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So, new xpac is out. Who's still playing? Not me, cause my game is permalocked by the server problems of millions of people trying to do the exact same quest at the exact same time.

Pretty much the same every time they launch an expac.

Every expansions, every new MMO, all that makes whatever game it is unplayable for the first few days until everything's smoothed out.

So I'm not going to be trying it for a few days yet.

I made the mistake of going into Orgrim literally as the xpac dropped. Lagged through the roof. Only ended up crashing once (when I was dungeoning)

I rolled on Sargeras because it was the most populated PVP realm. Now I really do regret that decision. Especially with all the cross-realm zones that adds to the burden.

It's even worse in EU, Blizzard even stated they consider US a higher priority and they snuck in some hotfixes for US pre-release when they saw problems on EU.

I've managed to reach 95 so far, but spending hours in a queue is not fun, neither is constant crashes, broken flightpaths, broken garrisons, quests that were not designed with more than a few people in mind and so on.


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Much of the lag and crashes is not Blizz's fault, though. They report lots of DDOS attacks.

I begun the quest-line today, as soon as I went through the dark portal it all went wrong

None of my abilities or spells would work, I could only auto-attack and it would always miss, thankfully the NPCs helped me kill the orcs for the missive you need but then I could not loot the corpses.

After several re-boots and messing around I finally got the game to play properly and then it was fine until i reached the 'build your garrison quest'.

Been stuck there since, will try again tomorrow but I think I'll probably take a break for a few days until it all blows over.

I'll just play some hearthstone instead

So far it's been alright for me besides long queue times. I really like the new armour that's been dropping for quests for warriors, makes my Orc actually feel like an orc! At least compared to the Pandaria sets. I do have to say that the cloth armour does look lacklustre though for warlocks as my friend (who plays a warlock) and I joked that by the time he reached 91 he looked like a hobo of draenor rather than a warlord

I am 98 now and I still haven't obtained any WoD gear worth using over my old MoP gear. They are taking this with gear scaling very seriously.

My rogue is level 93 (I'm in no rush!) and I am loving this expansion. So far I think it is probably the best expansion they've put out, but I'll reserve giving it that distinction until I complete the leveling process and delve in to the endgame.

I will admit, I'm loving the garrisons way more that I thought I would. Come to think of it, that's probably the reason why I'm only level 93!

As an Alliance player, I'm getting a bit tired of all the supporting character deaths. First , then , and then poor . Does the Horde lose anyone important (genuine question, not sarcasm)?

I'm enjoying it so far. I'm inches away from 93 and only really got to play yesterday as we had guests for the weekend from out of state.

It's nice to actually give a crap again. I didn't like MoP much but I didn't realize how much I didn't like it till I started playing WoD.

I'm not power leveling or anything. I think I'm going to try and do all the quest lines in all zones before really diving into endgame.

The expansion couldn't have come at a worse time. Between Nanowrimo, the constant connection issues that seem to be plaguing WoD at the moment, feeling utterly gak and unmotivated to do anything, and sleeping, I have no real time to play.

I got a character to 100.

Most of the stability issues seem to have been dealt with. There's an annoying bug that I last saw on Saturday that caused things to not show up like they should. For instance, at one point I opened a trade skill window, and my Draenor tradeskills didn't show up. And just after upgrading my garrison to level 3, my resource collection buildings weren't on the garrison blueprints map.

The lack of flying is much more brutal in this expansion than it would have been in earlier expansions. If you ignore zones like The Storm Peaks (half of which was inaccessible without flying), this is perhaps the expansion where flight would be the most useful. While a couple of the zones are wide open, others are very tight and cramped. That's not to say that there isn't a lot of space within those zones. But you're stuck to tight paths due to steep slopes or similar blocks. Flight would make it much easier to get around. It's a design decision, though, and I can see why they went with it.

Trade skills have been *massively* overhauled. Shortly after arriving, you'll find items (either looted or harvested) to help with your tradeskills. For resource gathering skills (herbalism, mining, fishing), you'll harvest an item that instantly boosts your skill cap to 700. Did you unlock Herbalism and then left it at skill level 1? Your skill cap will still go from 75 to 700 (remember that the pre-expac patch changed under-skilled gathering so that you still get *something*, so even a level 1 Herbalism guy can attempt to gather Draenor nodes). For production skills, you'll loot an item that gives a quest that involves talking to at least one NPC. Finishing that quest (which will require a small bit of effort) will reward you with a boosted skill cap, a handful of recipes, and a blueprint for the related production building.

