Mists of Pandaria Beta

[BaneTheBrawler]

I wasn't feeling well when cata launched so I was in and out of the bathroom quite a lot. Jacked up the time it took to get 85, but I hit 85 halfway through uldum, on day 2. Maybe day 3, i don't recall exactly. It didn't take long, though, even with not feeling well.

[Aksannyi]

I took my time leveling through Cata, mostly because of work. I know that I eventually dinged 85 on Christmas day, which is sad I suppose, but I don't have any family here so I don't celebrate it. That was like my (lame) gift to myself.

Waiting a few weeks was kind of nice, less crowding at the leveling spots, less ganking, but still plenty of people around to complete group quests like the CoC. I'll probably do the same for Mists.


I also don't use heirlooms and don't have any guild perks, so that slows things down for me. But I take my time and enjoy it, it's never been a race for me.

[Plow]

being ally on blackrock at start of cata was painful, way worse than wotlk

multiple zones where main quests went through spots that would literally have several dozen horde crowding the npc's at all times, shit extended the grind by hours just waiting/hoping for an opportunity to hand in quests before you get gangraped

[SamanosukeShiva]

Windsong enchant 98% uptime lawlawlawlawl

[Meresgi]

Finally got off the turtle since they fixed the dragon quest. The whole starting zone was pretty fun, a lot better and smoother then goblin/worgen I thought though not as interesting as Blood Elf which is still my favorite starting zone before Cataclysm.

[Mortilox]

I don't stalk US forums but EU these days are full of "You ruined the game with your nerfs and LFR!" threads. Hot headed tards can't figure out to cancel their own power of the aspects debuffs and enjoy the content as hard as it was when released. Nah, they'd rather go complain on the forums.

And people continue to spam this video

[Meresgi]

@Mort, you can't honestly tell people to just "click off the buff" because I dont think that's the complaint purists have about the game. I'm half on either side really, I liked Vanilla and the mystery of the raids where you were in MC and another guild was in AQ and you knew that you were going to get there at some point, and just looking at all the shit they were wearing and watching the videos you though "holy shit this will be me soon and it will be fun!". Now with every patch, new badge and 5man gear puts you at a higher standing then people who just completed the last tier's heroic modes so there is none of that. The alt you just made yesterday will be geared to do DS as soon as it hits 85 after only a few days or running 5mans and 1 or 2 LFRs.

I don't think we need bosses like Muru again, or the cockblock that was Kael'thas (although it was a huge accomplishment when we downed him to get into BT a week before they scrapped the attunement) but I would like to see more then just "oh do the hardmodes" because that's a copout. LFR was implemented for the casual non-raiders to experience the raids so why make normal raids easy as hell and nerf both normal and heroic versions?

Especially when it's just a blanket nerf. I watched a Legendary episode yesterday and the poofy haired guy, I think his name is Lore, was talking about how he liked it back when nerfs were targeted at specific fight mechanics that people had trouble with and not just huge blanket nerfs across the board on every single fight.

almost everyone had content to do at any one time that was challenging.
Unless you have an 8/8 Heroic character, you obviously still have content that is challenging to complete (not saying you don't have one).

I just think that attitude is meh, I don't see heroic content as being "more" content and never will. The same fight but with the boss doing extra damage or a single thing changed does not equate to something new and interesting.

[Clemz]

I only managed to make it through half that video before I had to stop it so I didn't turn retarded myself. Less than 1% of the playerbase seeing a raid was a good thing? Spending weeks, if not months, dredging through old content to catch up, then having to do it all over again whenever you got a new recruit or what have you was complete bullshit. I've been playing since launch, and I've raided every tier except Ulduar, and I honestly cannot understand the hard on people have for the way shit was in Vanilla and BC. I'm not saying it's perfect now, and frankly it probably never will be. I like the way it's set up now. If I level an alt, I can have it ready for current content in a few days, which is great. If I want to go back and do the old content on my own terms, that's great.

In BC I played a hunter, but ended up switching to a shaman to help progress in Sunwell(for what it's worth, I greatly enjoyed Sunwell, M'uru can fuck right off with his 1% wipes before the 3.0 though, fuck), and it was a huge pain in the ass, and that was AFTER attunements had been done away with. Admittedly, it was probably easier for me since Sunwell guilds were still running BT/Hyjal for tier gear and weapons to push on in Sunwell, so I got to skip Serpentshrine and Karazhan(well I still ran a shit ton of Karazhan because it was a nice to relax with friends on the weekend and get some extra badges). Now, I wouldn't mind if running the previous tier of raids to get your footing in the current tier was the way it was set up, but the bullshit "journey" of having attunements, and having to drag your ass through MC just to go to BWL so you could do AQ and then Naxx was horseshit and the game's better off without it.

