World of Warcraft

[Exterminatus]

I didn’t play Shadowlands, but was it known the jailer was a robot? Why is he a robot.

The Jailer was originally the Arbiter of the Shadowlands, the Arbiter was the being that determined where each individual soul went when they died; like if your soul was naughty but redeemable your soul was sent to Revendreth for a chance to be redeemed and repent for your past transgressions in life.

The Arbiter you saw when your character arrived was basically a fake Arbiter that was put in place to continue the original task the job was created for.

I'm assuming that that robot form was his original form before he was gifted life by the First Ones and the only other characters that would've been aware of this were the Eternal Ones that ruled over the covenants of the Shadowlands.

 

[Yuri_]

I kinda want to play WOTLK when it comes out. I wanna do all the stuff I was too noob to do back in the day (ulduar hardmodes and heroic icc, mostly). Plus I think it would be pretty fun to try a WOTLK arms warrior with huge amounts of armour pen.

I really, REALLY don't want to give any money to blizzard and its legion of trannies, though.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I kinda want to play WOTLK when it comes out. I wanna do all the stuff I was too noob to do back in the day (ulduar hardmodes and heroic icc, mostly). Plus I think it would be pretty fun to try a WOTLK arms warrior with huge amounts of armour pen.

I really, REALLY don't want to give any money to blizzard and its legion of trannies, though.

There are a handful of Wrath-era private servers out there if you want to give it a try. Some of them are even blizzlike. Sure, populations aren't going to be amazing but it's not like retail Classic is doing great either.

 

[Yuri_]

There are a handful of Wrath-era private servers out there if you want to give it a try. Some of them are even blizzlike. Sure, populations aren't going to be amazing but it's not like retail Classic is doing great either.

I've tried a few, but the ping is atrocious because I'm playing from oceania. I think 400ms was about the average.

 

[White Devil]

I kinda want to play WOTLK when it comes out. I wanna do all the stuff I was too noob to do back in the day (ulduar hardmodes and heroic icc, mostly). Plus I think it would be pretty fun to try a WOTLK arms warrior with huge amounts of armour pen.

I really, REALLY don't want to give any money to blizzard and its legion of trannies, though.

I don't miss all the terrible Death Knights that sucked at absolutely everything, tried to tank dungeons in the wrong aspect, and just generally ruined things because muh hero class. I miss TBC the most but I was way too bitter to ever give Blizzard money to play their gimped revision of it. Not even Vanilla Classic was really Vanilla.

I mean all this shit was fun back in the day but I also remember all the bullshit that came in Wrath and culminated in Cata which is when I stopped playing for good except to try out Classic for a month.

 

[CHARizard]

A few months ago someone on this thread mentioned spinning up a solo private server. I can't find the post now could that person message me? I am really interested in showing my wife vanilla WoW.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

A few months ago someone on this thread mentioned spinning up a solo private server. I can't find the post now could that person message me? I am really interested in showing my wife vanilla WoW.

There's a decent faq right here

World of Warcraft Single Player Server Quick Start Guide

It is shockingly easy to run your own private single player World of Warcraft server populated with bots. This guide will show you how to do it.

www.briankoponen.com

You don't need anything powerful, but you do need the right version of the official client which I think the zip files now include.

SPP Classics Updated -Single Player Project

 

[You're a Big Guy]

I kinda want to play WOTLK when it comes out. I wanna do all the stuff I was too noob to do back in the day (ulduar hardmodes and heroic icc, mostly). Plus I think it would be pretty fun to try a WOTLK arms warrior with huge amounts of armour pen.

I really, REALLY don't want to give any money to blizzard and its legion of trannies, though.

trannies all play retail for the most part

 

[Retink]

I think I figured out what the Jailer was actually doing. He was going to rewrite reality so that he can say nigger freely. I don't see any other possible interpretation of the story.

 

[Fcret]

I don't quite understand how being able to clear normal mode content in a game you pay monthly for is a bad thing.

It's not. I'm pointing out that LFR shouldn't exist and normal should be matchmade and be the 'skill floor' for WoW. The existence of a 'story mode' fight that is basically impossible to wipe on is kind of a problem.

Maybe it's my FF14 bias showing but are all fights in WoW just big gear checks? I mean I was watching that Jailer fight and for a final boss I saw next to no mechanics nothing really special just big damage numbers a whole lot of auto attacks and some DPS and Heal checks. I know FF fights are dance fights but they at least seem more interesting than THAT.

Kinda. Mechanics are really important during the first couple of months or so. The power curve in WoW is much steeper than in XIV though. WoW usually sees numbers bloat on par with an entire expansion of XIV during a raid tier. So doing Castle Nathria now is kinda like going back and doing Eden's Gate unsynced at level 90 with full BiS, although even less-so because WoW raids get nerfed to hell once they stop being current.