And then it gets weird...

Your initial crafting items will likely all be yellow in your crafting log (i.e. good chance of a skill-up), and not orange (i.e. guaranteed chance of a skill-up). Any that are orange will either be once a day recipes, or require *massive* amounts of components. For instance, blacksmiths can Refine Truesteel Ingots (it's not a mining ability this time), craft a book called Secrets of Draenor Blacksmithing, and a few (three?) pieces of armor that might be of use while working toward level 100. Only the refining and book options will grant a skill-up, and they can only be performed once per day. Refining will require 20 pieces of True Iron Ore and 10 pieces of Blackrock Ore, and will provide at least 4 ingots in return. The exact amount is variable, and increases as your skill level goes up.

When you build a profession building in your garrison, two NPCs are placed. The example will be an Inscription building. The first is the work order NPC. You trade him resources (for instance, pigment), and four hours later he gives you one War Paint in return (or two war paints, if you assign one of your followers to work at the building). You can queue up to 9 work orders with a Tier One building, and up to 19 with a Tier 3 building. The second is a basic trade skill trainer. But he doesn't train Draenor recipes in the traditional fashion. Instead, you open his vendor panel, and can trade those crafted books (i.e. for blacksmiths, Secrets of Draenor Blacksmithing mentioned above) for recipes. One book will provide an weapon recipe for an ilevel 630 item that can be equipped at level 91 (the specifics vary per trade skill; for instance, a blacksmith can create ilevel 640 items, but it takes a *lot* more items to fully kit out a character). Level 100 non-heroic dungeons drop ilevel 615 gear. But there's a catch, of course. That catch is the components required. It takes 100 War Paint, and 1 simple wood, to craft a Crystalfire Staff alone. A resource building with a follower working there can craft 12 war paint per day, and a player can craft 4 (this actually increases slightly at skill levels over 600), which means *at most* you're only going to get 16 ingots per day. Which means that it'll take a little over 6 days to craft that staff. On the other hand, you also get ten skill up points for completing it.

Then after you've crafted the staff, you can use 150 War Paints, and some other semi-rare items (that can also be purchased from a garrison vendor using Primal Spirit drops) to create an item that will allow you to boost your staff's ilevel from 630 to 640. That recipe costs 5 books, btw. And then you can purchase yet another recipe (for another 5 books) that will allow you to increase the staff's ilevel yet again - to 655 - this time using 200 War Paints and other semi-rare items.

Cooking, fishing, and first aid have also been changed up.

First off, there are "small", "regular", and "enormous" fish. The kind that you catch is based off of your skill level. Low skill level means nothing but small fish. 700 unbuffed skill means mostly regular fish, with some enormous fish. Catching 20 small fish, or 10 normal fish, or 5 enormous fish, all of the same type, allows you to convert those fish into fish meat of the appropriate type (somewhere between 15-25, from what I've seen).

Cooking gives you two very basic recipes that don't give stat bonuses. Crafting those items has a (very good at the start) chance of granting you new cooking recipes. And crafting those recipes has a chance of granting you yet more recipes. Each of the normal recipes requires five meat, and returns four product (more if your skill level is high). And there are the usual more advanced recipes, which require finished products from earlier recipes, and feasts, which require more raw meat.

First aid is also more complicated. There are no cloth scraps, but the beasts now drop fur which is essentially the same thing. But you can't just convert fur into bandages. You now also require fishing drops. And bandages don't give skill ups for very long. Instead, you craft what are essentially healing potions (I don't know if alchemy has something similar), anti-disease potions (which don't work in instances), and anti-poison potions (which also don't work in instances) for your skill-ups. All require fish parts.

So if you like first aid, you'd better practice your fishing.



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Oh, yeah, and since I'm playing a Mistweaver monk...

GET OUT OF THE FIRE, YOU HALF-WITS!

