MoP Launch

While I commented that I thought the D3 launch was a cluster fuck; I feel it's only fair to comment that I think Blizzard did a fabulous job with MoP. I put the game in yesterday afternoon and it worked perfect. I was taken a bit by surprise that all I had to do was activate a key and the game was good to go - guess I'm so used to having to install things I just asssumed that's the way it would be.

All in all, IMHO, it was a great job by Blizzard. And the game itself, while I only hit 86 yesterday, is fantastic so far. The artwork is beautiful, the two dungeons were fun, the quests are becoming less linear as I advance through the Jade Forest; but I have to say I kind of don't want to leave the Jade Forest just yet, even though I opened up flight paths to HalfHill. I'm really in no hurry to get to 90, just kind of enjoying the world; I keep getting caught up the artwork and looking around at everything, it's just pretty; even the damn caves are pretty.

What a major difference between this and Cataclysm; it just makes it seem all the more more that Cata was to WoW what The Two Towers was to Lord of the Rings - a tweener.

I'm enjoying it as well. Still a few bugs left over from beta, 2nd boss in Jade Serpent bugs out periodically. Other than small things like that the questing is great, I've skipped hundreds of them in favor of getting to the capital city and 90. I'll go back and finish once I can fly again.

I'm a bit torn about flying. On the one hand, I want to see everything from the air, but on the other hand, I like exloring all the new stuff and not just buzzing past it with a fly by. Not having raids for a week, is really nice; I feel no pressure or desire to zoom to 90. Cata was so long and so...just...bad; I'm taking time enjoy this product. It a really silly sense (I know it's only a video game) it feels like an interactive piece of art.

The only thing I ran into was the helicopter thing with the ships, can't pull camera back, can't see to aim, etc.

That cleared itself up in 30 min, went back did quest, and I've been happily moving along since.

I'm really glad they decided to limit flying to lvl 90 this time around. While it sucks from a farming standpoint for alts and mains with 2 non gathering professions, it seems to really have put a limit on the early game botting epidemic that cata had.

It seems like the buffed the number of nodes for herbs and ore compared to past expansions; I've got stacks of herbs already and have not had to fight over nodes at all so far. And one of my guildies on the first day was going crazy about the amount of Ghost Iron Ore he was finding.

I am having trouble expressing my feelings. It doesn't feel like a WoW expansion has been released. No obscene queues to log in to your server(s), no rolling restarts, no emergency patches, no server crashes. What gives blizz?? I can't believe I paid hard earned money for a big, fat, seamless, functioning product. Thanks.

Login queues are typically about 1300 deep on Stormrage.

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Originally Posted by sifuedition

Login queues are typically about 1300 deep on Stormrage.

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HAHA - I was reading everyones take on it, and thinking man they're not on Stormrage. Now, I do like the expansion, and the art and scenery is beautiful without a doubt, along with the quest which IMHO are very good.

I understand that this is a game, and have a hard time getting mad at a game so I'm not a person to complain much about something I could just quit playing. Cata was not even in the ball park with this x-pac, no where close, and it was my first full x-pac being a Wrath baby.

The problem with Stormrage is so many people have transferred there (including myself and 2 guilds I know from Gilneas) making it a very high pop server. I haven't been 1300 deep yet but 300 is a norm for sure, course I haven't tried logging in this morning either.

I laughed at the first quest with the helicopters, it was really funny seeing that many copters trying to fly and kill stuff, it was mass chaos and could have easily been a games rendition of a real war while struggling to wait for spells to cast with 4-6 second lag.

Have fun guys - it's a game and an old one at that. My biggest regret about this game is not being around in Vanilla and BC, or even the release of Wrath. I often travel through the old worlds and wonder what it must've been like to quest as a level 60/70 through those zones.

For 15 bucks a month - this is by far the cheapest habit/hobby I have.

I'm pretty lucky on Alexstrasza, medium pop server so no que times so far, we'll see how the weekend goes. Forums are saying that Illidan is having 600 min que times, that's beyond not fun.

I sort of like not being able to fly just yet, seems to keep me more intouch with the game than when it was complete quest, fly back; rinse and repeat.

87-88 seems to be the long haul level. A few people I've spoken with said that the back side to 90 goes a bit quicker, but 87-88 feels looooooong. However, I do like the Summit so just taking my time.

