Gotta admit, I'm not excited about this expansion, but very intrigued. I really don't know what to expect out of this one.
I liked Dragonflight a lot - it was simply a fun setting and enjoyable time even though the story wasn't a major event IMO (well maybe for the dragons). This expansion seems like they are leaning heavily into story and character development, and given the fact it will continue over 2 other expansions I am curious to see how Azeroth and all the big name characters come out the other end.
Launch cinematic, which I think is amazing.
The extended trailer, which is basically a WoW best of album
Some things to get excited about for the expansion:
If a thread for this exists already, apologies.
Gotta admit, I'm not excited about this expansion, but very intrigued.
I think I'm more in the mode of, "A new expansion? Already?!"
The older I get and the longer I play this dumb game, I find myself falling further and further behind. This is the first time, for instance, I probably won't have maxxed all of my professions by the launch of the new expansion.
OTOH, I've really enjoyed all of the ancillary content (Remix, Plunderstorm), so there's that. Here's hoping WW will keep pushing the content envelope.
If there's something I am particularly interested in, it's the story yes, but I'm looking forward to the expanded flight options, and how the Warband feature pans out. The Holy Grail for me would be to do a dungeon with my main and 4 of my alts as bots, but Blizzard said that's not happening any time soon, if ever. But a guy can dream!
BTW, I found this video pretty useful for transitioning to the new expansion, since these expansions are always a disruptive experience at first.
If there's something I am particularly interested in, it's the story yes, but I'm looking forward to the expanded flight options, and how the Warband feature pans out. ...
Same. WoW has gotten a lot better over the past 2-3 expansions with QoL improvements, and Warband imo is a biggie.
Thanks for the vid, but I know how this will play out:
Tuesday: Go to bed before the servers come back up
Wednesday: Log in to get my warbands started. Log out because all my addons are broken.
Thursday: Download and install updated addons. Refresh Bagnon page on Curse every 10 minutes.
Friday: Finally in the game. Log out because there's too much to do. Re-install DBM because it's already out of date.
Saturday: OH SH!T REMIX!! I HAVE LESS THAN 30 DAYS TO GET MORE BRONZE!!1!
Sunday: Is Bagnon working yet? Update DBM again. Respec my main's main spec. Log out because all of my alts need respeccing and the weather's nice.
Monday: Respec main's second spec. Update DBM. Edit Bagnon's LUA file so it kinda works.
Tuesday: OMG, new content already?! I AM NOT PREPARED
That is disturbingly accurate
Wee, warbands!
As an inveterate altoholic, I have been waiting for this a long time.
That is disturbingly accurate
As expected, Bagnon is borked, but Elvui has developed a tolerable all-in-on bag that'll do for now.
Otherwise, things are working more or less like they do after every major patch.
The only thing I've stumbled on that I wasn't expecting is that to view DF faction rep (Dragonscale, Tuskarr, etc), each toon has to visit the faction quartermaster. Reps from prior xpacs are displaying just fine.
Anyone else super annoyed by the war bands intro quest? It’s one of the worst examples of game design I’ve seen in a long time. You funnel both factions into a small area where everyone needs to compete for killing mobs. I tried joining a farming group but was kicked for “having too low an ilevel.” Meanwhile, the other side is trolling you with AOEs knowing that if they get a hit you don’t get credit.
It also boggles my mind that WOW doesn’t have a system like ESO or GW 2 where everyone gets credit for kills if they are farming an event.
Just logged in for a few minutes to get initial reactions.
I...don't like the music? Maybe I just miss my giant Dragonflight sweeping cityscape. But the music sounds kind of tinny and lower quality, and the intro screen just feels, I don't know...confining? I'm probably reading into this too much.
Wow they removed the only one Dracthyr restriction now...
There's a Warband intro quest? I didn't do much past picking which characters I wanted to hang out in my camp in the character select screen.
Why is my Monk holding his weapon in his hand in the camp scene? He hasn't done that in years in-game.
The redone Monk talents look nicely streamlined. I like solving button bloat by making some abilities proc off other attacks instead of having to be their own. Looking forward to checking out the changes in a week or so when I finally have time.
It also boggles my mind that WOW doesn’t have a system like ESO or GW 2 where everyone gets credit for kills if they are farming an event.
That's how it has worked in WoW for a long time. The days of exclusively tagging an enemy are long gone. I'm not sure why it wouldn't work that way in the Warbands intro.
As expected, Bagnon is borked, but Elvui has developed a tolerable all-in-on bag that'll do for now.
An all-in-one bag is built into the default UI now. It's not as good as Bagnon, because it doesn't include banks and such, but it's serviceable, since bags have search and sorting, too.
jdzappa wrote:It also boggles my mind that WOW doesn’t have a system like ESO or GW 2 where everyone gets credit for kills if they are farming an event.
