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World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth |OT2| Bless Your Heart

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Prophet Five

Prophet Five

Pundeath Knight
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Nov 11, 2017
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The Great Dark Beyond
Ion is high on his own shit. There's no way someone could look back on how this expansion ended and think "Yeah - we're satisfied with that" unless the only check box was "End BFA."

And of course there's hints to things that will happen in the future. There's void everywhere and we're clearly gonna fight the void head on someday. Nothing about this is new information or surprising. He's just trying to hype up something that let down a lot of players. It's his job.
 
Berordn

Berordn

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 26, 2017
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Ion's response seemed highly reminiscent of the recent War3 comments. Acknowledge criticism exists, stand by the result and don't do anything to address it.

I have to wonder if there's a company-wide mandate for everyone to just keep their heads down.
 
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Prophet Five

Prophet Five

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Nov 11, 2017
7,689
The Great Dark Beyond
Berordn said:
Ion's response seemed highly reminiscent of the recent War3 comments. Acknowledge criticism exists, stand by the result and don't do anything to address it.

I have to wonder if there's a company-wide mandate for everyone to just keep their heads down.
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I imagine there is, honestly. No conspiracy theories or anything. Just "keep low and release something GOOD and then ride high on future success." Because eventually everything will "Go away" at some point.
 
Magnus

Magnus

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Oct 25, 2017
8,354
cartographer said:
Eh, I dunno. They flat out lied about shamans and shadow priests. And BFA was home to Lore's ridiculous combative and dismissive post about azerite (that players were 100 percent right about for months).

The good thing is you see less Lore these days. Somebody that bad at communication should not be your public voice.
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Shoot, fill me in on all this. What did they lie about? And where this Lore post? I really don't love the guy and agree that he doesn't seem great at communication. And omg the screamy voice in the patch videos! lol
 
carlsojo

carlsojo

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Oct 28, 2017
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I feel like in every expansion there's always some big controversy that one face takes the fall for. It's all meaningless in the end.

Didn't people talk shit about the ability guy in MoP and now everyone's celebrating his return?
 
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Prophet Five

Prophet Five

Pundeath Knight
Member
Nov 11, 2017
7,689
The Great Dark Beyond
carlsojo said:
I feel like in every expansion there's always some big controversy that one face takes the fall for. It's all meaningless in the end.

Didn't people talk shit about the ability guy in MoP and now everyone's celebrating his return?
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player base talking shit about someone though has no influence on Blizz rehiring them.

Ion and Lore are terrible and they've been very much "anti player" for a while. There needs to be a team shakeup if the past two years have proven anything. We need new blood and direction.
 
carlsojo

carlsojo

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Oct 28, 2017
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Milo Rambaldi said:
I respectfully disagree. Ion is a big source of all the negative sides of BFA and his reluctance to accept the fact and force players to suffer while waiting to the last minute to make any sort of changes was a huge reason as to why BFA bombed so badly IMO.
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I guess to me it felt like he was a big source of all the positives in Legion and it feels like the problems in BfA were ones he inherited and had to make the best of once it went live. Granted I have no idea how WoW development actually works.

Between Legion and BfA he's kind of been the face of WoW to me for a while and they are simultaneously the best and worst of Warcraft so it's basically a wash. But when he does talk it sounds like he knows what he's talking about so I kind of lean towards giving him the benefit of the doubt.
 
Finaj

Finaj

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,353
A bit of a side-note, but why is it whenever one of the big names at Blizzard leaves to create/join a new studio, they either never release anything (Bonfire Studios) or the game they release... just isn't good (Hellgate: London)?

(If there's an example that defies this trend that I can't remember for some reason, please post it).
 
MrH

MrH

Banned
Nov 3, 2017
3,995
Ion has always come across as very stubborn and arrogant to me, I feel like he's a big reason as to why BfA sucked so badly, his vision for the game just doesn't align with what I find fun.
 
Codosbuya

Codosbuya

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
2,329
Peak Ion was WoD. Only raid logging and materials being handled by the Garrison so there was 0 reason to go into the world as a Raider.

Check again Hazzikostas speech in GDC If you dont believe that Ion was responsible for WoD.
 
