Allied races and coming off the heels of Legion probably helped a lot.

Impressive. Congrats to WoW.

Co-Workers are trying to get me back into the game, but I'm two expansions behind and don't have the energy anymore. Hearing a lot of good things though.

I pre-ordered the CE because I wanted the CE, but I haven't used my game code yet because I need to find a way to be able to play regularly for 30 days straight. I am looking forward to revisiting Azeroth and seeing what has changed. Probably going to start a new character for it.

Cram wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 11:04:
Impressive. Congrats to WoW.

Co-Workers are trying to get me back into the game, but I'm two expansions behind and don't have the energy anymore. Hearing a lot of good things though.

Impressive? No, its not really. This is what the current user base has been over the past few years. so it was expected.

Pretty low compared to previous addons.

It's interesting how things felt leading up to the launch... Lots of complaints about how meh Blizzard's pre-pre-launch efforts were...

Personally, going into the pre-patch was pretty meh... I enjoyed the content/story of the pre-patch, but there was so little of it, and nothing consistent, like Legion's launch. Then the later events, and the big lol disappointment (Who burned the tree? Of course it's Sylvanas, but no, 'You'll be surprised' marketing bullshit)...

And then a whole slew of pre-launch content came out (2 of the 3 warbringers vids, 2 very not short novellas about the tree event), and people were all over the place, generating the usual hype...

The expansion itself feels good... Has a bunch of the things that worked well in Legion, and some of the (old and new) problems. The Horde story has been interesting, and gearing up (WQ's and/or Dungeons) is the same as it ever was (maybe faster). Both my Demo Lock and Frost DK are low 320's, and I'll be ready to step into Normal Raiding by the 4th, and I've enjoyed both in longer fights, so I'm hopeful I won't get bored to shit too fast ; )

The whole Azerite gear system is a bit fucky though... As you level, you unlock all the traits available, and then at max, you replace the gear, with equivalent traits, but can't unlock them for another month... It's a really weird design... The traits themselves are not game-making/breaking, but some of them are pretty cool... Vampiric Speed was amazing for leveling, and is again, now that I'm finally getting it back while doing some WQ content.

The scaling leveling is also just as fucked as it was in Legion, where you start strong, solo'n 3-5 (double if tank) with no problem at 110-114, then it shrinks down as you progress, and you're your weakest at 120, then you get gear... Part of this is just the iteration of an expansion based system (like secondary stats going from 40% to 10%), but the scaling on top of it (which has a crap ton of pros for other reasons) exacerbates that 'problem' a hundred fold.

Darks wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 12:02:

Cram wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 11:04:
Impressive. Congrats to WoW.

Co-Workers are trying to get me back into the game, but I'm two expansions behind and don't have the energy anymore. Hearing a lot of good things though.

Impressive? No, its not really. This is what the current user base has been over the past few years. so it was expected.

Pretty low compared to previous addons.

"Battle for Azeroth is the fastest-selling World of Warcraft expansion ever"

...

Darks wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 12:02:
Pretty low compared to previous addons.

setting a new day-one sales record for the franchise and making it one of the fastest-selling PC games of all-time

Come on dude it's right there.

Personally, $50 is a bit high for an expansion. After all the legion legendary nonsense, not really interesting in wasting my time any more. I find Elder Scrolls Online to be twice the game wow is any more.

World of Warcraft is the Jason Voorhees of gaming. It won't die. It'll go down, look dead or dying, then pop right back up and commence to the slaughter once again. The next WoW expansion needs to be "WoW Takes Manhattan".

This is probably on me for expecting good writing from a MMORPG, but the tonal shift in this expansion is probably the most jarring thing for me while trying to play it. You go from high level sci-fi/fantasy with visiting alien planets and dealing with gods responsible for the creation of the universe... too being killed by lizards that lick REALLY HARD while you are helping some farmhand harvest their organs. I mean, really? I just slayed a god and survived a blow from his ethereal scythe larger than my body... Ugh.

That isn't even touching on Sylvanas' transformation into Zombie Hitler and how shallow and forced that feels.

I know you can only escalate things so far, but how about downshifting a few gears first before kicking heroes of the universe back into picking onions for the local town drunks hangover cocktail and vapid faction war themes?