That's how it has worked in WoW for a long time. The days of exclusively tagging an enemy are long gone. I'm not sure why it wouldn't work that way in the Warbands intro.
Enix wrote:As expected, Bagnon is borked, but Elvui has developed a tolerable all-in-on bag that'll do for now.
An all-in-one bag is built into the default UI now. It's not as good as Bagnon, because it doesn't include banks and such, but it's serviceable, since bags have search and sorting, too.
I’m not sure only I would tag a mob, then a horde player would kill it and get the credit.
You can only share quest mob credit with characters of the same faction. If the other faction tags it the mob still goes gray. I would have expected them to change that by now, but I can also see why that fix would be a low priority.
There's also a limit to the number of people who can "tag" a given mob. I've run into that a few times, usually when I've stumbled across a bunch of bots leather farming. It can happen with crowded events too though, particularly ones where there seems to be a raid involved.
Ah okay, that makes sense.
I agree that it's dumb to funnel everyone through a single quest in a small area at the beginning of a new expansion. Or pre-patch, whatever.
I bit and prepurchased.
I am somewhat confused as to I guess currently by 60+ characters are forced to do Dragonflight?
Pandaria remix is fun but my 60+ characters get booted from the Pandas after a few minutes...
Starting new characters is okay but I feel the sweet spot is your 50's. I am sure its perceived, but it seems like a level 13 is leveling at the same pace as a level 53. Like going from 51-56 in less than an hour.
The gearing, quest and backpack clean up is absolutely critical. And now that its happened, it is LONG overdue.
Looking forward to delving, hero talents and the shared progress of warbands come expansion time.
If I have to go through Dragonflight, I may not have any 70's sadly.
Also, I was pretty sure I had leveled my hunter to 63-64 at Dragonflight launch. But when I logged in, she was only 61 along with 2 of my other characters that were 61 and unaffected.
I bit and prepurchased.
I am somewhat confused as to I guess currently by 60+ characters are forced to do Dragonflight?
That's correct -- for now, at least. I suspect that sometime after WW drops, Chromie Time will be extended to level 70.
Your better option is probably the Radiant Echoes pre-patch event that starts today when the servers come back up. Leveling has been nerfed into the ground, especially in the 60-70 band, so I suspect you'll be able to level an entire warband or two of toons to 70 before the WW launch.
Of course it starts today 
Already at work but tempted to take an arrow to the knee...
Of course it starts today
Don't worry. You've got almost a month. Blizz has made special events easy to farm. Radiant Echoes has the dual purpose of getting new stuff (pets, mounts, transmogs, etc) and leveling your toons quickly. An extra bonus: Presumably the event currency will be tradeable within your warband.
Yeah. I had a real problem with that last expansion. The only 60 I had that was comfortable leveling at the start of Dragonflight was my hunter. It was weird because my druid wasn't that lagging in item score but struggled a bit even in Shadowlands content at 60. I don't remember the numbers exactly but I was able to gear up from like 60 points by questing in Shadowlands but still got roughed up a bunch in Dragonflight as a druid.
My other 60's: paladin, demon hunter, death knight, rogue and warrior were middling at best at questing in Dragonflight
I am hoping Dragonflight was a fluke as far as not having a smooth transition into the expansion. I did enjoy the pre-expansion event for that one. (unless I am thinking of the one for Shadowlands...) It was the one in Northrend...
edit: and yeah, it looks like I didn't do the pre patch for Dragonflight
edit: and yeah, it looks like I didn't do the pre patch for Dragonflight :(
FWIW, the WW pre-patch event seems pretty similar to the DF one -- go to a zone, kill everything that moves, collect currency that you can convert to fabulous prizes. You'll be fighting some for tags, but the spawn rates in the DF event were silly, and I expect it to the same this time, too.
Wowhead.com has an event timer on its home page. The events are supposed to happen more often the closer we get to the WW launch.
Yah, 90, 60 then 30 minute timers.
Can't play till Friday night so hopefully the crowding will have died out some.
Not worried though. I'll mainly play for the leveling and hope to get some pieces and transmogs here and there 
After a couple of unlucky stabs at carving out 30 minutes from my schedule, I finally completed one of the events. It was the Searing Gorge one and thankfully wasn't too crowded.
It was enough of the crowd that I didn't have any difficulty following or being in the mob.
Is there any info on how to upgrade the gear (dropped or bought)
I got a shoulder piece I can't use until 70 that says that it is 1 of 8 upgrades.
I got about 1 and a half levels from the event (63 to 64.5) and 2400+ essences or whatever the currency is.