I do have one issue, I keep getting DC'd but the game doesn't drop me to the start screen, it's like one never ending lag spike. I alt-tab, close the game and relog and I'm fine. My internet connection is still up durring this time; really wierd. Maybe just stress on the servers.

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Originally Posted by Theotherone

I'm pretty lucky on Alexstrasza, medium pop server so no que times so far, we'll see how the weekend goes. Forums are saying that Illidan is having 600 min que times, that's beyond not fun.

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Yeah, I don't think this would be fun. In the evenings when I get in from work, I log in and enter my PW and go about my evening business and in about 15 mins I see that I'm ready to play. No big deal and I know over time it will get better, always does.

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Originally Posted by Theotherone

I sort of like not being able to fly just yet, seems to keep me more intouch with the game than when it was complete quest, fly back; rinse and repeat.

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Couldn't agree with this more, the riding instead of flying is a breath of fresh air. This reminds so much of when I started playing this game running around Goldshire discovering something new every day.

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Originally Posted by Theotherone

I do have one issue, I keep getting DC'd but the game doesn't drop me to the start screen, it's like one never ending lag spike. I alt-tab, close the game and relog and I'm fine. My internet connection is still up durring this time; really wierd. Maybe just stress on the servers.

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I have the same problem sometimes and often get the "this character doesn't exist" message. Surely it's just server stress or something along those lines. All in all it seems pretty smooth with a few bugs that will get ironed out. Last night I was doing the "Centered" quest and couldn't get the spark to show. I had to disable my entire UI before I could see it. I thought for the first 30 tries I could guess my way through it, no dice.

Centered, I had not clue what was going on at first, couldn't see the spark either at first.

Last night the phasign in the Summit zone as a bit funky. On the Burlap Road I was finishing up one of the Grummlie quests where you have to kill Hozen leader Dok Ook (soemthign like that) and I must have killed him 4 times, before I got credit for it; just got caught in someone elses phases each time.

Really minor stuff so far; all in all they've done a great job. Really makes up for Cata.

I hate to admit it, but I like The Tillers, what I've done of it so far since I'm not 90; damn, never thought I'd like Farmville.

Did have one friend hit 90 then quit cause he didn't want to have to grind rep to gear up raid - "all I like to do is raid, now I have to grind rep for gear, I just cancelled my subscription." Oh well, he must have been looking for an excuse.

Yup, so I get a day off and the servers go down for......repairs.

This entire game is a grind, everything from leveling professions, to leveling to playing the AH. Raiding is just another facet of it and something I don't focus on like I use to. My wife and son are playing now and we have a blast just making gold and doing old runs for mounts and transmog items. Me thinks your friend was looking for an excuse.

Judging by this Xpac so far I think WoW has done a fantastic job after 8 years of coming up with new ideas. This new world reminds me of Outland's setting, of course it prolly is in some ways and maybe that's why it seems so good to me at this point because I've never been through an Xpac like that.

Cata was way different in setting; All of the new questing areas were in old worlds, except for the underwater part, and like others I didn't care for that to much after one time going through it. Panderia is a brand new word like Northrend or Outlands and brings a different feel to it, and I realize that's what I like about it because as I said above I wish I would've been able to play in those days.

I also like the theme of going after the King's son on a lost or new island. Unlike Cata, where to this day, I can't really even tell you what that was about without looking something up probably. I know bits and pieces but the story was not good and I didn't pay much attention while playing through it 4 times on alts, it was just hurry through it.

I haven't made it to the "Tillers" yet, but I'm sure I'll like when we do.

I for one am honestly exceptionally happy we're back to grinding. Grinding is an important part of the game ... having to actually put some work in to get some reward (within reason on both ends, reasonably amount of work netting a reasonable amount of reward) is a very important part of imparting value to the things we have. I appreciate how much work some of my guildies have begun to put into either their gear, or their farms, or their archaeology, or their pets ... it's awesome to have things to actually investing INTO, and the fact that there's rewards for doing it is pretty awesome. There were many failures in cataclysm but in the end it came down to there being almost nothing to do, with almost no reward. It seems blizzard understood this and has literally filled the world with things to do and I love it.

