"...jealously guarding the skies for themselves."

You've likely seen it, but if not, head over to Kamalia et alia to read her post about her druid Kerisa getting flying back.

As Thaloc says in the comments "THIS would be the perfect introduction for the patchnotes."

To me it shows the passion and love fans can have for this game and their characters. The hunger for good story and character development in addition to the flying so many of us love.

I might not have liked the flying restriction (hint: I hated it) but this at least tried to give it some in-game justification.  Someone else (can't remember) also suggested that the Iron Horde was just too dominate and it was too dangerous to fly except to the very restricted flightpaths with expert flyers (? riders? not really pilots, flightmasters?).  It wouldn't have made me like the flying decision but it would have given some logical justification, which can make it more palatable.

It's something similar that Fiannor touched on when talking about her followers.

Yes, I know the entire game consists of wisps of imagination bound to 1’s and 0’s, but one of the things Blizz has always really excelled at is bringing depth and body to nearly every part of the game. Graphics, art, animation, programming, and dev imagination all come together to give us a wonderful, fun, interactive environment.

 
I know gameplay before story is how Blizzard, and WoW in particular, works but a little more imagination would really go a long way.

Two good reads, go check them out.

Witty Post Title About Flying!

Yeah I got nothing for this one.  I'm just happy to be flying again.

The sparkle pony rises

These are the only screenshots I got because I really just wanted to get out and do stuff.  I couldn't decide which mount to use, what background, or how to get a better shot.  Just let me fly!

For the first few minutes I actually forgot I could fly a few times. Riding around on the ground, like a scrub?  This will not stand!  (Note for readers: I actually like ground riding and choose to do it fairly often - this is just a semi-venting for me about having the CHOICE to do that.)

In addition to FREEDOM, there were a few other changes that were unexpected.  I love that the Safari Hat is finally a toy.  I've kvetched before about toys versus non-toys-that-should-probably-be-toys so I'm happy at least one got added.

Flying kitty returns!

There was also the new account wide Battle Pet Tamers: Warlords quest that was making an ugly yellow exclamation point in my garrison.  The spouse and I decided to head out and take care of that nonsense post haste.

And with flying, we could.

We FLEW around to the various pet masters in Draenor and did their battles and finished the quest in a reasonable amount of time.

We also both grabbed the occasional treasure with the proper expletives towards jumping puzzles shouted.

The Garrison, from above

It wasn't the most fun I've ever had on WoW, but it was probably one of the better experiences I've had on Draenor.  And it was all because I had the choice to fly.

Flying is coming but...

Last night while reading Grumpy's post about being let down I saw a comment that the flying patch was announced for September 1st.  There wasn't further detail in the comment so I wasn't sure if it was true.  So a quick bop over to Blizzard Watch and yup, patch 6.2.2 is planned for September 1st and will have flying in it.

And then I did something else.

It's not that I'm not happy flying is finally coming.  Or is it?  It will have been nearly 10 months since Warlords of Draenor came out and we've been grounded in current content since then.  How long has it been since "weeks, not months"?

Maybe this is just too early and others are writing up their thoughts in slower, more considered manner, but I haven't seen one celebratory post yet.  Hell, mine isn't celebratory.  Again, I'm happy it is finally here, but it just feels so anti-climatic.  Not "quite too little, too late" but, just lacking in any reason to be excited.

Perhaps all of the energy has been sucked up by talking about Legion.  Or the people that have the Pathfinder achievement are tired of waiting and those still working on it feel discouraged. Or that Blizzard is rolling it out but it's no more important to them than the racial bonus changes.

I feel like I won something that I wanted but in all the effort to get it, all the redtape or pointless barriers in my way, the joy of finally getting it has been tainted and some of the appeal has been tarnished.

Maybe all of the terrible PR bumbling and the toxic divisions it created have made things less enjoyable.

Or maybe I didn't get enough sleep.  :)

Comment-Inspired Quick Post: Davy Jones' Locker

Thorbartin over on my Call me Ahab post has the BEST IDEA EVAR

I finished the Legendary quest line in my shipyard, then sent all my ships out on suicide missions. Felt kinda nice ;)

The catharsis from this idea is already making me smile.  I think the only way I can express how happy this idea makes me is through interpretive dance.

Call me Ahab

“He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate …and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.”

Moby Dick Herman Melville

I hate the shipyard.

I really could just stop there, but why would I? This is not fun. This is not engaging. This is not any real test of skill. It is a boring puzzle game that is still based on gambling.

So why do I do it? Because if I want to get the legendary ring, which I’d like to see the story line for at least once, I have to do this. So I’m doing these idiotic treasure chest missions so that I can get this done and I’m hating every second of it.