Let me put it like this - imagine if gear in XIV was so good you could consistently drag a corpse through current savage content once you have almost-BiS. That's how big of a difference gear makes in WoW.

 

[CptnSnshn]

Let me put it like this - imagine if gear in XIV was so good you could consistently drag a corpse through current savage content once you have almost-BiS. That's how big of a difference gear makes in WoW.

That mixed with the much larger parties really seems off to me, in FF14 at the very least every member of the 8 man team has to hold their own know mechanics and work with their team to get past bosses, WoW not only be less mechanically focused but with so much stat bloat just seems kinda... well shit tbh

 

[Fcret]

That mixed with the much larger parties really seems off to me, in FF14 at the very least every member of the 8 man team has to hold their own know mechanics and work with their team to get past bosses, WoW not only be less mechanically focused but with so much stat bloat just seems kinda... well shit tbh

It's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, when you get an upgrade you really do feel more powerful. There's something to be said about a game where loot from an epic encounter makes you feel... well, epic.

On the other hand, it fuels all kinds of degenerate behavior. Powerful gear is needed to raid but you can't raid unless you have powerful gear. If you fall behind, your only options are to claw your way through some grindy catch-up system or pay people via gold (and therefore real money) to carry you through content so you get geared up. There's no equivalent of crafted catch-up gear (except maybe a couple slots) or welfare gear you can buy with a currency the game vomits on you like in FF.

There are a lot of aspects of WoW's gearing I like. I like how not every piece of gear is a stat stick and sometimes has interesting side-effects that change your play style. I like how you can (theoretically) do PVP or open-world grinds or mythic+ to get pretty good loot. I like how the secondary stats actually feel kinda meaningful and you use different setups in different kinds of content. But it's all wrapped up in like 20 layers of awful systems and engagement metrics.

 

[Retink]

That mixed with the much larger parties really seems off to me, in FF14 at the very least every member of the 8 man team has to hold their own know mechanics and work with their team to get past bosses, WoW not only be less mechanically focused but with so much stat bloat just seems kinda... well shit tbh

It is mostly shit but not for the reasons you believe. Mythic raiding does require a lot of people to know mechanics, well most of them, but it's also the mode that has extra mechanics, phases, and scaled damage. That's fine, but WoW does have a lot of mechanic bloat so things end up feeling very samey or overly complex while you're trying to utilize you rotation that now has a ton of RNG. I did some raid leading in Mythic raids (Heroic I think back when I was most active in SOO) and there was a ton of stuff to do, world first guilds actually have an independent shot caller now so they can focus on calling out mechanics, targets, etc, instead of making a player in raid do it as it was in the past.

Really, WoW would be better off making smaller raids but putting them out more often, as that's really all they have at this point anyway. The problem is they can't do that as long as there's so much stat bloat and story mode giving you gear that quickly ramps you up.

 

[Fcret]

Really, WoW would be better off making smaller raids but putting them out more often, as that's really all they have at this point anyway. The problem is they can't do that as long as there's so much stat bloat and story mode giving you gear that quickly ramps you up.

For some reason, the playerbase is really autistically obsessed with the number of bosses per raid even though 3/4ths of them are basically recolored loot pinatas with a single mechanic.

 

[Retink]

For some reason, the playerbase is really autistically obsessed with the number of bosses per raid even though 3/4ths of them are basically recolored loot pinatas with a single mechanic.

True, the player base is pretty retarded but that's because they catered to retards rather heavily instead of trying to make a balanced game.

When did they stop doing one boss raids anyway?

 

[Fcret]

True, the player base is pretty retarded but that's because they catered to retards rather heavily instead of trying to make a balanced game.

When did they stop doing one boss raids anyway?

I think sometime in Cata. That's when WoW became fully seasonal and so you had to have enough bosses to drop loot for every slot instead of getting a few slots from this raid and a few slots from the last patch's raid. Also professions being de-emphasized put more pressure on them to load raids with bosses and trash to drop loot so you could gear.

 

[King Dead]

I think sometime in Cata. That's when WoW became fully seasonal and so you had to have enough bosses to drop loot for every slot instead of getting a few slots from this raid and a few slots from the last patch's raid. Also professions being de-emphasized put more pressure on them to load raids with bosses and trash to drop loot so you could gear.

The last one-boss raid was Ruby Sanctum in Wrath, though there have been raids with only a couple bosses since then. Baradin Hold had three, though only the latest one was ever relevant loot-wise, so it kind of counts as a one-boss raid. Beyond that, Throne of the Four Winds had two, Trial of Valor had three, and Crucible of Storms had two (the last one I had to look up to double check since I had quit by then).

