The Battle for Azeroth Begins

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne…gins-august-14

A few more hours

Have they figured out they need to dynamically scale everything - or is it still limited to certain areas and certain level segments?

For old content? https://www.wowhead.com/news=277409/…scaling-levels

Originally Posted by porcozaur
For old content? https://www.wowhead.com/news=277409/…scaling-levels

Well, for all content

7.3.5 was definitely a step in the right direction, but much too conservative. They opted to retain a lot of the old restrictions, instead of just opening it all up.

After One Tamriel in ESO - it just makes too much sense not to have all zones be relevant in my opinion. Same goes for dungeons - which I assume are not all scaled, either?

So much of what's great about WoW is about the wonderful zone and dungeon design.

But being forced into certain areas at certain times, and eventually never having a reason to go back is a huge detriment, in my opinion.

So, if Blizzard went all the way like ESO did - I think WoW could become relevant for me again.

I have no interest in the linear progression hamster-wheel - but having a huge world that's entirely open and relevant at all times, would go a LONG way to make me interested in actually playing in that world again.

WoW classic only scale from level 1 - 60, BC and LK from 60 - 80 etc, so its not ESO system from what I can see. I also think they should have gone for ESO system but I wounder why they didn't since I too think ESO system is much better in this regards.

Having said that, I logged in to WoW couple of days ago and leveled a warrior from 1 to 25 (I am not subbed so free trial) and its pretty obvious WoW animation and sound effects are million miles ahead of ESO. You simply feel the impact of your actions in your gut in WoW, its so good! Obviously there are other thing wrong with WoW but feel of the combat is so fluid.

So in ESO everything scales to you from the beginning? I guess this could fuck up some stories in WOW.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
So in ESO everything scales to you from the beginning? I guess this could fuck up some stories in WOW.

Not exactly, it's quite clever.

They're essentially scaling all players to level 50/160 CP "behind the scenes" - which would be max level in WoW - but progression is retained through levels, skills, gear and so forth - as you're still gaining levels as per normal, you're just scaled up in terms of the math at all times.

It just means that all quests and enemies you encounter are max level (like you) - and so everything is viable for you to explore and experience.

Even better, you never have to worry about what level your friends are. Every single activity in the game is potentially available to everyone - though the harder content will be impossible without better gear and certain key skills.

Also, the game has certain enemy "ranks" - like Normal, Elite, Champion, Boss - and such, so that you still have things to work towards.

For WoW, they could still gate stories and quests through the objectives - and you'd still need to do whatever you always needed to do to gain access to expansion areas, or whatever.

But it would mean that every single zone, dungeon or raid would be meaningful to experience at any point in time (and you could do them as many times as you wanted to and still feel rewarded).

Of course, ESO uses the champion points system - and WoW doesn't quite have that kind of thing. I believe they're going to use an Artifact of some kind for similar progression - and they could just use that in the same way.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
So in ESO everything scales to you from the beginning? I guess this could fuck up some stories in WOW.

Yes thats right all scales. Many ESO DLC/Chapters are sort of self contained however there is a story order so its better to start from the base game and follow DLC/Chapters release order.

I am doing the exact opposite, starting from the latest chapter and working backwards!

I preordered BfA but I must admit, I'm not sure just how much I will be playing WoW anymore…. been trying to level up my Nightborne but I'm bored already and she's only level 58…

Originally Posted by purpleblob
I preordered BfA but I must admit, I'm not sure just how much I will be playing WoW anymore…. been trying to level up my Nightborne but I'm bored already and she's only level 58…

I know what you mean. I have not preordered BfA and I am in no hurry to play it. WoW is very polished etc but I think it has lost some sort of mystery and sense of wonder.

For my preferences, ESO wins the modern MMO race - hands down.

That said, it's not perfect - and there's no denying WoW is slicker and more varied in terms of the zone design.

Combat is much smoother too, for sure - but it's also a little old-fashioned and the tab-targeting gets a little old for me.

There are countless areas in which ESO is much, much better - including things like exploration, crafting, quests and the lore - but there should be room for more games than one.