Last legendary storyline also had the forced PvP and at the time, I thought I couldn’t hate forced play more than that. I can’t stand that the meta-achievement for Long Strange Trip includes PvP. But this is so much worse.

Do I technically have to do this? No, of course not. But if I want to continue on the storyline that I’ve already invested a fair amount of time in, I do. If I want to see the entire story of the expansion, I do.

I am Ahab and the shipyard is my white whale. And yes, all that entails of who won that battle.

“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.”

Moby Dick Herman Melville

Pathfinder Achieved

I'm done.

The weight is lifted.

I completed it Sunday night but didn't get around to updating this right away.

Whatever the case, when flying drops, I will rise.

I'm just...

relieved.

That's the best word for this.

To remove that cloud over my head.

To get that bad taste out of my mouth.

I feel free to try to enjoy the game again on my terms.

To play the characters I want

at the pace I want

in the way I want.

It wasn't fun for me.

The questing was fine. I had basically completed it anyways.

The reps felt pointless.

What do they have to do with flying?

I had explored everywhere, just not on any one character enough to get the achievement.

So I had to run around to tick off the box.

Immersive.

Treasures also became a number to fill.

Not a reason to explore.

Not a fun thing to find.

Not something that added to the world.

They could have been those things, but it didn't feel that way to me.


Check box 1 of 8

75/100

76/100

Immersion.

Is that something I inflicted on myself?

Did I exacerbate something that Blizzard had done?

Possibly

Whatever the case, I don't ever have to do it again.

And that my friends, is a sign of good game play.

When a player says: "I'm so happy that is over and I never have to see it again"

Call it a success Blizzard, well done.

Immersed.

I've been reading too much Grumpy Elf Monday Random Thoughts.

If you could skip Draenor, would you?

Let me start out by saying, I know this won’t happen. While on one hand I like the idea, it isn’t practical for numerous reasons.

That said, imagine the next expansion comes out and instead of leaving Draenor and adding 10 more levels from 101-110, it actually adds 20 levels, but they run from 91-110. What would happen is that when you were done with Pandaria, you could choose to go to Draenor in pursuit of Garrosh or you could head to this new area. Obviously, those that were already 100 could just start in the new expansion at 100 and go from there

Now, given the choice between an old storyline and a completely new, unknown one, of course you are going to choose the new one. But for alts after that? Yes, it’s going to be dictated by the quality of this new expansion, but what I want to get at is: is there enough of an enjoyable experience in Draenor to return there if you had other options?

Part of this is related to my last post about Warlords of Draenor and how all of the things I associate with it are going to stay with it.  The other part of it is that as an altoholic, I like having leveling options.  One of the things that Vanilla WoW had great about it was leveling options.  Two continents and often multiple areas on those continents that were close enough in level to quest in.  As it got to the tail end of things there were less options but still, overall, a lot of choice.

Burning Crusade had one single starting area but you could leave Hellfire Peninsula pretty early on and start questing in Zangarmarsh or you could finish Hellfire Peninsula and move over to Terokkar Forest.

Wrath had one of my favorites. You could start on either side of the continent and bounce around the various equivalent level areas.  In the end, there were basically two max level areas too.

Cataclysm had Mount Hyjal or Vashj'ir as your initial level 80 questing. Although the starting quest to Vashj'ir was such a terrible wait that sometimes it felt like you only had one.  Still, you could quickly move to new areas again or finish the original areas and skip to the "third" zone.

Mists of Pandaria was pretty railroad in the beginning.  It wasn't a lot, but a few quests were required to get things set-up but then after that it opened up pretty well.

Warlords of Draenor has continued on this strong on-the-rails trend for the starting area and then ostensibly opens up. But our "optional" garrison becomes vital and a fair amount of the quest hubs won't open up unless you progress the story.  Which is great for storytelling, but it feels a little too linear at times.

With all of the caveats of new story and quality of the story and etc out of the way, I do think that if I had the choice I'd probably avoid Draenor on most alts. Part of it is likely due to the Orc-exhaustion I've been diagnosed with (much of Blackrock Foundry and Hellfire Assault feel so much like Siege of Orgrimmar to me.) Part of it is of course would be going with the new & exciting thing.  But just overall, I'm just not very enamored of Draenor.

There are some beautiful sights and interesting things, don't get me wrong. And the leveling can be very smooth with good story and not too much fluff (although perhaps a tad too fast relative to the areas). But something about it just feels very...claustrophobic?  I'm not sure what word I'm looking for here but when I think of Mists of Pandaria I think of very open and the feeling of wide lands.  Very interesting and engaging.  Despite how pretty Draenor can look, I just don't feel that same way.  I wish I knew why. I'll be curious if having flying changes my thoughts on leveling and experiencing the content.

But back to you, what are your thoughts?

