Count me as one that considers “all about needing other people” overrated. As is the much-vaunted sense of community. This XPAC might conceivably be just about right. (Assuming I can ever get into the server.)
ETA: that’s what “community” means to me. 30 minutes and waiting. If there were a little less “community” I’d be playing right now. Sartre was right.
45 minutes in queue… 5 minutes to see a character selection screen… 10 minutes looking at the loading screen and camped at about 95% on the progress bar after selecting a character… and then dumped with “character not found”.
I hate xpac night.
You must have WoW confused with some other game. WoW has been all about becoming more solo-friendly for months now even to the point of retooling old out-leveled content to make it easier to solo. The raid/pvp content is always going to be a major feature of the game, but it’s not the only way to play.
I was otherwise engaged for most of today, but I managed to find the time to play a bit in the evening. Got my garrison founded, and about two thirds of a level.
PSA: If you have level 90 alts, log onto them at least once so they start accumulating rest.
For the record, I didn’t encounter any server problems tonight. But then again, my server is still fairly low pop, despite a connection a little while ago.
I have analysis paralysis right now. I’m not sure whether to play my 90 monk, boost my DK up to 90, or boost a 'lock to 90.
I know, I know. My post was kind of a “shaking-a-fist-at-heaven” lament. Heck, just today I soloed a mob that the quest said should take 3 people. And I did it wearing a bathrobe and sandals, too.
There seem to be quite a few issues with the “Transfer aborted: instance not found.” error. I know that I’m unable to hearth to my garrison more often than I can, and it sucks because each unsuccessful attempt starts the 20 minute CD. I’d bet they make that a top priority, as having your own town was a big selling point and people will be bitching about it.
The game has been so-so fun. I still dislike how I’m shoved thru a story, rather than left to my own devices as to whether or not to get involved and how much. I know, Oak, it’s just the way the game has gone. I know.
At first I thought there were too many cut scenes that were a part of the quests, but that seems to have subsided after the first couple of hours.
Oh, hey, what’s the deal with the BGs? No new ones? I know there will be, but when?
I agree with you there. I hate the linear storyline railroad introduction, and think it is horrible game design. Forces everybody to do exactly the same thing, creating artificial bottlenecks and unnecessary frustration. At least with WotLK, you could choose to start on either side of the island, ignore quests and just go exploring, or otherwise do your own thing.
Oh, yes, Wrath was great with the option to start at one of two zones (also much better when leveling alts so you’re not doing the exact same thing over and over). They sort of did that again with Cataclysm. Wish they’d keep doing it.
Given how much trouble I’ve had just getting on and staying on my server the last day or so I’m actually happier I didn’t get the expansion immediately - I’d be screaming if I had it but couldn’t play it do to all the other expansion headaches (I know this from prior experience). By the time my copy arrives I anticipate the problems will be resolved and the initial bottlenecks cleared.
ISTM that there are so many fewer people playing now than 2 or 4 years ago that most of the bottlenecks seemed to have been gone by mid-afternoon PST yesterday.
I know there were crashes as people tried to get into their 1st garrison yesterday morning, over and over and over again. Seems like it didn’t occur to Blizzard that they would need to make several hundred thousand unique instances appear on the fly and all at the same time, but only to each person in this mass of people being herded towards their new garrison(s). :smack:
ETA: Ya know, it is going to suck having to drag all 12 of my 90s thru that same stupid level-and-a-half intro shit. Looks like I’ll be PvP-leveling at least 6 toons in order to avoid that shit.
Yeah. I suspect the “challenge ratings” (to borrow a phrase) given on the quests are based on the lowest-common denominator: toons that never got past Timeless Isle epics or boosted 90s. My main is an LFR fashion victim with the legendary cloak (and a pet, that helps too) and there was never a moment I or my pet went below 75% health, even egregious overpulls. I was mildly shocked. I really expected to die a couple of times. Remember the difficultly ledge fighting the early level-80 mobs in Cataclysm compared to 80s in Northrend? No such ledge in this xpac.
