Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[huth]

Garrisons are not instanced.

Wrong. They are scenarios running on the instance server. That was why you couldn't access them in early WoD when everybody tried to get in at once. A phase would not have had this issue. They're even reusing the tech to enter them without a visible loading screen for 10.1.

Why do you think everybody stood in the exact same spot when it failed to load and it literally gave a "no instance found" error?

[ChairmanKaga]

The biggest issues here is the need for an explanation of where have female ogres been all these years (and why they're seemingly never around in just about every instance that we've encountered Ogres) and also why they're suddenly being playable.

Maybe Ogres develop as sexless until just before full maturity and then become male/female. So all previous Ogres have been not fully developed/neither.

[Nathanyel]

Maybe Ogres develop as sexless until just before full maturity and then become male/female. So all previous Ogres have been not fully developed/neither.

Oooor maybe just don't come up with contrived and somewhat sexual in-game explanations for the simple fact that devs didn't bother with female versions of certain NPC races like the Ogres.

Just introduce them as playable, insert/change some existing NPCs (no way this could lead to controversy) and you're done.

[Berkilak]

Oooor maybe just don't come up with contrived and somewhat sexual in-game explanations for the simple fact that devs didn't bother with female versions of certain NPC races like the Ogres.

Just introduce them as playable, insert/change some existing NPCs (no way this could lead to controversy) and you're done.

Reminds me of the discrepancy between TOS and TNG Klingons. TNG simply had better makeup. That was all. Yet the fans theorized about the difference for years. DS9 made a joke about those theories. And ENT canonized those theories.

As for Ogres... there are no females in the playable version of Azeroth because they didn't make an Ogre female model. They took the next step by joking about Ogrezonia. Now we get to see if they go full Pandaren and canonize the joke.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Well, to be fair, they did implemented War Mode, which I believe it's the best thing they've done in many, many years. And the PvP became quite good back then, those endless battles at Nazjatar were beautiful. I spent hours doing WPvP there and it never got old.

War mode was bad. It further divided servers. You'd be out in the world seeing someone being jumped by Alliance. You would flag and jump in to help your buddy out. There used to be huge RP-PvP wars on Moon Guard where you'd see hundreds of players fighting, and you could flag and jump in. That doesn't happen now. PvE players never see PvP players, and vice versa. It's hard to have an RP-PvP event when PvE players can't witness the PvP and decide to jump in. You wound up seeing less PvP in War Mode because there were simply less players in that phase. There were some big battles during the first few weeks of BFA, and that was it, whereas the below pic happened a lot during the 14 month long SoO content drought:

[Makorus]

War mode was bad. It further divided servers. You'd be out in the world seeing someone being jumped by Alliance. You would flag and jump in to help your buddy out. There used to be huge RP-PvP wars on Moon Guard where you'd see hundreds of players fighting, and you could flag and jump in. That doesn't happen now. PvE players never see PvP players, and vice versa. It's hard to have an RP-PvP event when PvE players can't witness the PvP and decide to jump in. You wound up seeing less PvP in War Mode because there were simply less players in that phase. There were some big battles during the first few weeks of BFA, and that was it, whereas the below pic happened a lot during the 14 month long SoO content drought:

snip

War Mode was one of the best features they've added outside of fringe cases of slightly affecting RPers.

Just pretend fight lol

[Berkilak]

War mode was bad. It further divided servers. You'd be out in the world seeing someone being jumped by Alliance. You would flag and jump in to help your buddy out. There used to be huge RP-PvP wars on Moon Guard where you'd see hundreds of players fighting, and you could flag and jump in. That doesn't happen now. PvE players never see PvP players, and vice versa. It's hard to have an RP-PvP event when PvE players can't witness the PvP and decide to jump in. You wound up seeing less PvP in War Mode because there were simply less players in that phase. There were some big battles during the first few weeks of BFA, and that was it, whereas the below pic happened a lot during the 14 month long SoO content drought:

That's a good point. Good open world PvP is organic and unpredictable. War mode is just opting in to ganking or being ganked, neither of which appeals to many. Even people that would otherwise enjoy a good fight in the right circumstances.

[Nymrohd]

That's a good point. Good open world PvP is organic and unpredictable. War mode is just opting in to ganking or being ganked, neither of which appeals to many. Even people that would otherwise enjoy a good fight in the right circumstances.

That's because there is no objective to concentrate the action. When the Naz'jatar pvp weekly was up, the back and forth battles between the two bases was as epic as Tarren Mill vs Southshore battles. BfA PvP worked because
a) Conquest track made War Mode extremely rewarding
b) Invasions and Weeklies concentrated PvP combat in a few locations
c) The expansion theme pushed much of the community that would not normally PvP to try it

[Lorgar Aurelian]

That's a good point. Good open world PvP is organic and unpredictable. War mode is just opting in to ganking or being ganked, neither of which appeals to many. Even people that would otherwise enjoy a good fight in the right circumstances.

