What’s amazing to me is how much SL damaged even that.
RPers are the definition of emergent gameplay. I’ve used so much old content for RPPvP campaigns and event.
But SL was just so baffling. It had nothing to do with Azeroth. And more mundane characters felt completely out of place. I was essentially playing it non canonically in regards to my characters stories.
And I’ve never had a WoW expansion I had to pretend wasn’t happening before.
I am cautiously optimistic for Dragonflight.
It does seem like they addressed a lot of the issues I’ve had. Borrowed power sucks as it’s just not fun to get a cool ability you’ll lose next expansion. I still really miss Light’s Wrath on Disc Priest.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw what the Overcharged effect did. I got jumped by a Druid while questing and hit him with it, and it just immediately punched a hole right through his healthbar. We both were shocked. It was really fun and good class fantasy. I genuinely miss having it.
I’m also definitely going to miss Soul Shape on my Lock. That class pretty famously has no mobility, so getting a speed form with a blink really changes up the gameplay. I’m probably not going to be stoked to have that removed.
I wondered what’s going to happen with soulshape and the other covenant abilities. I assume blizz is going to disable them or its just not going to be useable in DF content
Like Artifact and Azerite powers before them I’m sure they’ll be relegated to the great dust bin of history, alongside rotary phones and most of the Halloween sequels.
Seeing as at least the Venthyr teleport is necessary for a few quests though I imagine they’ll have to be available in some capacity. At least for those poor souls who choose to level through the SL timeline with Chromie.
Beyond that though they’ll probably be relegated to some toy ability or a cosmetic.
To fix this game, Blizzard has to ditch the idea that this is still a hardcore raiding game, and embrace the idea that this is a CASUAL MMO. They need to turn WoW into a “cozy game.” aka, a game where you play just to decompress.
They need to add the animations for crafted SL legendarily as regular spell crit animations. Reduce drops rates for legacy mounts. Create scaled solo options for people who like soloing stuff. Either scrap M+ entirely or make it a LFG ladder system where you only pair with other people in your raiting. revamp Archaeology and pair it with learning languages, so you can learn to speak with players across faction.
Make old expansions replayable, let us maximize chromie time at max level to replay previous expansions.
those are my suggestions.
I agree with everything here except for the wording on mount drop rates. Reducing that would make the mounts harder to acquire.
Increasing my bad.
I finally got Revendare’s Deathcharger today. I’ve wanted this mount for 15 years.
Congratulations. 
I outright despise Mythic Dungeons but it clearly has it’s dedicated fanbase.
I’d keep that but make separate PvE challenges that are meant to reward caution and exploration. Seriously I thought I hated WoW PvE but Classic reminded me how fun it can be to go dungeon diving.
Setting up multiple CCs on a pull, using Mind Vision to scout around corners, having to watch for patrols, etc. was really fun and it felt like a proper fantasy adventure.
Now though it’s a time trial, high stake version of Simon Says. Which I don’t find fun. Either memorize the strategy or loss. There is no experimentation or alternate approaches.
Also I would really, really like something like Horrific Visions again. A challenge mode with an actual fail state that can be played single player and actually rewards gear on par with Mythic and Rated PvP if you stack on all the challenges.
The only thing I’d have changed about Horrific Visions is they should’ve given you like 3-5 of those tickets to play at the start of the week. And if you run out or want more, then ya gotta go do the dailies.
But overall Blizz has to learn not to court the E-Sports crowd. They should already know this if the internet’s borderline hostile indifference to Overwatch 2 proves anything. There’s some evergreen titles like Street Fighter 2, but by and large it’s a pretty fickle crowd that’ll move on to the new hotness sooner or later.
They should still keep competitive level play for those that enjoy it. But I’ve to imagine WoW’s fanbase is more 25+ than 14-24 at this rate. Much as I love PvP, I’ve occasionally have a long day and just do not want to do anything that requires that focus and coordination.
With Horrific Visions I might’ve pounded a fist on my desk but at least I’ve only screwed myself here. I’m not going to get into an argument with my partner because we’ve had a 6 match losing streak and one more will knock us below the level required to get higher IVL gear.
I was also thinking that they should revamp zones to keep them current. I just flew past an unblown up Theramore and now that new players are not leveling up through the main world they should lowkey update it. I’m not talking Cata scale, just one zone at a time, update the world to be more current time relevant. Make the player more interested in exploring old zones with new quests…
Maybe Eastern and Western Plaugelands is healing. Maybe new quests where you help the Argent crusade rebuild, I think that would be a fun way to bring the game back to day-to-day adventuring back on Azeroth.
Instead of having to run physically to old raids to solo them, make them a scenario you can queue for.
I liked Horrific Visions as well. It’s cool that those can be done in groups, but I swear that running through with my parents (who introduced me to the game), is a liability.
Even with no masks at all, my mom is just generally not very good at the game.
My dad meanwhile, is incapable of breaking the old WoW mindset that standing still can be a good thing for Hunters to do. He would then proceed to blame the game for killing him when that lava spawning madness threw him into a hazard.
By the end of BFA, 5 masks alone was a challenge while 4 or less was a milk run. 3 masks with my dad or anything more than the Dark Imagination mask with my mom was an impossibility.
Holy hell, I just finished the Disciple of Humility achievement, and now I never want to look at Bastion again.
I’m going to have to venture back in there eventually. I really want those black angel wings for my Priest’s mog.
Holy hell. There is borderline too much going on in The Jade Forest.