Disclaimer

Disclaimer

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Oct 25, 2017
11,424
I'm usually not one to attribute singular blame, but Ion's design ethos is pretty obviously why PvP has been trashed in so many ways, too. For instance, PvPers have been begging for gear vendors' return since they were unceremoniously deleted in favor of RNG bullshit in Legion, to no avail.

And it's transparently because he doesn't want PvEers benefiting, even though there's any number of ways to prevent that, and the system worked for so many years. Gotta make every facet of gearing a gamble, all about that artificial addiction attempt because game quality is hard.

Wish Ghostcrawler had never left. Game was far from perfect then, but at least he defied Blizzard's non-engagement policy by being communicative.
 
Jag

Jag

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Oct 26, 2017
11,669
Disclaimer said:
I'm usually not one to attribute singular blame, but Ion's design ethos is pretty obviously why PvP has been trashed in so many ways, too. For instance, PvPers have been begging for gear vendors' return since they were unceremoniously deleted in favor of RNG bullshit in Legion, to no avail.

And it's transparently because he doesn't want PvEers benefiting, even though there's any number of ways to prevent that, and the system worked for so many years. Gotta make every facet of gearing a gamble, all about that artificial addiction attempt because game quality is hard.

Wish Ghostcrawler had never left. Game was far from perfect then, but at least he defied Blizzard's non-engagement policy by being communicative.
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Totally agree, but I wonder if Ghostcrawler had more control because he still had some of the Blizz old guard to insulate him. At that point there was still some original Blizz DNA in the company to push back. Now it is 100% an Activision department.

I'm wondering what the core number is for WoW revenue. Are the number of subs more important than the length of subs? Because BFA is currently designed to keep people playing longer at the expense of a smaller number of people just quitting because of it.
 
Disclaimer

Disclaimer

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Oct 25, 2017
11,424
Jag said:
I'm wondering what the core number is for WoW revenue. Are the number of subs more important than the length of subs? Because BFA is currently designed to keep people playing longer at the expense of a smaller number of people just quitting because of it.
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Is it a smaller number of people quitting? Because I get the impression the sub count is quite low. Server-specific activities like the dueling club thing in BFA were dead on arrival. Classic was implied to have doubled the number of "active users"—that vague new metric they use.

Regardless, I remember them saying years back that WoW is more profitable now (then) than it was at its peak of ~13m subscribers because of microtransactions and store nonsense.
 
Serious Sam

Serious Sam

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Oct 27, 2017
4,354
Disclaimer said:
Is it a smaller number of people quitting? Because I get the impression the sub count is quite low. Server-specific activities like the dueling club thing in BFA were dead on arrival. Classic was implied to have doubled the number of "active users"—that vague new metric they use.

Regardless, I remember them saying years back that WoW is more profitable now (then) than it was at its peak of ~13m subscribers because of microtransactions and store nonsense.
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WoW is still extremely profitable for Blizzard and the brand is still very relevant after 15 years. Release of Classic showed that there is still a ton of interest in WoW, topping Twitch charts and doubling subscriptions (or active users, whatever that means).

Blizzard needs to do something big, exciting and fresh for WoW at least once a year. For example, now raytracing is all the craze. I know they already said they are working on RTX implementation for Shadowlands, but they need to start showing videos and trailers of WoW running with raytracing. Get people excited and talking about it. Just look at how much buzz Mincraft RTX videos are creating.

Suddenly, WoW would go from "ehhh that 15 year old dated cartoony game" to "OMG bleeding edge technology game".
 
Magnus

Magnus

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Oct 25, 2017
8,354
Man, I just capped a Monk. Always wanted to try these babies out in end-game!
That makes 9 120s (jesus christ) and 8 classes capped. Still got four more to go, but all at 110+: Death Knight, Warlock, Warrior and Shaman. I'm going to finish this fucking expansion with every class capped. LOL
 
Bane

Bane

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Oct 27, 2017
5,904
I don't know if things changed or I just never paid enough attention but back in the dev Q&As before he became the director it seemed like Ion was much more receptive to feedback and I really dug him but now, as mentioned earlier, he seems much more stubborn. He'll still admit mistakes (which is great!) but things like PVP vendors, hard faction lines remaining, and azerite armor he just won't budge on. I get creator vision and all but I feel like there's a point where it's incredibly hard to justify that, and something like azerite armor should never have happened the way it did.

