- No Elemental Invasions? This was an iconic moment in the expansion and it appears this is being entirely skipped? If this isn’t the case, it definitely needs to be clarified as the patch notes you posted clearly state “shattering” which was part 3 of the prepatch, with:
Part 1 being the “systems” patch
Part 2 being the elemental invasions, which escalated over time, then eventually started hitting major cities
Part 3 being the shattering, changing the world and introducing Gobs and Worgen.
The prepatch invasion event had presented a fantastic opportunity for alts and returning players to get “catchup” gear, but we will now also miss out on all the achievements involving that. Terrible decision, if this is true.
- Waaay too rushed, at least in parts. Only ~12 Firelands lockouts? The timeframe between 1st raid tier and 2nd seems about right, but Firelands getting cut way too short, especially considering it is widely regarded as one of the best raids the game has ever seen. People will have zero chance getting their complete BIS and way fewer people will ever see their legendaries.
I get it. You fell victim to the whiners who falsely accuse Cata of being some abysmal expansion - something many of us think is far from true. There was only a few issues: 1) The deathwing fights were just not fun. Design was beyond flawed, to say the least. 2) Content drought. Dragon soul went on far too long. 3) Barely worth mentioning, but some people were purists who wanted the old world to never change, which is not even a reasonable position for a paid persistent world. Personally, I think the newer questing system was far superior and needed to breathe new life into content I would never have tried to do again, at least not for (say) an 11th time.
So, again, I get it… you planned to quicken the Cata pace to get into Pandaland sooner, but… this is not how to do it. If anything, ensure Firelands releases 1st week in October and clarify that the “Hour of Twlilight” patch is only the pre-souls event that included the 3 new catchup-dungeons, with Dragon Soul not releasing until Feb or so.
Realized I never proposed a solution - since you crunched the timeline demonstrably, you can’t reasonably not change the other variables. I would recommend upping the drops. Say +1 piece for 10m and +2 for 25m, minimum, if not more.
Just my $.02. If anyone read this far, thanks for your attention.
Cheers,
-Val
28 Likes
Absolutely on point! Original cata prepatch was 8 weeks iirc, and they’re cutting it to 3? There’s no way to get all the content including multiple phases into a 3 week prepatch. 6.5 months of ICC but only 1 year of an entire expansion just seems like a bad idea.
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I absolutely agree. They are pushing these phases in Cata to fast. For a lot of guilds if they don’t accelerate the drops for the staff then a lot of people won’t have time to make the legendary.
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I don’t think this happened until the pre patch.
Which in this case would be on april 30.
I honestly just wish they would make permanent wrath classic servers to. So annoying.
I feel you. I do. Sadly, the prepatch invasion was just that, during prepatch. Sure it was waves…but still dropped on prepatch. Youre now just assuming there will be no invasion. Except, they in blue posts have stated different. Please dont confuse personal opinion for fact.
What makes you think there won’t be invasions just because they condensed the prepatch into one part?
People said the same about Ulduar and ICC look at how both turned out… people complaining they stayed to long.
Just because something is widely considered one of the best raids does not mean people want to do it for to long.
No, they didn’t. They already announced they are speeding up content across the board… or are you claiming that the whiners who hate Cata are somehow the reason for retail also speeding up content releases? Are you somehow also under the assumption that when we do get to MoP, the pace of the content will be slowed down? If so, you are wrong.
If they decide to make a quick cata expansion by making each phase shorter and simultaneously keeping the original cata raid lock system
They need to x2 to x3 the loot drop to drop twice to 3 times as many drops per boss
If not , in average , most players will not reach or won’t even be close to reaching their bis loot.
This will cause a lot of players to quit mid expansion since there is no point to play the game if chances of getting loot are basically slim to none.
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They should had re release the Cataclysm with Scrapped Features that were scrapped during the expansion. That would have saved the Classic Cataclysm.
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I can’t help but think with the MoP Remix, will they even take this beyond Cataclysm? At which point does this stop being “Classic”? Personally, I hope they have a real full MoP Classic release. I don’t mind an accelerated Cataclysm, but not necessarily with how short Phase2 Firelands into Phase3 Dragonsoul is. I’d do a similar accelerated timeline through WoD, unless we can skip it all together for a Legion Classic. Then I would say at that point with Legion, the journey for “Classic expansions and how they were” would be at their conclusion, and either restart the journey with fresh classic vanilla realms, or look at a Remix for TBC and Wrath.
Classic WoW is just rushed in general. We get 18 months at most per expansion when the general trend for expansions was about 2 years each. It’s like they’re desperate to sell dark portal passes.
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It’s likely that they’re measuring population and rushing the game because most finish faster. They collect tons of data on us and their game. Too slow for some, too fast for others. They choosing a speed that fits the average player.
1 Like
I do hope you are right. The way the notes read is that the shattering happens on April 30. Last go-round, the elemental invasions were a pre-cursor to Deathwing being introduced into the world where he causes the shattering. They would have to rework the entire event in order for the invasions to occur in a post-shattered world.
Perhaps the actual shattering isn’t happening on the 30th and the invasions are, which would be odd. That would mean that Worgen and Goblins would have 2 weeks max to run from 0-80 to be at current content.
If anyone can point to any clarification, I would greatly appreciate it. I don’t intend to cause alarm if there is need for none.
Cheers.
The invasions and the shattering are separated i believe. For the weeks leading up to it, we will see prepatch bring those events. With the shattering being, deathwings actual release, the 20th.
What? abyssal maw? you want an underwater raid?
They’re skipping it because they’re obviously rushed. Either another game is coming out and they don’t want to land on it or shortly after it or they’re rushed due to their own game being released (sod or retail). It’s also hilarious as their are no dev interviews like wrath had. They don’t care about cata. They know the numbers will be MUCH lower than wrath numbers. The devs have basically been radio silent with just a few poorly written dev blue posts. There’s definitely a stark contrast between Blizzards attitude between wrath and cata classic.
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I also wonder if they need to do some soul searching. Look at the game. It’s a mess across the board. Retail, era, WotLK, era hardcore, SoD, Plunderstorm, and now MoP remix…
It’s overwhelming. Saturating. Remember one of the key contributors to the 1983 crash? Market saturation. Not to say that’s gonna happen here, but the parallel is apparent. As much as I’ve enjoyed BC and WotLK classic so far, setting the precedent that there are many versions of the game at once - with a lot of overlapping bugs - feels like a mistake.
At this point I feel like they should have stuck to their guns and either not done classic at all, or truly kept it at pre-BC. Two versions of the game maximum. Say what you want about retail (and there’s a lot to say) but I’m sure it would be a hell of a lot more stable.
The worst part of the whole thing is the radio silence on the topic. Something along the lines of: “To be honest, from a scheduling standpoint, it just was not going to fit into our business goals”. -or- “In the conversion from the classic to the retail engine, the invasion event would have been way too many cycles of development time for such a limited time event. The team collectively suggested the juice was not worth the squeeze”.
Something along those lines, even if people didn’t agree with the decision, would have at least shown a modicum of respect to the community. The company used to have some level of legit engagement with the community - an ongoing dialogue, if you will. Now if something uncomfortable comes along, they just ignore the questions being asked, something akin to a political versus a business approach.
It’s disheartening.
It also makes you wonder what other corners they will cut in the future.
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How will that affect arena seasons?