Warlords of Draenor feels ephemeral

When is the last time you changed the music on your garrison juke box?

When is the last time you actively sought out music rolls for your garrison?

When is the last time you collected the ore from your mine?  Flowers from your garden?

After your bodyguards hit max reputation, do you use them anymore?

Have you got to max rep on all of your bodyguards?

Did you get the selfie achievement?

After getting the achivement, how many people use their selfie cameras?


How popular is the twitter functionality?

What do we do with those toys that are only of use in Draenor?

What about those toys that somehow aren't really toys?

During the Wrath Timewalking weekend I ended up in the Halls of Lightning for one of my runs. After we beat Loken, I had the music roll drop from him.  It surprised me because I had completely forgotten about the jukebox in my garrison and about collecting the rolls for it.  I had meant to go back to get a lot of them later but just never got around to it.  (That was about the time that the no-flight thing was in full swing and it really curbed my enthausim for playing.)

It struck me as odd how quickly I had forgotten about this part of the game.  Then I remembered how others have said that the developers have said (2nd hand knowledge warning) that the garrisons are just for this expansion.  We won't be getting a new garrison in the next expansion and our followers won't be joining us.  It really underlined how self-contained this expansion is.

Think about Draenor as just leveling content, with no intent to do "end game". Any character that comes to Draenor after the next expansion is out probably won't have a level 3 garrison because why would they?  They'll level through the area fast enough to not need it and the benefits from it may not be enough to justify the time and resource sink that it is. If they don't have a level 3 garrison, they won't get a shipyard (okay, so there is an upside) and they wont' be going to Tanaan.  Even if they get to Tanaan, and assuming they didn't have a higher level character earn the Pathfinder achievement already, are they really going to take the weeks to get the rep to honored so that they can get the achievement? So new players are likely to never fly in Draenor.


Is this something unique to Warlords of Draenor? Is this really different than past expansions?  Am I being fair?  I guess something just feels different this time.  There are so many time sinks that when we come back to this content as pass through, it's going to feel very pointless to do a lot of these things.


I'm not sure of those answers but here are some other features that have stayed relevant past their addition to the game. These are not core gaming components, but they are significant enough to have developer time in patches and expansions after their introduction.

(I thought about adding flying to this but 1) I consider it a core part of the game and 2) I think others do too, and now Blizzard knows that.  I'm not sure if they'll try to remove flying again from the game, but I doubt it would be anytime soon if so.)

Pet battles

Only "recently" introduced, pet battling has become an identifiable main stay of the game. They've really only been here since Mists of Pandaria, granted that was around 3 years ago that they were introduced, but it did such a good job of taking something that had been around since Vanilla, revamping it and giving it a life of its own.  Some people hate it, yes, but the same could be said of PvP or raiding or crafting. The key thing is, it is popular enough that it draws people and isn't going away anytime soon.

Heirloom items

I had forgotten that heirlooms were introduced in Wrath of the Lich King.  There have been numerous changes to them, and with the latest heirloom tab it is even easier to use them. But they've been through 3 expansions and I doubt they'll remove them anytime soon.

Transmogrification

A Cataclysm update that had been requested in video games since the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt. Rough estimate.  Not only are they now creating gear that is solely for transmog purposes, but if it were to be removed, I'm pretty sure the transmog community might put the flying community to shame.  Their numbers are probably smaller than the pro-flying crowd, but though they be but little, they are fierce!

I have no doubts that there are other things we could point to and argue about as additions or content and I welcome any additionally thoughts.  The bigger thing for me is that the stuff I associate with this expansion, is stuff that is going to stay with this expansion, good or bad.

As to my questions from above: 

As I mentioned, I forgot about my jukebox.  After I get Pathfinder done (almost there, a few more days, when I can find the time) I may go back on do that, although to be honest, looking for those rolls feels like a nothing-to-do thing for me.

I generally still harvest my flowers for a few reasons: as a tailor, some of the flowers are needed for my daily cool down. My spouse has an alchemist so I send along the others I don’t use. And I typically get the food buff fruit for when we play, so while I’m over there I grab the flowers. Also, my druid has a storehouse, so I can easily and quickly drop the flowers in my bank. But other than that, no, I don't do it often. The mine I do even less.

I only have one bodyguard up to max rep, so I have a ways to go on that front before this is an issue. But I do know that I doubt I'll be getting wingman on more than my main and one alt.

I think I've taken 4-5 photos with the selfie camera.  I might do more.  I'm not inherently against it, it just doesn't really appeal to most of my characters, so I don't do it. But it isn't a draw for me.

Never used twitter, doubt I will. If I do, it will never be in game.

I hate that so many toys from Draenor are specific to this world and doubly hate the ones that take up space and for all intents and purposes seem like they should be toys but somehow aren't.