What's nice about the rewards is it appears that they are "expandable". It's not just build the farm get it nice opps, 5.1 drops farm is useless. That's the example off the top of my head, but I get the feeling that they're leaving some room to manuver in the patches so that Archeology, for example, doesn't get stuck in a rut.

Last night I was doing the Grumblie quests on the Burplap trail and was doing the one where you go up the mountain and kill the goats, I got up a bit turned around and the view was stunning, not to over do it, but it really felt like you were on a mountain looking down at the base camp. Really, cool area.

Get to Halfhill, meet up with the Tillers, although you really can't get much rep until 90, you can at least get some things growing in your garden.

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Originally Posted by feralminded

I for one am honestly exceptionally happy we're back to grinding. Grinding is an important part of the game ... having to actually put some work in to get some reward (within reason on both ends, reasonably amount of work netting a reasonable amount of reward) is a very important part of imparting value to the things we have. I appreciate how much work some of my guildies have begun to put into either their gear, or their farms, or their archaeology, or their pets ... it's awesome to have things to actually investing INTO, and the fact that there's rewards for doing it is pretty awesome. There were many failures in cataclysm but in the end it came down to there being almost nothing to do, with almost no reward. It seems blizzard understood this and has literally filled the world with things to do and I love it.

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This is worth saying again.

[QUOTE=Theotherone;557660]Last night I was doing the Grumblie quests on the Burplap trail and was doing the one where you go up the mountain and kill the goats, I got up a bit turned around and the view was stunning, not to over do it, but it really felt like you were on a mountain looking down at the base camp. Really, cool area.QUOTE]

Sticking with your "not to over do it" theme - But I have to admit that I had to stop and pan camera around several times. I'm 89 now and can safely say I have never quested so much in ~3 years of playing, and never, ever had a remote thought of going back over time and doing them all. I normally dungeon my way leveling up but the scenery and questing here is really good IMHO, and I just keep picking one up after another. Not being able to fly is a major contributor to this and something so far that I haven't even thought about having. Actually having a good time riding my Choppa with the wife in the side car telling me where to go and what to do - kinda side car driving I guess.

My NPC scan has went off at least 7 times on different Rares (some already dead, some with full health), missed a couple by a few seconds. The last one last night came in the Dead Wastes (Krol the Blade) while running up a hill to turn in a starter quest for the area; my scan went off and my reaction was to stop and look panning camera, nobody was killing him yet, I started running again in the same direction and there he was. Of course someone hit him before me but I helped them kill it.

Started leveling my hunter this weekend after I hit 90 on the pally. Didn't even get the "oh, crap" I have to do this again feeling, just kind of started and putzed around I'm 1/2 way to 86, but keep getting distracted - no rush; bought the little 2700g Yak and having fun riding around and mining/fishing. It will be slow, I missed a lot of stuff in Valley of the Four Winds it seems which I'll revist. Of all the areas I have to say the Dread Wastes are my least favorite; the whole bug thing reminds me so much of Sithilus without the sand and I hated Sithilius; but a zone being my least favorite in this expansion doesn't mean I don't like it at all, it just means it's where it falls in the pecking order.

My favorite feature is still Farmville, I love it; it's crazy/stupid, but it's so damn addictive; I got to expand my farm this morning; 4 new plots and an irrigation system woo hoo. Although I don't see why it takes 15 minutes to spray the weeds. I haven't looked at food prices on the AH yet, but I like the way they tied the farm to the cooking; espeically to the feasts.

Subs back over 10 million according to Blizz press release; we'll see what it is at year end; that will give a full quarter of MoP being out, but this seems to indicate MoP spurred some nice interest for Blizz and the speculation in Forbes of GW2 cutting WoW's sub base in half (or was it by 25%) may have been a bit out of line.

Expansion bounce, but is there staying power?

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Originally Posted by Theotherone

Subs back over 10 million according to Blizz press release; we'll see what it is at year end; that will give a full quarter of MoP being out, but this seems to indicate MoP spurred some nice interest for Blizz and the speculation in Forbes of GW2 cutting WoW's sub base in half (or was it by 25%) may have been a bit out of line.

Expansion bounce, but is there staying power?

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Goes to show that even somewhat informed sources are just as bad at doomsaying as the average WoW-Forum poster...when will we stop listening to these people?