Tali'Thread vas Clan Zorah nar BSN 6.0

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymRpia1n5GI

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x91lpMZ_wWk

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA-vGuaw1MQ

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFszE0sydNc

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfgNmjj_8j4

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K3s3_d-bRU

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67BFhec69oM

[Vol]

As someone who prefers PUG'ing to being in a guild, I can see both sides. If the meta shifts in a way where PUG's refuse you because "You aren't Venthir and don't have Door of Shadows", then Blizzard has failed in their objective. But making the four covenants meaningful choices is something I very much like, too, since it makes for a better story.

I don't raid or play long term, so I end up running solo or in PUGs too. Though I play tank, so it would be exceptionally rare to be rejected for literally anything but poor item level, and even then. Though I haven't done much M+ content at all this expansion, the sheer demands of routing and memorizing every single mob ability and rotating cooldowns and variable affixes and it's all _your_ job while also doing active mitigation and DPS and interrupting cycles, ehhhhh. Then I heard the current season has these portals with boss mobs inside you can use to skip trash, which totally alters the routing for everything, and it's way too much work.

Anyway. WoW has moved extremely far from RPG roots. It's basically some very blatant systems that you use to get X, Y, and Z. There is very little mystery or choice or personal experience. That said, letting players get what they want has also consistently been a poor decision _for_ the experience if you are not in certain gameplay niches. I would probably pick whatever covenant was coolest (or didn't piss me off) that had decent abilities for that character. I don't push content, so I don't care if it's 10% weaker on 80% of pulls in the 3 fastest dungeons and 23% of boss fights on M10+ during Tyrannical weeks. But I get why people who do put in that effort are angry, because they _will_ eke every drop of DPS juice out of their characters (grinding islands for Azerite for Uldir, yeesh). Giving them that though, is it wise?

[magnuskn]

As someone who prefers PUG'ing to being in a guild, I can see both sides. If the meta shifts in a way where PUG's refuse you because "You aren't Venthir and don't have Door of Shadows", then Blizzard has failed in their objective. But making the four covenants meaningful choices is something I very much like, too, since it makes for a better story.

I don't raid or play long term, so I end up running solo or in PUGs too. Though I play tank, so it would be exceptionally rare to be rejected for literally anything but poor item level, and even then. Though I haven't done much M+ content at all this expansion, the sheer demands of routing and memorizing every single mob ability and rotating cooldowns and variable affixes and it's all _your_ job while also doing active mitigation and DPS and interrupting cycles, ehhhhh. Then I heard the current season has these portals with boss mobs inside you can use to skip trash, which totally alters the routing for everything, and it's way too much work.

Anyway. WoW has moved extremely far from RPG roots. It's basically some very blatant systems that you use to get X, Y, and Z. There is very little mystery or choice or personal experience. That said, letting players get what they want has also consistently been a poor decision _for_ the experience if you are not in certain gameplay niches. I would probably pick whatever covenant was coolest (or didn't piss me off) that had decent abilities for that character. I don't push content, so I don't care if it's 10% weaker on 80% of pulls in the 3 fastest dungeons and 23% of boss fights on M10+ during Tyrannical weeks. But I get why people who do put in that effort are angry, because they _will_ eke every drop of DPS juice out of their characters (grinding islands for Azerite for Uldir, yeesh). Giving them that though, is it wise?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I realize that WoW doesn't have true RPG roots, since you don't have much choice in the story (I can't tell you how many times I've been unhappy with the choices the story took my characters over the last 15 years, especially when I played Horde alts). It's still nice to have consequences for your choice of covenant (which is an RPG'ish element) and I happen to enjoy a lot of the greater overarching story. Legion was dope, while BfA was pretty "eh" to actively infuriating overall.

I'm also thinking about going full tank for Shadowlands, while I've mostly been playing tank as a secondary spec in the past. I'll have to see if I can find the personal time for it, though, with all the other stuff going on in my life. I'd love to be able to play my Prot Pally "full time", though.