I always hated how worthless crafting was in WoW. I'd only ever level my skills up for the achievements and the occasional self perk like discounted enchants or engineering gadgets. There were so few relevant crafted items you could make on par with raid gear, and they'd get lost in the tide of BoEs that trash would drop. Yet another system cast to the sidelines in favor of shuttling everyone into raiding.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I always hated how worthless crafting was in WoW. I'd only ever level my skills up for the achievements and the occasional self perk like discounted enchants or engineering gadgets. There were so few relevant crafted items you could make on par with raid gear, and they'd get lost in the tide of BoEs that trash would drop. Yet another system cast to the sidelines in favor of shuttling everyone into raiding.

That was one of my beefs with WoW crafting, too.

It's just what happens when you go from raid gear being good for bragging rights to raid gear being the only worthwhile reward the game offers. If every raid tier also came with a set of normal-tier craftable gear that took 5-10 hours of farming dungeons and world content to craft each piece (maybe even upgradeable to heroic with another big chunk of time spent), crafting would be relevant again. If at least some of these materials were also tradeable, you'd add more stuff for people to trade in. Likewise, itemization and statting being squashed meant crafted consumables became even less relevant unless you were pushing hard.

But nope, just funnel everybody towards LFR and lock certain item slots with a legendary item everybody will have for the entire expansion. Why not?

 

[Tanner Glass]

It's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, when you get an upgrade you really do feel more powerful. There's something to be said about a game where loot from an epic encounter makes you feel... well, epic.

On the other hand, it fuels all kinds of degenerate behavior. Powerful gear is needed to raid but you can't raid unless you have powerful gear. If you fall behind, your only options are to claw your way through some grindy catch-up system or pay people via gold (and therefore real money) to carry you through content so you get geared up. There's no equivalent of crafted catch-up gear (except maybe a couple slots) or welfare gear you can buy with a currency the game vomits on you like in FF.

There are a lot of aspects of WoW's gearing I like. I like how not every piece of gear is a stat stick and sometimes has interesting side-effects that change your play style. I like how you can (theoretically) do PVP or open-world grinds or mythic+ to get pretty good loot. I like how the secondary stats actually feel kinda meaningful and you use different setups in different kinds of content. But it's all wrapped up in like 20 layers of awful systems and engagement metrics.

I don't think WoW stats are meaningful and I don't think the substats ever "worked" correctly.

The only time I felt like my gear/gearing ever mattered in WoW was the very tail end of ICC, when the gearing calculator told me that my physical classes could finally invest in Armor Penetration. Other than that, it's always been trying to find 1 or 2 that are good for your class and working around that. Most gear in modern WoW would be unchanged if it was literally just an item with an item level number on it.

Legendries (and other gimmick items) are neat but aren't ever fully baked, but traditionally are locked to certain classes. Even as cool as some of them are, they still boil down to "look up which ones are good for <class> [spec]" and get them.

WoW drastically needs a gearing overhaul, and honestly a lot less gear overall.

 

[Retink]

The gearing situation in WoW is awful, but it can be saved very easily though they don't really want to fix the problem of gear, rather they want to kill the ability for people to sim. The worst of which was during WoD where your damage was massively swingy depending on a bunch of random bullshit RNG, to the point that pro raiders were bitching because you'd randomly have swings of over 10% in your damage for the same boss and same rotation at any time depending on luck. When the procs and luck are that big of a difference it just makes things feel like shit because there's no consistency.

Then there was the whole multiple different levels of luck in how gear can roll, socket, no socket, titan forged, etc. That was their attempt at making things more replayable and from what I understand now most gear comes in weekly loot boxes because getting a paycheck feels fun or something in their mind. They also removed master loot and barred trading heavily, because fuck you for having friends or a good guild you play with, don't you dare try to be social in an MMO.

Really, they should just make some gear craftable and have a system like they did in TBC where you needed some resource from raids or dungeons to make it, so that you couldn't just skip it, and you could even make each raid tier have its own unique bullshitium ore. Cool stuff like weapons, shoulders, helms can still drop from raids, while mundane stuff like bracers, boots, maybe rings, can be crafted with some junky version also coming from raids so you're not forced into crafting alone. This would also let them make smaller raids.

Though what they need to address before anything is the insane stat inflation between raids. Something like Dragon Spine Trophy being from one of the first raids and the best trinket for almost the whole expansion isn't an issue, if anything it makes it memorable and gives people to run the place more often. Hell, I remember guilds would do semi-carries for pugs with a handful of their members but keep the Dragon Spine Trophy on reserve.