For my part, WoW would definitely have to do more than what BFA is doing to get me truly interested again. "One Tamriel" style scaling would be a big step in the right direction, for me.

That said, as much as I like ESO - it's still not anywhere near my "dream" MMO.

Star Citizen should be the sci-fi version of that - but I'm not seeing any fantasy MMO on the horizon that's going far enough, sadly.

A few of the upcoming ones look decent enough, though. Ashes of Creation might be interesting - and though Pantheon is almost certainly not for me with its EQ-centric design, I could still do with some old-fashioned MMO'ing now and again.

What exactly do you have against Everquest, Darth? I no longer play myself, but I'm curious to know what you don't enjoy about it.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
What exactly do you have against Everquest, Darth? I no longer play myself, but I'm curious to know what you don't enjoy about it.

Darth doesn't like MMOs. He prefer single player games with multiplayer elements

I love ESO but its not a MMO on the same vain as EQ etc. I won't be playing Pantheon as well not because its going to be bad game etc but I simply no longer have the time to devote to it.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
What exactly do you have against Everquest, Darth? I no longer play myself, but I'm curious to know what you don't enjoy about it.

I don't have anything against it, it's just not for me.

I found it incredibly grindy and more like hard work than anything else. It's just the wrong kind of old-school for my part.

Then again, I didn't like games like DAoC or SWG much either.

I did enjoy UO because of its sandbox design, but ultimately I had similar problems with that one, too.

Just too much work for too little reward.

Essentially, I played games like Diablo before I played UO and EQ. Which skewed my perspective a little, I suppose.

To me, EQ/WoW/DAoC and all the others are really much the same thing as Diablo - in that they're about progressing your character and giving you a journey of the power fantasy in terms of growth and loot.

The difference is that Diablo can be exhausted in, say, a couple of days - where EQ wanted years of your time - with the journey of progression being drawn out to what I consider the extreme.

As Bilbo said, the traditional MMO of the late 90s and early 2000s was like butter spread over too much bread.

WoW changed things for the better in that way, as far as I'm concerned - even if I'm not really a fan of the themepark approach. But not enough by a long shot.

There's never been an MMO that was made "for me". Most of them have too many issues - and the only reason I play games like ESO is for the cooperative multiplayer aspect.

I would much, much rather play Skyrim or Fallout 4 in cooperative mode than ESO - but I can't have that, so…

But ESO is much, much closer to my preferences - because it's so full of content that I consider meaningful - as opposed to EQ, which just had a ton of work and enforced grouping to accomplish the simplest tasks. No quests to speak of, really. No interesting dungeons - but just wide open dungeons with minimal content. No voice acting, and so on. Just one huge and hollow timesink.

I never agreed with the basic design philosophy of the traditional DikuMUD MMO, like EverQuest - or even WoW.

WoW just took away a lot of the pointless grinding and hard work - and introduced very high quality content that was actually worth working towards, like the (for its time) superb zone design and instanced dungeons.

Wohoo, just got my key from cdkeys, just around 30 euros; came with a boost 110 too.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
Wohoo, just got my key from cdkeys, just around 30 euros; came with a boost 110 too.

Did you buy the "normal" version or pre purchase?

Preordered a week ago the normal one; the prepurchase one was 13 euros more expensive but you got the key when you bought it and the boost then.
This is the one i got https://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/worl…oth-dlc-cd-key (it was cheaper last week but there is a 5% voucher on their facebook)

Originally Posted by porcozaur
Preordered a week ago the normal one; the prepurchase one was 13 euros more expensive but you got the key when you bought it and the boost then.
This is the one i got https://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/worl…oth-dlc-cd-key (it was cheaper last week but there is a 5% voucher on their facebook)

So….. how is it?

Im only level 69 atm ) My horde guildies were impressed though, most of them were praising the beginning. Also was a smooth launch, either they really improved the servers or was a low ass number of players on.

Me and the wife was up around 11pm UK time for the release, and the launch was smooth as butter We logged into our guild after nearly 2 year absence and there were also 4 other returning players in our very smallish guild so I would says lot of returning players about.

I have not even gone to the new area yet! We are still deciding which of our alts to play and sorting our UI addon still!