But, looking at it realistically, I probably will have to stick with a DPS spec. I've fallen out of love with Frost Mage for the first time in 15 years, though. The spec plays really clunky since the introduction of Glacial Spike (and I was not a fan of the "double ice lance" meta, either for the other possible playstyle) and has low survivability, compared to other specs. Not a good thing, if a significant part of the play experience in Shadowlands will be solo content, like Torghast. So, if I'm going for a DPS spec, I have the choice of Havoc Demon Hunter, Enhancement Shaman or Beast Mastery Hunter, which are the three specs I most enjoy. Since I plan on having active alts for the other three covenants aside from my main, I'm looking at a lot of playtime, anyway.

I'll probably have to send my Enhancement Shaman to the Necrolords (my least favorite covenant in terms of flavor), since Paladin = Kyrian, Demon Hunter = Venthyr and Hunter = Night Fae seems most natural.

[Vol]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I realize that WoW doesn't have true RPG roots, since you don't have much choice in the story (I can't tell you how many times I've been unhappy with the choices the story took my characters over the last 15 years, especially when I played Horde alts). It's still nice to have consequences for your choice of covenant (which is an RPG'ish element) and I happen to enjoy a lot of the greater overarching story. Legion was dope, while BfA was pretty "eh" to actively infuriating overall.

I'm also thinking about going full tank for Shadowlands, while I've mostly been playing tank as a secondary spec in the past. I'll have to see if I can find the personal time for it, though, with all the other stuff going on in my life. I'd love to be able to play my Prot Pally "full time", though.

But, looking at it realistically, I probably will have to stick with a DPS spec. I've fallen out of love with Frost Mage for the first time in 15 years, though. The spec plays really clunky since the introduction of Glacial Spike (and I was not a fan of the "double ice lance" meta, either for the other possible playstyle) and has low survivability, compared to other specs. Not a good thing, if a significant part of the play experience in Shadowlands will be solo content, like Torghast. So, if I'm going for a DPS spec, I have the choice of Havoc Demon Hunter, Enhancement Shaman or Beast Mastery Hunter, which are the three specs I most enjoy. Since I plan on having active alts for the other three covenants aside from my main, I'm looking at a lot of playtime, anyway.

I'll probably have to send my Enhancement Shaman to the Necrolords (my least favorite covenant in terms of flavor), since Paladin = Kyrian, Demon Hunter = Venthyr and Hunter = Night Fae seems most natural.

Just found out Blizz has gone back and edited out Garrosh calling Sylvanas a "bitch" in Silverpine, because of the usual reasons. A 10 year old quest, involving two awful people (who had the same fucking story arcs as warchief), in a game with murder, slavery, rape, mutilation, torture, genocide, soul-stealing, and so on. It's all so tiresome.

The fact that they're not even bothering with Archaeology this time around, First Aid is effectively gone, and crafting has been turned into just more blunt systems, speaks a lot about the direction. Whereas if I were making an MMORPG, I'd be actively adding new professions, ways to interact with the world, all sorts of shit to round out your character. So if the paradigm is meant to be these very clear spheres of gearing into the next sphere, with very clear means of creating trade goods and very clear intent for borrowed power and very clear time-gated rep grinds and very clear whatever else, then yeah, it is silly to then turn around and gate the min-maxxers their extra 5% DPS on week long "Forgive me" quests. Might as well give them all the abilities on the Talent screen, so they can optimize for every single encounter. Why make a principled stand on _this_ after tossing everything else out for efficiency and focusing on only parts of the central loop?

Though I'd like to believe it's a turnaround, and would support that. Might be too much to ask, as we're so far from Classic and TBC in terms of personnel and design choices, and the game is clearly in its twilight. Not quite at EQ1 maintenance mode, with the yearly expansions of whatever they whip up, but it cannot be that many expansions away.

Prot pallies are soloing current tier raid bosses, so, you know, not a bad choice. DKs used to be able to do that, circa Legion/MOP. DH are always amazing once they get over the squishiness hump. Druids are boring, I hear. Warriors are solid, but not dominant like now. And Brews are always viable (I main one when I play), but still suck ass without a healer, might be improved with the new changes, but I've purposefully avoided a lot of it.