I guess I can’t fault a zone for being too interesting. But man. I was going to do a topic on it but where to start?
So after the thrilling attack on an Alliance base ya make war with the monkey kingdom. But then peace with them. Anyway there’s a witch turning people to stone but a child pays you to sort her out and also we’re uncovering a ruin to discover a lost history and anywho now I’m building a gigantic dragon statue.
Man. I can see why this expansion was so fondly remembered. The first zone has more going on than all 4 Covenants combined.
I should’ve come here with a notebook at the ready.
Castlevania Grimoire of Souls’ Final Chapters are out so the plot of this Mobile Game is now out in full.
Someone using Mirroring(I.E. a technique that transfers things from one Copy to another) can resurrect Dracula through the Grimoires and Death did such a thing(pulling Dracula out of his Reincarnation Soma into a Copy of him before extracting him to resurrect him in his full glory).
Furthermore despite it being stated that the Dracula Novel is Canon it is revealed by Death that no man by the name of Seward ever existed meaning that Dr. Seward who supposedly out of ignorance kept anyone from saving his presumed lover Lucy Westenra from Count Dracula was Death himself deliberately giving Lucy Westenra over to Dracula to become one of his Brides.
That means the Lucy Westenra from the Novel Dracula was turned into a Vampire in the Castlevania Universe because of some benefit of her Westenra Bloodline and the Lucy Westenra from Grimoire of Souls(basically Lucy Westenra II since she was born a Century and 4 Decades after her Cousin) was deliberately hired by Death because of that same Bloodline.
The Grimoires also have the potential to cause Chaos requiring the Grimoire’s copies of Castlevania’s Heroes to fight Monsters to keep the Grimoires from overflowing with Chaos making new Monsters. In the wrong hands the research of the Grimoires can create a new Grimoire that could potentially create an endless Castlevania expanding across the Planet even without Dracula.
Speaking of Dracula: removing him from Soma(who was stated by Julius Belmont to have his own Soul) means that he will Reincarnate one day after his demise(during Year 2038 specifically since it is obviously after both Dawn of Sorrow and Death’s execution of Orlox) just as he did following his previous defeat during 1999.
It would be incredibly funny if he randomly reincarnated into a Blond Girl(dressed like Fate Testarossa from Lyrical Nanoha no less) and one of the Cults seeking to bring back Dracula detected her before Alucard(who is probably too busy keeping Monsters from spilling out of the Grimoires) did!
Add that to the Cult finding out about Elgos(not hard since Death made countless Cults and the ones in the know should be well aware of Elgos’ existence) and sending spies to replicate the Grimoires behind Elgos’s back and you get attempts to summon the replica Castlevanias into reality with various Cultists arguing over the perfect Castlevania eventually covering the earth with Castlevanias, Pyramids and Cities of Haze.
Chaos would consume the Earth.
Guys, I think something terrible is going to happen to Thunder Bluff in Dragonflight. 
this is more than just speculation at this point. Thunder Bluff is going to get destroyed next. It’s a catalyst moment for Baine. I’m working on a lore blog post that’s just … eye-opening, and this always happens when I want to quit. I get sucked back into it with my own speculation.
So I have less than 24 Hours left on my sub and I got sucked back into the many Deaths of Chromie and it was so worth it.
Based on what?
based on
1.The Emerald Nightmare Raid - There’s a wing where we fight in a Emerald Nightmare vision of a corrupted Mulgore, the Skybox has Thunder Bluff in the background destroyed.
2.The Highmountain allied race questchain - The Void attacks Thunder Bluff, Baine is reluctant to blame the High Mountain for this attack, but he’s also suspicious. Ebonhorn is super sketch, I’m rooting for him, but his dad is Deathwing. (Ebonhorn and Deathwing’s Legacy is going to be a huge plot in Dragonflight)
3. The End Time dungeon - After the destruction of his home, and tha failure to save his people, the Echo of Baine blood hoof is in the Obsidian Dragonshire as one of the last few remaining characters in a version of the End Time (the inevitable fate where the Old Gods win)
Also this didn’t make sense until after Shadowlands, but the Echo of Tyrande says " “Give yourselves to the night, Elune will guide you from this mortal prison.”
Doesn’t that sound almost the same as “This world is a prison, and I shall set us all free.”
I think the Emerald Nightmare is your only valid point, as Thunder Bluff being destroyed in that is something I’ve always been curious about. I assumed at the time we would see more outside of the Broken Isles, particularly how the cities were dealing with the Legion since the tag line of the expansion was “Kingdoms will burn”. The Highmountain quest chain seems self contained, the only relevance I see for that is possible character growth for Ebonhorn in Dragonflight. End Time doesn’t seem relevant, Jaina and Baine (I think) haven’t been announced to be involved in Dragonflight and Sylvanas is in the Maw. Deaths Of Chromie has potential though, The Master’s identity might be revealed in Dragonflight and there’s a theory that the crazed scribble is written by Salandria.
End Time is absolutely relevant.
The Old Gods are winning, all of their whispers have come to pass.
Ilgynoth’s whispers are about Baine, Tyrande, Sylvanas and Jaina. This is just the beginning.
Sargeras is also coming back in a big way. The Legion is the only way to defeat The Shadow. He’s been preparing for this since he found out the Void could corrupt worlds.
Yes, Azeroth may wake, but she may already be a Void Titan.
Dragonflight feels already like it may be a lore cluster-- Morozond, Yogg-Saron & N’Zoth. Galakrond, maybe. The Void being a major antagonist.