And while you're at it, QUIT BREAKING THE CROWD CONTROL!!!

And READ THE DUNGEON JOURNAL BOSS ENTRIES!!!

Seriously. Went into Auchindoun with a PUG. First boss fight. The journal clearly states that the one of the boss's moves is to throw his shield at one of the players. It also states that he uses an ability called Consecrated Light, and that you should hide behind his shield when he does so. Otherwise you will die.

First boss fight starts. Boss throws his shield. Boss starts casting Consecrated Light. A BIG MESSAGE shows up on my screen courtesy of the game UI informing me that the boss is casting Consecrated Light.

I hide.
Tank survives, though with massive damage.
All three dps either instantly die, or die shortly afterwards (I don't recall which).

>.<

Fortunately, the tank and I were able to finish off the boss. He started to cast Consecrated Light again later in the fight, and I had to tell the tank in Party Chat to come hide.

Seriously. Half of the nonsense I have to deal with as a healer could be avoided if people would just take thirty seconds to glance at the Dungeon Journal before queueing up for a dungeon the first time.

I just had a guildmate sell a BoE iLvL 665 epic for 140,000 gold. Who pays that much for something that'll last for one patch at most? I'd understand it if it were a mount or something, but one piece of gear?!

There seems to be alot of emphasis placed on fishing in this expansions... Especially when trying to level cooking and first aid.

They also seem to have made archeology easier, there are alot more ways to get fragments.

 Catyrpelius wrote:
There seems to be alot of emphasis placed on fishing in this expansions... Especially when trying to level cooking and first aid.

They also seem to have made archeology easier, there are alot more ways to get fragments.

Cooking requires fishing to start. But once you learn your first meat recipe (by making the basic fishing recipes), you can ignore fish if you choose. The decision to add fishing to first aid is rather puzzling...

And there are other odd bits. For instance, the "once a day" cloth recipe requires herbs. The work orders don't, so swapping out Enchanting (the usual profession that's paired with tailoring) for Herbalism is a mistake (you only need ten herbs once per day). But the fact that you need herbs at all is rather odd. In comparison, the Inscription daily only requires pigment. The mining daily only requires ore. And the enchanting daily only requires an enchanting ingredient. It's not clear why they decided that the tailoring daily recipe should require herbs.

Archeology isn't the only gathering profession that's had its gathering options improved. You get a mine, a fishing pond, and an herbal garden automatically in your garrison (i.e. they have their own dedicated slots, and don't take up one of your limited slots). Anyone can gather from these locations (once per day), even if they don't have the gathering skill. Further, whenever you gather from a mining or herb node, there's a chance that a hostile mob will spawn nearby and attack you. These mobs drop a significant amount of the resource that you were gathering. For instance, if a podling spawns in response to you gathering from a starflower node, it'll drop somewhere between 12-20 starflowers. And not only are the "gatherable" mob corpses back, but the items that you can gather from them are the same "partial resource" items you now get if your gathering skill is too low to gather from a node under the new system. So while gathering corpses is a slow way to get resources, it's yet another option that's available if your interested in pursuing it.

There is a mining daily? I haven't found this yet, just the mining work order. Does it only show up once you hit 700 mining?

It also looks like they've taken the different colored gems out of jewelcrafting.

Sorry, I meant the Blacksmithing daily.


On another note, you can assign followers to level 2 gathering buildings, and they supposedly boost the building somehow. Does anyone know how they do this? I've added followers to both my mine and herb garden, but apparently the improvement is too subtle for me to pick up on.

No idea, I haven't assigned any of my followers that way yet.

Hmm...

According to WoWHead, adding a follower to your mine causes the mine carts to spawn. Several of these spawn each day, and they contain a random assortment of items. Frequently they're cheap vendor trash, but they also sometimes have mining picks (give a buff that causes you to mine faster), miner's coffee (buff that makes you run faster - but only in the mine), and archaeology fragments for WoD artifacts.

Adding a follower to your herb garden apparently allows you to select the herbs that will grow (this isn't advertised). Handy for alchemists, and possible others (more Gorgorond Flytraps for tailors). Not so useful for characters with Inscription.

Eumerin wrote:
Hmm...