Though I have to wonder if this goes back to what I mentioned yesterday and he knew it was bad but just had to go forward with it due to pressure from up top. It's not exactly an uncommon thing.
 
Berordn

Berordn

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Bane said:
I don't know if things changed or I just never paid enough attention but back in the dev Q&As before he became the director it seemed like Ion was much more receptive to feedback and I really dug him but now, as mentioned earlier, he seems much more stubborn. He'll still admit mistakes (which is great!) but things like PVP vendors, hard faction lines remaining, and azerite armor he just won't budge on. I get creator vision and all but I feel like there's a point where it's incredibly hard to justify that, and something like azerite armor should never have happened the way it did.

Though I have to wonder if this goes back to what I mentioned yesterday and he knew it was bad but just had to go forward with it due to pressure from up top. It's not exactly an uncommon thing.
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I'm sure it's a combination of things. Hard faction lines remaining is probably more of a technical issue than anything else. They're rooted into so much of the game at this point that untangling it is probably a scripting nightmare and might even require a full rewrite (which might be why they're so keen on writing all these faction war stories still, despite it making no logical sense). The big difference between now and then is that while they were a bit stubborn about decisions in the past, they at least justified it and were responsive to the criticism (even if they didn't reverse a decision).

Nowadays the whole company seems to follow the same patterns where they'll just admit that a decision has critics, but say nothing about why they're not responding to it and simply say that they're proud of the work they did. Like, I'm not expecting to be given insight on every single dev team decision, but at least some big picture explanation of why they're happier with weekly chests instead of vendor gear would go a long way?
 
Bane

Bane

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Oct 27, 2017
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Berordn said:
I'm sure it's a combination of things. Hard faction lines remaining is probably more of a technical issue than anything else. They're rooted into so much of the game at this point that untangling it is probably a scripting nightmare and might even require a full rewrite (which might be why they're so keen on writing all these faction war stories still, despite it making no logical sense).
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Huh, I'd never thought about that aspect of it. Given how horribly messy the code has to be at this point (look at how long it took them to improve the AH) that could be a good reason for it. But if so I wish they'd say so instead of just seemingly keeping their heads in the ground. "Warcraft is horde vs alliance." is such a bad response to the issue.
 
Magnus

Magnus

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Oct 25, 2017
8,354
It looks like Shadowlands MAAAAAYY have its own/discrete beta opt-in?
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PurpleRainz

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Oct 27, 2017
2,583
I finally found a person to let me join their low level to party sync and i went from level 68 to 70 in less than an hour doing level 30 dungeons. Sure I have to hang out with people from Reddit but there are worse ways to get heirtage armor.
 
Mobius and Pet Octopus

Mobius and Pet Octopus

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Oct 25, 2017
12,495
I am considering jumping back in. I have not played too much since 8.2. I wonder if I can get ready for raid by Sunday.

PurpleRainz said:
I finally found a person to let me join their low level to party sync and i went from level 68 to 70 in less than an hour doing level 30 dungeons. Sure I have to hang out with people from Reddit but there are worse ways to get heirtage armor.
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That is an interesting way to get through the 60-80 zones.
 

Deleted member 63832

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DQLWV1G.png


Breath of the dying done.

Oh thank god.
 
Magnus

Magnus

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Oct 25, 2017
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I'm a fucking 453 resto druid and getting declined for +7, 8, 9 and 10 runs. I gotta find a regular crew with which to do these, I guess, or start firing up my own runs.

Why can't any of you assholes be alliance
 
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Doctor Doggo

Doctor Doggo

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Oct 25, 2017
2,370
What about horde makes them so much better than slim edges for PVE? (I have been out of the loop for a long time).

Last time I raided was in vanilla wow in a top ten world guild and everyone was alliance.
 
cartographer

cartographer

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Oct 25, 2017
2,002
Jameswell said:
What about horde makes them so much better than slim edges for PVE? (I have been out of the loop for a long time).

Last time I raided was in vanilla wow in a top ten world guild and everyone was alliance.
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In terms of potential performance, there really isn't a difference now. Racials are mostly balanced. The issue is after more than a decade of neglect toward shifting populations, there's just a larger population of players on Horde.