For what it's worth, I also don't agree with heroic raid bosses being considered additional content, but that quote is right. If you aren't 8/8h DS, there's still shit for you to progress on.

[The Stig]

I listened to the video while doing the washing. Was tolerable. There was initial rage due to his voice but I managed to supress it and continued listening.

I quite like LFR. It gives me a weird/relaxed opportunity to gear my alts in current gear -1 just incase i need them for raiding alt runs or to join some pug run with some other friends but not be severly gimped, at the same time, I don't need to devote all of my time running through tiers of raiding just to do current raids.

I view the raiding instances that require attunement pretty much the same way I view FFXI's Sky, Sea, Dynamis (I think you had to be on mission 6 to do Dynamis? -- Also, needing to clear the 4 cities before being able to tackle northern glacier & xacabard), Salvage (need to do ToAU15). Although the system cannot be strictly compared, I understand his views on the exclusive feel that inspires you to become better players because you need to be good (or rich) (and/or competant) to get there.

I echoed a similar viewpoint here: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/110...=1#post5177150

I mean, how many times did we visit town and see some badass there with AF2 gear, Sky gear, Sea/Limbus Gear, Salvage Gear, a relic even, and thought "i want that stuff!" ? I guess that is what this guy is trying to express in the video. This was a source of motivation to play to be able to "be up there" with the good players.

Also, the FFXI guys, albeit a totally different lot, echoed a similar viewpoint here on the return of an exclusive area such as that: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/111...ould-FFXI-Take

However due to work nowadays my stance has since switched a bit, and would prefer an easier time. Even with the 25% buff we are having trouble with Heroic Spine (and I'm actually terrified of Deathwing now considering the guy I was speaking to on Saturday who was on the encounter wiped repeatedly, despite clearing it before, not sure if it was a bad day or what, but they're amongst the top guilds on the realm).

Everyone says Madness Heroic is easier though.

I suppose that video can say players nowadays have no appreciation of what should be difficult? I clearly recall my RL friend's guild back in Lich King did not reach 12/12 until after the 30% buff and were infact stuck at 8(?)/12 for a long long long time. Back then I wasn't raiding but just a clueless player exploring and questing in Northend.

Overall I'm neutral. I wasn't around in Vanilla days. I'm unsure if the game was truely that hard or did we just suck (similar to how did we ever find some NES games hard, although some still are)

[Correction]

Video author is a fucking idiot. Attunements that took days to accomplish were awful. The 15 minute C'Thun runback (through trash mobs that never despawned) was fucking awful. Naxxramas was only seen by 1% of the population not because of its difficulty, but because it was only available as the top raiding instance for five months and green quality TBC gear was outclassing T3 within 24 hours of that expansion's launch.

Yes there's no journey anymore. I liked the quests leading up to most of the attunements (but fuck the Vials quest and fuck having to kill an overtuned boss in Magtheridon before being able to enter TK) but honestly having the ability to recruit players or gear alts has done more for the 1% in WoW than difficult raids ever did.

Srsly, dude is wearing the rosiest of lenses, packed with bullshit.

[Meresgi]

I agree that it's far easier to recruit now due to not having attunements, it was such a pain in the ass trying to find people who had their vials done, or were ready to do TK etc etc. I liked some of the attunements (Karazha) though just because they only dealt with doing 5mans and everyone could get that shit done and if they didn't bother doing it then you could let them in yourself at the door, it was just an added bonus really. I would like attunements like that back, but not the Vials one.

Overall I'm neutral. I wasn't around in Vanilla days. I'm unsure if the game was truely that hard or did we just suck (similar to how did we ever find some NES games hard, although some still are)

It' wasn't hard really, the fights had "new" mechanics because we had never seen them before whereas now we can go "oh this is just boss xx and boss yy's moves put together with some adds". I did like the linear progression but that's just me and looking back I know my fondness for that shit was because I was in college, had no job and could spend all that time each week grinding raids to go into new raids. Now I know I couldn't commit to it, hell I couldn't even commit to 3 days a week when my guild was working on heroic DS (now they can clear the full place in a night lol).

edit: I'd view hardmodes as semi new content if they werent nerfed repeatedly. It just creates this mentality of "why do it now? Wait 3 months and do it then and don't slam your head against a wall" that washes through a lot of guilds who arn't trying to be world first.