According to WoWHead, adding a follower to your mine causes the mine carts to spawn. Several of these spawn each day, and they contain a random assortment of items. Frequently they're cheap vendor trash, but they also sometimes have mining picks (give a buff that causes you to mine faster), miner's coffee (buff that makes you run faster - but only in the mine), and archaeology fragments for WoD artifacts.

Adding a follower to your herb garden apparently allows you to select the herbs that will grow (this isn't advertised). Handy for alchemists, and possible others (more Gorgorond Flytraps for tailors). Not so useful for characters with Inscription.

Mine carts spawn for me and I dont have a follower attached to the building...

How many carts do you have spawning at mine level 2?

Eumerin wrote:
How many carts do you have spawning at mine level 2?

I've never actually counted them but it's a pretty significant number. If I had to make a guess it would be close to 10.

That's about the same number I'm seeing.

I'm guessing that it might be time to pull a certain orc off of mining duty...


Edit: removed minor spoiler

Eumerin wrote:
That's about the same number I'm seeing.

I'm guessing that it might be time to pull a certain orc off of mining duty...


Edit: removed minor spoiler

Maybe thats a part of the game thats still broken? Or maybe the level of the follower matters?

I'm not overly impressed by their execution of the Garrisons... Although, and this isn't going to make much sense; I'm having more fun with the garrison then I thought I would and I'm having less fun with the garrison then I thought I would.

The follower in question is level 99, so I doubt that's the problem.


I probably get what you're saying about Garrisons (though without elaborating, it's impossible to be certain). One thing that's occurred to me is that the most important buildings are probably the tradeskill support buildings. You pretty much require those buildings to use tradeskills in this expansion. The large and medium buildings provide extras, but nothing that will cripple you if you ignore them.

Also, I think I would have been a lot happier if they'd included one more large and medium slot, for a grand total of three of each.

If it means anything, it could be worse. FFXIV got the 2.4 patch and now they're down every week. blizzard's team is way more capable than squenix.

Eumerin wrote:
The follower in question is level 99, so I doubt that's the problem.


I probably get what you're saying about Garrisons (though without elaborating, it's impossible to be certain). One thing that's occurred to me is that the most important buildings are probably the tradeskill support buildings. You pretty much require those buildings to use tradeskills in this expansion. The large and medium buildings provide extras, but nothing that will cripple you if you ignore them.

Also, I think I would have been a lot happier if they'd included one more large and medium slot, for a grand total of three of each.

I'm not sure if you ever played City of Heros but towards the end of its lifespan they introduced lairs or bases or whatever they were actually called. You used resources you generated through questing to build and upgrade your lair, the best part about it was how unique and variable you could make your lair. You could use it to show off your accomplishments. This was what I was hoping for with WoW's Garrisons, instead I've got a base that looks more or less like everyone elses, the only variance I can introduce is which buildings I choose to build. What I like about the Garrisons is that there are a number of buildings that provide you with gathering and crafting opportunities just like in CoH.

On the same note though... The player base has been demanding player houseing for so long that I don't think anything they could have done would have really met my expectations... I wanted player housing in WoW that would let me take some time out of the game, show off some of my collections and acheivements and give me a unique place to hang out. Instead I got another job in the game thats grindy but useful.


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 remilia_scarlet wrote:
If it means anything, it could be worse. FFXIV got the 2.4 patch and now they're down every week. blizzard's team is way more capable than squenix.

Blizzards done this a few more times then them...

Honestly this isn't their worst launch, our original trip into outlands, Burning Crusades was much worse. I had thought they had fixed all the expansions issues when Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria launched eithout much in the way of problems.

I think alot of it had to do with just how much the player base shrunk during MoP, creating a ton of low population servers. This caused most of the active player base to move over to higher population servers. Couple this with the amount of Cross Realm stuff during that expansion to increase population in less populated areas and they created the perfect storm. In the end I've got no real way of knowing if this is what caused it or if it really was targeted DDoS attacks or some combination of the two.

 Catyrpelius wrote:


Blizzards done this a few more times then them

I agree, and even add that after repairs, they don't try to goad you into buying the special edition where you pay 1/3 more money for mounts that aren't worth it.