The only good thing, lore-wise, to come out of this has been the cinematic they did for Jaina where she was apologizing to her father's ghost for siding with the Horde against him. That was fantastic so I know they have it in them.

As much as I would like to go back to WoW, I know better. It's the most time consuming and addicting game I have ever played. If only I could limit myself to a few hours a day it would be ok but I know that would never happen and I would be playing 40-60 hours a week again in no time...

Crazy that an expansion for this game could do so well. I would have thought people were sick of WoW by now.

SimplyMonk wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 13:04:
This is probably on me for expecting good writing from a MMORPG, but the tonal shift in this expansion is probably the most jarring thing for me while trying to play it. You go from high level sci-fi/fantasy with visiting alien planets and dealing with gods responsible for the creation of the universe... too being killed by lizards that lick REALLY HARD while you are helping some farmhand harvest their organs. I mean, really? I just slayed a god and survived a blow from his ethereal scythe larger than my body... Ugh.

That isn't even touching on Sylvanas' transformation into Zombie Hitler and how shallow and forced that feels.

I know you can only escalate things so far, but how about downshifting a few gears first before kicking heroes of the universe back into picking onions for the local town drunks hangover cocktail and vapid faction war themes?

The only good thing, lore-wise, to come out of this has been the cinematic they did for Jaina where she was apologizing to her father's ghost for siding with the Horde against him. That was fantastic so I know they have it in them.

Since when did Blizzard ever have good lore or story?
They only steal from elsewhere, call it an "homage", and then it still feels cringy as hell, even if you dont know where they got it from.

Muscular Beaver wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 15:23:
Since when did Blizzard ever have good lore or story?

I'd say Wrath of the Lich King was more or less the end of what felt like an epic adventure built upon genuinely interesting lore. I'd even go so far as to say that it wasn't till Warlords where they went completely bankrupt on creativity and story telling.

But in general I understand where you're coming from. They've more or less front-loaded everything which made the RTS great in to the first couple of expansions and the quality seemed to drop when they had to create stories and lore on the fly. This is probably why they had to bring out Chronicles to clean up the garbage.

Wallshadows wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 15:45:

Muscular Beaver wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 15:23:
Since when did Blizzard ever have good lore or story?

I'd say Wrath of the Lich King was more or less the end of what felt like an epic adventure built upon genuinely interesting lore. I'd even go so far as to say that it wasn't till Warlords where they went completely bankrupt on creativity and story telling.

But in general I understand where you're coming from. They've more or less front-loaded everything which made the RTS great in to the first couple of expansions and the quality seemed to drop when they had to create stories and lore on the fly. This is probably why they had to bring out Chronicles to clean up the garbage.

The Arthas/Lich King story was good?
I almost died in laughter when I learned the reasons why he became so angry.

I must be one of the only retards on the planet that stopped playing when the burning crusade came out and never looked back...

Raid 3 out of 4 wings of Naxxramas, get crazy gear that I spent hundreds of hours trying to get vanish to green loot from trash mobs within a few hours.

I'm obviously still angry about it ~12 years later.

Muscular Beaver wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 15:53:
The Arthas/Lich King story was good?
I almost died in laughter when I learned the reasons why he became so angry.

I'm not saying it was going to win a Pulitzer prize but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it has been in the last several expansions.

Tipsy McStagger wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 15:59:
I must be one of the only retards on the planet that stopped playing when the burning crusade came out and never looked back...

Raid 3 out of 4 wings of Naxxramas, get crazy gear that I spent hundreds of hours trying to get vanish to green loot from trash mobs within a few hours.

I'm obviously still angry about it ~12 years later.

The constant progress reset every expansion is a major reason why I don't go back.

Wallshadows wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 12:29:

Darks wrote on Aug 23, 2018, 12:02:
Pretty low compared to previous addons.

setting a new day-one sales record for the franchise and making it one of the fastest-selling PC games of all-time

Come on dude it's right there.

Played since day 1...but me and most of my guild quit half way through Cata when we learned of the Kung Fu Panda expansion. Haven't been back since.

Really following the Classic/Vanilla development closely. That just may make me come back. Don't really want to pay for any other content though....