I hope like I don’t sound like I’m complaining. It just strikes me as odd, how easy the game has become.
I only tried my garrison hearth twice, and it worked OK both times, but I imagine if I’d rolled the dice enough it would have come up snake eyes like that. OTOH, every time I tried to just walk/run/ride into my garrison, there was between 3 and 3 dozen “Transfer aborted” errors, complete with teleporting back to the point in my travel at which I cross the border into the garrison instance. Frustrating, and kind of weird, like a temporal stutter.
My sensation is that the shoving-ness “on a rail” feeling is less pronounced once you get your garrison. Several different branches for quests open in different areas. It’s not like Vashj’ir. (I haven’t gotten much outside of Frostfire Ridge, so my observations are pretty limited.)
The opening quests from the portal through Tanaan Jungle were waaaay too much like a console. WTF is up with the freeze-frame of the “villain of the level”, complete with a big name label? Did Nintendo write that part of the game? :dubious:
Can’t speak to that; BGs are not a thing for me, unless I’m forced into them by an achievement or a legendary.
Stuck in the queue on a Europe server, and my place in the queue is increasing rather than decreasing! Something fishy going on there!
Blizzard suffered massive global denial of service attacks.
So no, the overloaded log in server problem is not their fault. Why did someone do that, essentially grief the entire game? I don’t know, my mind doesn’t work like that.
G.I.F.T., basically. (Thank you, Penny Arcade, for your keen observations and a damn good acronym.)
People grief because they can. They grief big because they can.
Think of it as “Bigger-than-world PvP”.
Anyone who still speaks glowingly about the fundamental good and limitless potential of the Human Spirit hasn’t been on the Internet. Ever.
Hmmmm…I was in and playing until about 20 minutes ago. Got disconnected from the server immediately after clicking a potion to see some dream-vision thingy on Moonwillow Peak. Now, I can log in to the character select screen, but when I try to enter the game, I get the “character not found” message. Tried several other toons on the same server, then tried some on different servers…same result. 
If we’re going to have to know the different clan leaders as the intros with names suggests, I think I’d have preferred questlines in specific zones. But I assume Blizzard didn’t do that because they wanted to show they’re a united force from the start.
I also didn’t care for the Tanaan Jungle quests, but i did like the last few quests and ending. I also like the abundance of killable rare mobs, though WoW’s definition of rare is ludicrous. I remember camping in FFXI 8 hours a day for 4-5 days – THAT was rare.
As for the increased soloability of the game, god, I love it. For several reasons, I play alone, and for the longest time, a big chunk of the game was a big nope for me. It’ll be nice to have something to do that isn’t just faction grinds.
Looks like I don’t have much choice about waiting a few days. Yesterday’s login queue for Lightbringer was somewhere north of 2400, today it was 2641.
Every single time, no matter what name pops up, in my head I hear “Ricky! Winterborn!”* and I see clips from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World playing on the backside of my eyelids.
It makes me feel like it’s “hey let’s do more ‘video game’ stuff in our video game” than anything else: superfluous and stupid.
ETA: * Bonus points for everyone who remembers Ricky Winterborn!
I got back in, right about the time I need to leave the office (cable internet, so I play here).
Still, considering the various launch issues, I’ve been reasonably productive. Lvl 92 on my main, Garrison to Level 2 (looks pretty cool), about ready to move to the next zone, I think.
There’s more maintenance scheduled tomorrow. Game expected to be available around 11:00 AM Central. Maybe they’ll fix most of the problems…
Lore-geek fanservice. We’re getting an awesome chance to go back in time to see and fight against the legendary leaders of the Horde. I enjoyed the little grand tour of the Iron Horde leadership.
There’s lore-geek fanservice done right. Such as the actual Lords of War videos.
And then there’s this “we want to attract console weenies” shit.
Color me not impressed. Blizz worked pretty hard to just mail in the intros. Immersion is shot to hell as soon as the universe freezes and the villain gets a title macro.