WoW: Warlords of Draenor
We're two weeks into WoW patch 6.2 and I'm already saying it feels like the end-of-expansion lull. Guild interest in Warlords of Draenor never quite reached the critical mass required for raiding - we were close, but not quite there. 5-man content has so lacked incentive that beyond a flurry of initial runs to do some quests, that's fallen by the wayside. I rarely see more than two or three other guildmates online while I pop in to do daily "chores."
Now, there have been some good points to the expansion. While the story is sort of disconnected from previous, I did find leveling content to be good and enjoyable. Garrison content might be argued to have been "too good," but there was some interesting design there. Having some choice of setup and bonuses/rewards is nice. Gathering followers (and ships) is flavorful. World rares and treasures made for neat distractions in the wild. There were some neat encounter designs (if not for camera issues, I'd say Grimrail was actually pretty great in spite of difficulty). I was iffy about the development of Yrel, but in the end I would say I like her and her story.
But for all that, the expansion also included a slew of what I consider missteps and overreactions. Others have gone into far more detail than I have time and interest for, but the shift in the game from where I sit was largely negative.
Leveling content: Enjoyable, but repetitious with alts. Slight improvement.
Endgame, Garrison: New. World of Farmville! Neat aspects, but negative impact on professions and encourages connecting in brief spurts to collect and queue orders rather than actually getting out and playing.
Endgame, World content: Not a lot there. Treasures offer a little attraction. Now that Tanaan Jungle is out, there's rare-hunting and reputation tracks that will last a few more weeks.
Endgame, 5-man content: Worth a spin for a character just hitting the level cap and that's about it. Some of the content is neat, but the rewards are outclassed so very quickly. Even the new mythic versions don't drop anything appealing enough to encourage me to go. And being stuck with the same handful of dungeons since the expansion released is a drag.
Endgame, LFR: Rewards barely sufficient to entice me, mostly with the "collect a fuckton of X" quests for the legendary ring which I won't really have much use for when I get it. The way the first "tier" was split into two and spaced out in release felt downright embarrassing. Hellfire LFR rewards are lower ilevel than empowered apexis gear. The amount of raid content (unless Blizzard suddenly pulls another one out of somewhere in defiance of all indications) is downright lacking compared to previous expansions, and I feel that even as a casual/LFR player.
Endgame, Daily quests: All but done away with... then brought back! I'll probably get another couple weeks of play out of the Tanaan dailies, but they weren't handled particularly well this time out.
And now with talk of 6.2 being the final major content patch (or at least the final raid tier) and no announcement of the next expansion, it's very hard to believe there won't be a loooong content drought as we max rep and Tanaan feels less new - which is exactly what Blizzard says it's trying to avoid.
I don't know... They've got vision there. They've got skill and polish. But Blizzard really needs a healthy dose of either realistic expectations or hustle. Perhaps both.*
* but not so much they overdo it and start releasing fast crap with no quality control.
Now, there have been some good points to the expansion. While the story is sort of disconnected from previous, I did find leveling content to be good and enjoyable. Garrison content might be argued to have been "too good," but there was some interesting design there. Having some choice of setup and bonuses/rewards is nice. Gathering followers (and ships) is flavorful. World rares and treasures made for neat distractions in the wild. There were some neat encounter designs (if not for camera issues, I'd say Grimrail was actually pretty great in spite of difficulty). I was iffy about the development of Yrel, but in the end I would say I like her and her story.
But for all that, the expansion also included a slew of what I consider missteps and overreactions. Others have gone into far more detail than I have time and interest for, but the shift in the game from where I sit was largely negative.
Leveling content: Enjoyable, but repetitious with alts. Slight improvement.
Endgame, Garrison: New. World of Farmville! Neat aspects, but negative impact on professions and encourages connecting in brief spurts to collect and queue orders rather than actually getting out and playing.
Endgame, World content: Not a lot there. Treasures offer a little attraction. Now that Tanaan Jungle is out, there's rare-hunting and reputation tracks that will last a few more weeks.
Endgame, 5-man content: Worth a spin for a character just hitting the level cap and that's about it. Some of the content is neat, but the rewards are outclassed so very quickly. Even the new mythic versions don't drop anything appealing enough to encourage me to go. And being stuck with the same handful of dungeons since the expansion released is a drag.
Endgame, LFR: Rewards barely sufficient to entice me, mostly with the "collect a fuckton of X" quests for the legendary ring which I won't really have much use for when I get it. The way the first "tier" was split into two and spaced out in release felt downright embarrassing. Hellfire LFR rewards are lower ilevel than empowered apexis gear. The amount of raid content (unless Blizzard suddenly pulls another one out of somewhere in defiance of all indications) is downright lacking compared to previous expansions, and I feel that even as a casual/LFR player.
Endgame, Daily quests: All but done away with... then brought back! I'll probably get another couple weeks of play out of the Tanaan dailies, but they weren't handled particularly well this time out.
And now with talk of 6.2 being the final major content patch (or at least the final raid tier) and no announcement of the next expansion, it's very hard to believe there won't be a loooong content drought as we max rep and Tanaan feels less new - which is exactly what Blizzard says it's trying to avoid.
I don't know... They've got vision there. They've got skill and polish. But Blizzard really needs a healthy dose of either realistic expectations or hustle. Perhaps both.*
* but not so much they overdo it and start releasing fast crap with no quality control.
Comments
Post a Comment