad idea), like you i dont know if there is more to come, i think its possible, as we had nothing but rares/chests going on in south part of korthia so far

[Kumorii]

It has the content I expect from a patch since I came back in legion... *shrug*

[Barzotti]

So you nearly completed all of the Korthia meta achievement content in a week, but yet boast how 9.1 is full of stuff to do…

He nearly completed 5% of the 9.1 patch in one week, indeed.

[Ivarr]

Compare 9.1 to the following
5.1
6.1
7.1
8.1

Because it’s an intro patch
8.2 when compared to
7.2
6.2
5.2

Is more in line with the only extra I’ve found is that it had Mechagon

If 9.2 is anything like 8.2 I will resubscribe. It's probably due next spring or something anyway so until then I have to figure out what to do with my life. I guess I'll go read a book.

[Levogames]

bc is summer in Europe, genious. People doesn't want to live for wow just to raid on a decent level.

[Orwell7]

Ok-ok let's settle something.

Why and when people leave WoW? When the treadmill is "visible". If we see the hamster wheel around us, we feel trapped and dont wanna.
If Blizzard makes the gear-wheel invisible, we just play endlessly for fun.

8.2 was the biggest patch with LOTS OF CONTENT, but I hated it, know why? Because the classes/specs themselves were boring. I haven't really tried new characters because the AP-grind and essence-grinds just put me off.

Now? Leveling to max is easy, getting gear is easy, there are lots of ways to get to ilvl200. Acquiring the first lego is a joke, Torghast is a fun little diablo-like hack-n-slash feeling, we have lots of mounts/tmogs to farm, what else there is in this game?
I mean, what else WAS in this game besides all these?

The specs can be "customized" a little via conduits and legos, and most of them just feels good to play, with lots of buttons and things to track.

Is this the best patch? Nope. But what was the best patch, and why?

Another note: WoW was only successful BECAUSE Warcraft 1-2-3. Most gamers at that age played those. Then the internet came, and WoW was in the right place at the right time.
Nothing more, nothing less. It was just a side-effect of that era - it could have been any game with a history among gamers. Other MMOs failed because they were completely new, they didn't have "familiar" enemies in Everquest, like Arthas, for example.
Nobody wanted to "log in" to EQ to punish some random dragons.

But WoW with all those lore behind it? Yup.
So don't try to emulate the success via "ingame" things. It's not about class, dungeon, raid design or whatever.

[Othraerir]

already sick of korthia, i wonder if the continued story will add more to it or not.

i'll prolly just stick around until we at least clear the raid on heroic, then i'll make a judgement.

[Trumpcat]

Let me at least try the new Torghast floors, the new megadungeon, the new raid, the new m+ affix, and play the rest of the campaign, before agreeing the new drought has begun. They aren't out yet. But I must appreciate the strategy of the thread coming in before the patch content is even out to trigger people.

[Lahis]

If it was always slow, how did they get to Shadowlands in the first place?

With year long content drought during 8.3, as is their usual MO.

[Zantera]

Most people will run the mega dungeon once to see it and wait until next patch when it’s in the mythic plus rotation. Torghast was boring after the first month when it turned into Island Expeditions in a tower. Renown is a garbage system, so don’t even get me started on that. The fact you have to wait to change Conduits, you know how you used to have to do with Azerite Powers until they realized that was stupid, but yet went right back to the stupidity. All the conduits should be cross spec if you’re going to be limited on how often you can change them.

Saying people will run the new dungeon once seems quite pessimistic, I think you'll get a decent amount of people who will keep running it - especially if it's fun like Karazhan or Mechagon was. There's definitely a group of players who don't raid or like the timer that m+ has so you'll most likely find the new dungeon to be right up their alley. I'm looking at the dungeon less for gear and more for mount/pet/achievements personally and will probably run it a decent amount of times for that, as I'm sure others will.

Torghast is a sore spot for some, I wouldn't say it's been amazing but the changes in 9.1 are definitely for the better. On top of shaving off a whole floor on the normal wings, you also get a talent tree that will speed it up and things like autolooting are much welcome changes.

Renown isn't even a system to me, it's more of a constant rolling timegate that I barely pay attention to. You get 2 each week (3 before) for content you would have done anyways so it's like a slow rollout of adding new things. Imagine if they didn't have it but just gave you 1-2 new things every week, I suspect people would be more positive but for some reason people get mad over it.

Can't really speak much on the Conduit energy system. It sounds a bit silly but I haven't met anyone who actually has a problem with it - so either it's a very small problem contained to a certain group of players or I'm just lucky in that aspect. But if I hadn't heard about it I wouldn't even know it was in the game and I still cleared 8/10m in CN so it wasn't really an obstacle.

[Chonar]

Since there hasn't been a single post about this yet, I wanted to start a thread about the complete lack of content in 9.1. Day 1 took a few hours to complete. Every day since has taken 10-30 minutes to complete dailies and covenant assaults. We have the new raid coming Wednesday and new pvp and M+ seasons as well. All up, I predict a 2-3 months of content for most players.

Is this the great return to form we have all been waiting for? Yes, I know the all of the usual replies. Just don't play it. Unsubscribe after 2 months and wait for the next major patch. Why are you even writing this? Who are you to comment on the glorious Mother land of Blizzard? How dare you! Your views do not align with mine, how dare you!

I think it is OK to expect more.

Content drought? Let me get back to you on that once I've gotten max rank research in Korthia, collected the new mounts and pets, looted the crap out of Tazavesh, and beaten Sylvanas on Mythic.