People shifted for OP PvE racials back in the day (and to be pretty elves), and over time that compounded. Hardcore Alliance players would switch to Horde to have more guilds to choose from or more members to recruit from, which made the issue worse for the ones that remained Alliance. Then as people filter in and out of hardcore circles, they start or join more casual guilds, growing the population there, too.

It's just much easier to be Horde. There's no benefit to being Alliance other than simply preferring them, which is fine, but isn't a recipe for a healthy competitive population. I don't think there's anything they could do at this point to change that in a healthy way. My main is a dwarf rogue but I play about equally on both factions. It's definitely noticeable at this point, even at the level I play at.
 
B-Dubs

B-Dubs

That's some catch, that catch-22
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Oct 25, 2017
32,714
I really need to sit down and upgrade my essences. Also, get a better weapon. It's only 415, but it's holding me back a bit in visions.
 
ToTheMoon

ToTheMoon

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Oct 27, 2017
3,321
Got my BiS Fire Mage trinket from Conquest, and upgraded it to a respectable 455. :D Good week.
 
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Toth

Toth

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Oct 26, 2017
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So I am starting Legion and I received my fire sword for my mage. Are we still able to upgrade them at all? I know they are disabled after Legion's storyline is finished. But beforehand?
 
Berordn

Berordn

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Toth said:
So I am starting Legion and I received my fire sword for my mage. Are we still able to upgrade them at all? I know they are disabled after Legion's storyline is finished. But beforehand?
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All the traits on them are gone and they no longer provide any abilities, but you're still able to socket relics into them to upgrade them through legion content.

They're just standard weapons now, basically.
 
Toth

Toth

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Oct 26, 2017
3,976
Ah, thanks. I suppose that's the big negative of progressing through each expansion in order: all the really cool stuff in each one is obsolete or dumbed down. Garrisons and the missions were a lot of fun and the class hall ones look to continue that going. I am still having a lot of fun though!
 
Magnus

Magnus

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Oct 25, 2017
8,354
Bane said:
What server you on?
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Suramar.

This is the other reason I really wanted the faction wall to come down. Not only did it make sense for the story and evolution of the game/franchise, but it would fucking LET PEOPLE PLAY TOGETHER. I don't want to roll a second druid horde-side and grind out all those fucking essences and shit again. I don't wanna pay $70 CDN (!!) to switch over. And I like being a Night Elf. It fits the class, it fits my gameplay style, it fits my desired character look. Let me be who I be and play with any friends I want to. PLZ.
 
Toth

Toth

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,976
Magnus said:
Suramar.

This is the other reason I really wanted the faction wall to come down. Not only did it make sense for the story and evolution of the game/franchise, but it would fucking LET PEOPLE PLAY TOGETHER. I don't want to roll a second druid horde-side and grind out all those fucking essences and shit again. I don't wanna pay $70 CDN (!!) to switch over. And I like being a Night Elf. It fits the class, it fits my gameplay style, it fits my desired character look. Let me be who I be and play with any friends I want to. PLZ.
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I don't know...Your avatar wanted to be who he wanted to be and play how he wanted and it didn't end well!
 
Bane

Bane

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
5,904
Magnus said:
Suramar.

This is the other reason I really wanted the faction wall to come down. Not only did it make sense for the story and evolution of the game/franchise, but it would fucking LET PEOPLE PLAY TOGETHER. I don't want to roll a second druid horde-side and grind out all those fucking essences and shit again. I don't wanna pay $70 CDN (!!) to switch over. And I like being a Night Elf. It fits the class, it fits my gameplay style, it fits my desired character look. Let me be who I be and play with any friends I want to. PLZ.
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Damn, we're on Icecrown. I don't blame you for not wanting to hop, that shit's way too expensive imo. My guild has some that enjoy min-maxing but is also fine with people that just want to play a bit more casually. Having fun is our main goal, I'd never want to play with people that determine what you can play as.

Here's hoping Blizzard eventually comes to their senses about the factions.
 

Deleted member 63832

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Magnus said:
I'm a fucking 453 resto druid and getting declined for +7, 8, 9 and 10 runs. I gotta find a regular crew with which to do these, I guess, or start firing up my own runs.

Why can't any of you assholes be alliance
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welcome to my world.

People just want perfect compositions.

I get turned down as a 463 ilvl shadow.
 
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