[Correction]

Overall I'm neutral. I wasn't around in Vanilla days. I'm unsure if the game was truely that hard or did we just suck (similar to how did we ever find some NES games hard, although some still are)

It wasn't hard, only extremely time consuming. The roadblocks to progression varied from guild to guild but just behind the bleeding edge you had the following problems:

- 40 man raid size. At the top levels you were frequently struggling to find 40 qualified players to run content with you.
- 'Bench' fights. 8 tanks for Four Horsemen. Frost damage a requirement for Viscidus. Motherfucking Shazzrah. Having to sit on the sidelines while your guild stacked a specific kind of class with alts or other players was pure misery and you'd always be wondering if you'd get to fight the next boss, or even get to come the following week following a failed night.
- Consumables, Consumables, Consumables. See above note about 40 man raid size. Now imagine making flasks for 40 people, back when the only way to make flasks was to lead 5-10 people through Scholomance and clearing Ras' room because it was the only place in the world with the required alchemy lab (until your guild could clear BWL, anyway). And this was before the 2 elixir limit and the out-of-combat requirement for pot consumption. You'd literally park a guild mule outside the raid instance and keep every single one of his bags full of pots just so you didn't have to fly back to ironforge/orgrimmar to get more when you ran out on any given night.
- Resist checks. Huhuran. Onyxia Scale Cloaks. Loatheb. Sapphiron. Having to farm this gear was a tedious chore and not having it was an auto-disqualify for a lot of guilds. Morons like the aforementioned video creator talk about motivation to become a better player, when really what the game often required was an RNG-powered loot hunt that took fucking. ages. and never substantially improved your DPS or sense of power.
- Itemization problems. Strength on rogue leather. Agility on Warrior Plate. Intellect only gave you mana.

There are other gripes but they're minor by comparison. Attunements can be rolled up into the '40 man' requirement and not all of them were unbearable (only needed one person with UBRS key), etc.

[Dantrag]

Man, 40 man raids were nuts to do. Even MC starting off was pretty challenging due to the huge gear checks and timing needed to get 40 people to do the same thing at the same time.

[Correction]

Man, 40 man raids were nuts to do. Even MC starting off was pretty challenging due to the huge gear checks and timing needed to get 40 people to do the same thing at the same time.

Not to mention how primitive boss mods were back then. Guilds were not sharing ANY information at all, so you pretty much needed someone who could code LUA and a custom timer mod to know and announce tank swaps, dispels and healing assignments. To say nothing of how bad KTM was.

[Plow]

Video author is a fucking idiot. Attunements that took days to accomplish were awful. The 15 minute C'Thun runback (through trash mobs that never despawned) was fucking awful. Naxxramas was only seen by 1% of the population not because of its difficulty, but because it was only available as the top raiding instance for five months and green quality TBC gear was outclassing T3 within 24 hours of that expansion's launch.

Yes there's no journey anymore. I liked the quests leading up to most of the attunements (but fuck the Vials quest and fuck having to kill an overtuned boss in Magtheridon before being able to enter TK) but honestly having the ability to recruit players or gear alts has done more for the 1% in WoW than difficult raids ever did.

Srsly, dude is wearing the rosiest of lenses, packed with bullshit.

I completely agree with most of what you're saying, I turned that vid off after a minute or 2 cuz dude was such a moron, but I just wanna point out...

t3 held up until you had enough t4 or t5 (which was 10 levels higher obv) to make it worth breaking set bonuses

Even some nef gear and shit didn't get touched til 70 raid gear (hell I had a mage that hit 1800 in s2 wearing maexxna's neck and 3 pieces of FM gear lol), Naxx gear was pretty much untouchable til you were raiding at 70.

[Clemz]

Not to mention if you were a shaman, druid, paladin, or priest you were healing, no questions asked. You could be feral and not want to respec, you're still healing. Very, very few and far between were raids that allowed paladin or druid tanks, or enhancement DPS(though running into an enhancement shaman in BGs with hand of rag was the most goddamn frightening thing in the game). Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed all the time I've spent raiding, because it was miles ahead of anything available at the time, and it was great for the timeframe, but as the game(and mmos in general) has evolved, it just wouldn't work anymore, no matter how much anyone screams Vanilla/TBC were the golden age of WoW.

The journey worked in XI, where your gear progression at the level cap was completely sideways, you got situational pieces and sidegrades, you very rarely replaced full sets of gear until they started raising the level caps, and even now it's back to sideways, though I haven't played since the cap was still 95. When you're replacing all of your gear every few months, and then getting a new level cap every year(or two, as has been the case), that journey just doesn't work anymore.