[magnuskn]

I'm sure that Archaelogy has still fans, but First Aid? Good riddance to bad rubbish. Crafting actually has gotten way more involved, as far as I can see it, so I'm not sure where you are coming from in your perspective. You can now add special components to old recipes to bring them up to a more modern level, so that alone is a really nice addition (although I'm pretty sure they won't allow old gear to replace raid level gear from the new expansion).

I'm damn happy that we are not in the vanilla/TBC era anymore. In retrospect, those years were pretty horrible. If you take off the rose glasses of having had a lot of free time back then, I can't see how the necessary time investment to get something done there would be defensible. I think the era of Wrath of the Lich King, Mists of Pandaria and Legion was the optimal time to be a WoW player.

I don't think WoW is in its twilight years yet. To the contrary, I am pretty sure Shadowlands has a great chance of turning things around again. Surely never again to the level of Wrath, but a turnaround nonetheless. It's only when the devs went too much into making everything too difficult or too grindy that the player base really lost motivation. The early success of Vanilla and TBC, IMO, is mostly due to WoW bringing a lot of systems together which other MMO's had not yet mastered.

[Deano]

It does seem like we are going to go 5 years without a Dragon Age or Mass Effect game based on them only showing concept images at this point.

[SciFlyBoy]

Neir: Automata question...

I used to be able to fight machines and at some point be presented with an option to hit B and do a badass finishing move. I haven't been able to do that since halfway through my '1st' play through and not at all in my '2nd' play through. Is that a chip I need to install? Has anyone experienced something similar?

So far my favorite chips are the 'perfect evade' chip and the 'add an energy wave to my weapon' chip.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q5gHTCFlbg

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNSnOAumlB8

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwIXYvIvhY4

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEAKezcGVs0

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zEjIEP1038

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KqsTyDHV5A

HUGE GUTS

[TheodoricFriede]

Neir: Automata question...

I used to be able to fight machines and at some point be presented with an option to hit B and do a badass finishing move. I haven't been able to do that since halfway through my '1st' play through and not at all in my '2nd' play through. Is that a chip I need to install? Has anyone experienced something similar?

So far my favorite chips are the 'perfect evade' chip and the 'add an energy wave to my weapon' chip.

What probably happened is, as you said, you removed a chip that would give you prompts for moves. You can probably actually still do it, but would have to have the timing memorized.(I guess ill know soon, I'm going to play again imminently.)

Each of the playthroughs are a bit different as you have probably noticed. Play-through 2, for example, is more about hacking enemies than hitting them, so you naturally are going to do less flashy attacks.

[TTTX]

It does seem like we are going to go 5 years without a Dragon Age or Mass Effect game based on them only showing concept images at this point.

well BW have had a lot of problems behind the scenes apparently (you can read about the hell the teams went through to get DA inquisition, ME:A and Anthem on some news that have been posted on the internet) for a long time, + they are trying to relaunch Anthem to well make it good and EA is apparently going through some changes as well, like making it so not all games are live service as well the governments around the world is starting to pay attention to that stuff and might close those lope holes about gambling in games, which is good for gamers not so good for the current business model the big gaming companies have put in place (which is only bad for the rich people up top, that us poor people don't care about).

[magnuskn]

Jesus, fall is gonna be bloody crowded. Starts with Crusader Kings 3 in a few days, Star Wars: Squadrons on October 01st, WoW: Shadowlands on October 27th and then Cyberpunk 2077 on November 19th.