Warmode is literally just being on a PvP Seaver but you can now opt out if you get sick of dying, it’s just as organic or unpredictable as ot always was.

[Makorus]

That's a good point. Good open world PvP is organic and unpredictable. War mode is just opting in to ganking or being ganked, neither of which appeals to many. Even people that would otherwise enjoy a good fight in the right circumstances.

I mean, that's what PVP Servers were as well. "Opting in to ganking or being ganked".

Open World PvP has never and will never be a thing that happens organically.

[huth]

Warmode is literally just being on a PvP Seaver but you can now opt out if you get sick of dying, it’s just as organic or unpredictable as ot always was.

Which was never very much. People fought at well known choke points. Outside of that, not much happened. Nothing "unpredictable" about that.

[Berkilak]

I mean, that's what PVP Servers were as well. "Opting in to ganking or being ganked".

Open World PvP has never and will never be a thing that happens organically.

I suppose that was their destiny. When I signed up, I was still relatively fresh off of DAoC. WarCraft copied their strict faction system, so I had certain expectations when I chose my server. Likely, I saw the same potential that whoever on the Blizzard side that implemented the faction system saw. A potential that never materialized. That original choice notwithstanding, PvP servers were different from War Mode because of the social environment. Post-release, very few newcomers to the game were actually looking at servers and choosing. They went with their friends already were, their personal feelings be damned.

This led to situations where, say, you're getting corpse camped and you get your girlfriend to come bail you out. And they were motivated to, since that was the sole option outside of simply logging out. And then that situation would spiral into a greater conflict. These days? Just fly away and turn WM off. Or log out / use group finder to fish for another shard.

On the whole, I think War Mode is the better option. But as much heat as I'm going to get for this comment, there is something to be said for having a PvP system that isn't entirely consensual.

[Nymrohd]

On the whole, I think War Mode is the better option. But as much heat as I'm going to get for this comment, there is something to be said for having a PvP system that isn't entirely consensual.

Sure, otherwise gankers wouldn't exist. People love making others miserable.

[Berkilak]

Sure, otherwise gankers wouldn't exist. People love making others miserable.

It creates drama. And drama demands resolution. Right now, any and all PvP problems are solved by simply turning off War Mode. No calling for help. No putting together a group to band together. Just opting out. And that's boring. It's the better solution. But it's boring. And I say this as someone who was generally on the receiving end. I simply opted out. And I haven't opted in since.

- - - Updated - - -

Warmode is literally just being on a PvP Seaver but you can now opt out if you get sick of dying, it’s just as organic or unpredictable as ot always was.

Like I said, opting out is the only solution people actually use. It's not organic and entirely predictable. On paper, you should still be able to have those encounters. There's nothing stopping you. But in reality, people just turn off PvP mode when PvP happens.

[GabrielKnight]

As much as I love planting my Alliance banner on dead, smelly hordes, sometimes I just don't feel like doing PvP, and want to play relaxed. After all, it's just a game. Being forced to do something you don't feel like just because you happened to pick a PvP server years ago is beyond stupid. That sole reason makes War Mode superior, in my eyes.

[Berkilak]

As much as I love planting my Alliance banner on dead, smelly hordes, sometimes I just don't feel like doing PvP, and want to play relaxed. After all, it's just a game. Being forced to do something you don't feel like just because you happened to pick a PvP server years ago is beyond stupid. That sole reason makes War Mode superior, in my eyes.

I'm in complete agreement. But I won't pretend that we didn't lose something with that change. Overall, it balances out to beneficial. But there was a sacrifice there.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Like I said, opting out is the only solution people actually use. It's not organic and entirely predictable. On paper, you should still be able to have those encounters. There's nothing stopping you. But in reality, people just turn off PvP mode when PvP happens.

Ya that's still no different then just being on a Pvp server people would just log off instead of turning off warmode.

[Berkilak]

Ya that's still no different then just being on a Pvp server people would just log off instead of turning off warmode.

Some would, I'm sure. Not even close to all. If I wasn't raiding, I was generally responding to calls for help. Hearth set to STV. And meeting up with people from other groups having the same issues. I can only speak to my own experiences, of course, but from my perspective, world PvP was absolutely organic. I suppose the loss of server identity also feeds into this and the propensity of servers to host imbalanced factions. Back then, you would know where and when to avoid certain areas, or where to go for a fight. It's all meaningless now. Zones felt like actual places. They're just another randomly populated instance, now, if not glorified.

[Makorus]

World PvP was high level people ganking low level people until someone brought their high level character and then it was just awkward ganking of other low level people.

[Skildar]

world pvp is so unbalan ed there is no fun for some classes and specs. Having the option to opt in or out of wm solve the demand for balancing this activity