And yeah, Naxx gear easily took you to 70 and into Karazhan, shit Thunderfury was the BIS tank weapon until SSC, maybe even into BT before it was nerfed? My hunter was only in T2 shit and most of that lasted until around 68 or so, and some of it even into level 70 dungeons.

[Correction]

I completely agree with most of what you're saying, I turned that vid off after a minute or 2 cuz dude was such a moron, but I just wanna point out...

t3 held up until you had enough t4 or t5 (which was 10 levels higher obv) to make it worth breaking set bonuses

Even some nef gear and shit didn't get touched til 70 raid gear (hell I had a mage that hit 1800 in s2 wearing maexxna's neck and 3 pieces of FM gear lol), Naxx gear was pretty much untouchable til you were raiding at 70.

Yeah, Kungen was tanking T5 content with Thunderfury. But that speaks more to the shittiness of weapon availability through all of TBC (try being a combat rogue and finding a good sword through t6) than how 'good' non legendary level 60 weapons were. Fuck, people were doing Arena for PvE weapon upgrades, that's how bad it was.

Speaking of rogues, I could swear it was worth it to break 6/8pc t3 for just 3 pieces of level 70 heroic blue set gear for the gem sockets alone.

but as the game(and mmos in general) has evolved, it just wouldn't work anymore, no matter how much anyone screams Vanilla/TBC were the golden age of WoW.

To this I would add that the userbase is older now, married, has a family/career to think about and can't be assed to grind their lives through this kind of game. It was fucking impossible to be this AND a dedicated 40/25 man raider in Vanilla/TBC. Very, very few top 100 guilds respected your time away from the game (and this was Reason #1 I quit FFXI and probably will never return). Now it's pretty easy to make a 10 man guild and progress on a humane schedule.

[Plow]

Yeah, Kungen was tanking T5 content with Thunderfury. But that speaks more to the shittiness of weapon availability through all of TBC (try being a combat rogue and finding a good sword through t6) than how 'good' non legendary level 60 weapons were. Fuck, people were doing Arena for PvE weapon upgrades, that's how bad it was.

Speaking of rogues, I could swear it was worth it to break 6/8pc t3 for just 3 pieces of level 70 heroic blue set gear for the gem sockets alone.

kungen had a sun eater he just chose to use thunderfury cuz the proc was still imba (resulted in a nerf eventually didn't it?), but that's a big exception anyway

I know for sure everybody I know that had a bunch of t3 was still using it well into t4 content. There were people that actually pulled out the pally 4 piece at 80 cuz with it + glyph you could get loh to like 4 min cd.

[Meresgi]

To this I would add that the userbase is older now, married, has a family/career to think about and can't be assed to grind their lives through this kind of game. It was fucking impossible to be this AND a dedicated 40/25 man raider in Vanilla/TBC. Very, very few top 100 guilds respected your time away from the game (and this was Reason #1 I quit FFXI and probably will never return). Now it's pretty easy to make a 10 man guild and progress on a humane schedule.

Yeah that's pretty much it, sometimes I wish I could devote that much time to gaming again but just can't, not to mention looking back I think "holy shit that was really unhealthy".

Enhance shammies with rag hammer and hemo rogues with 2 misplaced servo arms were the shit though haha.

Anyways back on beta topic, what the shit professions should I do for my monk? I have JCing and BSing on my DK, inscription and herbalism on my rogue and mining on my mage. Skinning/leatherworking is out the door because fuck gathering all that leather. I'm thinking maybe alchemy and enchanting, since the JC mount will be BoA so I can just make that shit on my DK and run around with it on my monk.

[Clash Perez]

Yeah that's pretty much it, sometimes I wish I could devote that much time to gaming again but just can't, not to mention looking back I think "holy shit that was really unhealthy".

Enhance shammies with rag hammer and hemo rogues with 2 misplaced servo arms were the shit though haha.

Anyways back on beta topic, what the shit professions should I do for my monk? I have JCing and BSing on my DK, inscription and herbalism on my rogue and mining on my mage. Skinning/leatherworking is out the door because fuck gathering all that leather. I'm thinking maybe alchemy and enchanting, since the JC mount will be BoA so I can just make that shit on my DK and run around with it on my monk.

If you've never done Engineering, the tinkers are a blast and there looks to be a solid head piece to craft that'll probably be pretty competitive early in MoP. The synapse springs are currently shown to be tuned to average higher than any of the other professions, but I don't think that will last.

Otherwise, alchemy/enchanting is probably a good bet. Alchemy is pretty simple to level, which should help offset the extra profession grinding that enchanting entails.