I better get some time in prepping my tabletop RPG groups (where I am GM for two groups) this weekend, otherwise there is a good chance I'll neglect them. ^^

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIAIXXJYmV8

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMWcd4kcgiE

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urEPDREr_Ks

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWNFKgd9l80

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X9FqsuLLK8

[Alienmorph]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEAKezcGVs0

So... the Jurassic Park DlC WAS the end of it for this game? People have been wondering about it for months, would have been nice to say so rather than doing a sneaky sneak like this. Oh well, it made enough money to get a sequel next Jurassic World movie comes out, so we'll wait for that.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMvotSyvHKc

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofFBfV1Jb6s

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyufLUCVALk

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4b_DMwAm6Q

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tclxsLRVa2A

[Vol]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNSnOAumlB8

1) That was really cool.
2) Clearly, Blizzard can produce quality story and art still.
3) That they don't is annoying.
4) Uther did nothing wrong, but that crazy blue chick might've broken the soul-mill system.

[magnuskn]

2) Clearly, Blizzard can produce quality story and art still.
3) That they don't is annoying.

Half the BfA story was really good (everything involving Jaina, basically) and the cinematics were exquisite. We've never gotten so many high quality cinematics as in BfA. The Horde side was pretty annoying, though, and introducing N'Zoth in the last third of the expansion as the final villain made no sense to the overall story of what had come before.

So, strong disagree that Blizzard is incapable of good storytelling and art. They just need better focus.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqLxZbprVGo

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXcCEWaDLWU

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1LaqzTSSno

[Dragaros]

So in Age of Signar news…

My boy Nagash made Chaos piss in its proverbial pants.

► Show Spoiler

Nagash began his war against Chaos by attacking the Eightpoints. He sent two legions commanded by two of his Mortarchs, who blitzkrieged the fuck out of Chaos when Archaon and his squad of Ruin Knights were away on an important mission, and came so close to outright conquering the entire plane that not only did Archaon and his knights have to abandon their important quest and return, but Be'lakor and his personal legion joined the fray to aid Archaon, and Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, & the Great Horned Rat tore open portals to send in vast armies of daemons to reinforce them, and even the currently leaderless factions of Slaanesh daemons came to help. All of this was able to stop the undead legions from taking over the Eightpoints, but was unable to drive them out; Nagash has a permanent beachhead now that Chaos has been unable to siege --a huge fortress made out of the bones of their very own dead-- and Nagash now has control of one of the Realmgates. And this was all accomplished using only a tiny fraction of Nagash’s forces. If he had invaded in full, it seems like he would have won hands down and Chaos would have lost its foothold in the mortal worlds. But doing so might leave him vulnerable to attack from Sigmar and the Elf gods if they were feeling opportunistic, so Nagash is playing the long game and taking his time. He's tested Chaos's defenses and seen how they react; he has their measure now. And dragging the war out actually nets him more material to make more undead in the end, anyway. Waste not.

And in the next story campaign coming up, the preview shows the Elven gods are going to war, with Morathi on the attack against the Idoneth Deepkin in particular.







Oh, and one more thing… The Elven gods clashing was just the opportunity She Who Thirsts needed to shake off the last of her/his/its chains. Slaanesh is coming at long last.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYwLzxE9l-k

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WtkJoB6l7s

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzqGwtWBj28

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tln0DTS1SI

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcl30mWtJQU

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

[Azint]

Chadwick Boseman lost his fight against cancer.

[Vol]

Half the BfA story was really good (everything involving Jaina, basically) and the cinematics were exquisite. We've never gotten so many high quality cinematics as in BfA. The Horde side was pretty annoying, though, and introducing N'Zoth in the last third of the expansion as the final villain made no sense to the overall story of what had come before.

So, strong disagree that Blizzard is incapable of good storytelling and art. They just need better focus.

It seems as if the biggest problem is the lead writer, more so than the quality of the writing staff. They've markedly improved, but it's bringing it all together, cohesively, where it fucks up. And then the overall designer in making a war-theme expansion, and instead burns through 2 expansions worth of long-running antagonists.

Chadwick Boseman lost his fight against cancer.

So young too. About 5% of us don't make it to 40, but not often is it for something like that.

[SciFlyBoy]

Chadwick Boseman lost his fight against cancer.

Shit, I just read about that and came straight here. Damn it.

[Alienmorph]

Well, that was a shit news to wake up to. May he rest in peace...