Not bad, but not really impressed either. I think even the 30 minute timer, once we get there, is too long. 15 minutes might be too short or just right for chaining the events. 20 minutes might work better.
Still going through the struggles of new patch class combat rotation. The new talent tree system isn't helping with that either. But I guess it is what people wanted...
Is there any info on how to upgrade the gear (dropped or bought)
You use some combination of flightstones and crests to upgrade gear once you hit 70. They're both in your currency tab.
At some point (probably when you hit 70), there's are a couple of NPCS in Val near the AH who will give you quests to show you how the upgrade system works.
If you want better gear in the interim, you'll need to do some WQs. Or just remember not to pull too much.
As for the Residual Memories that drop from the world event, there's been a lot of online kvetching about the slow pace of currency accumulation. Blizzard about a week or two into Remix doubled the amount of bronze you could get from caches for doing scenarios / dungeons / raids. I suspect they'll do the same for the current world event in the next week or so.
I don't understand why people are going nuts over gear that will be replaced a few days into TWW.
As for the Residual Memories that drop from the world event, there's been a lot of online kvetching about the slow pace of currency accumulation. Blizzard about a week or two into Remix doubled the amount of bronze you could get from caches for doing scenarios / dungeons / raids. I suspect they'll do the same for the current world event in the next week or so.
As I was saying. I'm a little surprised that it's happening so quickly. But Blizzard has gotten a lot better about responding to player complaints, so the joke's on me, I guess.
Not if we all benefit!
Can you now speculate about my winning the lottery in 1-2 weeks? ;P
edit:
So if I'm reading right, the active zone can have multiple boss fights? It sounds like you defeat standard enemies to trigger the boss. And then once the boss is dead, it sounds like standard enemies start appearing again that can trigger the boss. If you just want to kill standard enemies, you can do that in the non active zones...
I mean, works for me (shrug)
I don't understand why people are going nuts over gear that will be replaced a few days into TWW.
Pokemon gotta catch them all effect for Transmogs.. though I think they all look hideous and would never use them.
Not if we all benefit!
Can you now speculate about my winning the lottery in 1-2 weeks? ;P
edit:
So if I'm reading right, the active zone can have multiple boss fights? It sounds like you defeat standard enemies to trigger the boss. And then once the boss is dead, it sounds like standard enemies start appearing again that can trigger the boss. If you just want to kill standard enemies, you can do that in the non active zones...I mean, works for me (shrug)
Go to the active zone. Kill the things to spawn the boss. Kill the boss (but pick up the daily first). Kill more things. Kill the boss again. Profit! There's no downtime, which is great.
I spent about 30 mins last night in Dustwallow and walked away with ~5K memories (after spending 3,500 to upgrade one piece of gear, two other plate transmog pieces and a cloth piece I'll send to another toon. It was a nice easy no-stress after-dinner activity.
It is SO much nicer since they changed it to the current mechanism. I'm glad they were on top of that so quickly. Waiting an hour and a half for one go at a paltry sum was awful. The way it works now, where it keeps rolling allowing multiple boss kills, is how it should have worked in the first place.
Yah. It is almost like they said "Here is the old way we did things. We just wanted to remind you of that before delivering on the new way :)"
I spent an hour this morning clearing the last 30 minutes of Searing Gorge before it switched to Dustwallow Marsh and I got the completion for that.
I also hit 70 on my DH! (and got 3-4 pieces of 480 gear)
Oh and I got the achievement for 10K essences so I have at least that but I'd wager I'm closer to 15K since I killed Onyxia after that.
Now I just need to complete the third event. I am tempted to switch to my hunter or some other alt. Maybe not even a 60+ alt to see how fast the leveling is for them. (I went 64.5 to 70 in less than an hour)
Personal notes of the prepatch.
The server you are on or instance you are in makes a huge difference.
Most of the instances have been well stacked. But the handful I have been in that are double that make the event great.
Clearing and resetting the event in 10 minutes or less is a lot of fun.
Sadly clearing the events in 20minutes is much less fun and much less rewarding.
And sadly it seems to be either or right now.
And some of the boss fights, in particular the Lich King are difficult to learn the mechanics and very dangerous for melee classes that have week heals.
And the gear that drops sub level 50 is woefully under powered. Like getting il 150 drops on an il 270 character.
So I have been carried on quite a few classes that are in the 60's now: enh shaman, shd priest, ass/cmb rogue
I think one of the other issues is there are some specs that are fun to level/quest that are not fun in the events. So they might have been a good class to main in War Within, but are too much of a pain to level to 70.
I am now leaning havoc DH or Dem warlock to main in WW. My sur hunter is 67 and may make the cut. I love enh shaman but she has a ways to go at 56 and she has had rotten luck with event population
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