I think it's possible that they're going to drastically alter the faction system after this expansion. They've *never* completely centered an expansion concept around the faction conflict to this heightened degree and I don't think they'd do it unless they planned to make insane changes to the way that the faction system works after the expansion is over. I mean, faction conflict has been brought up so many times, if they made an expansion centered around this idea and then just didn't resolve it somehow at the end, it'd feel like a re-tread. It would honestly just feel like a repeat of the same thing. I don't know about you but if I were going to remove the faction system or completely re-work it, I'd want it to go out with a *massive* bang like this.
I don't necessarily think this is a alliance vs horde expansion, you can see the old god influences in the features trailer. You can see it in Dalaran in the current live version of the game. They even say we will be going toe to toe with Azshara in a raid. Which means we will almost certainly end up dealing with N'Zoth at some point. We have our big bad, it's not in the nature of a old god like N'Zoth to put themselves front and centre, they feed of the chaos of those caused around them and fuel themselves with it, causing more chaos. They strike decisively at the right moment. This Alliance vs Horde war is the spark that will stir them, and the story will flow from there.
The PvP flagging is that really such a big deal? It's like giving people an extra banana or whatever for taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Should be nothing to complain about.
I always plan my chores around Azchats. The dead prostitutes and piles of cocaine always get cleaned up when Azchats comes on. 10/10 I would definately recommend to someone else.
You are incorrect about the heritage armor being able to be Xmogged on non allied races. Ion confirmed its only able to be used by that race, however it is account wide.
They reward flagging because you can set yourself in pvp or pve area only in resting areas. meaning you're going to invest time in whatever set you're going to play in. The reason they want to reward pvp is because you're clearly losing time fighting eachother opposed to PvE that doesnt have to fight anyone. So why not reward world pvp that is by far the most fun aspect of WoW. If you want to PvE, fine you'll do everything in an increased pace compared to a pvp player anyway so it should balance out.
I don't think Blizzard has a real understanding of how many millions of players don't care about Horde Vs Alliance at all. It's just an excuse to keep PvP alive for many, if not most, of us, and we don't PvP so we pretty much ignore it. The "war" in Warcraft is about the PvE content - questing, dungeons, raids that don't express any "Horde vs Alliance" character at all. It's about warring against the big threats, not warring against each other for some past wrong-doing that people just need to get over. I simply can't get excited about something that won't have any kind of resolution in it in the end. One thing I love about Legion is that it was about ending a threat, having a sense of final accomplishment against an entity that was world-threatening. Ion said that we aren't going to have a resolution, the conflict will go on, likely forever, so the major theme this Xpack is built around holds no interest for me.
It won't just be based around Horde vs Alliance. Evidence of Queen Azshara and old gods being in this xpac has been hinted and stated countless time! Thus explaining why the title was so bland "The Battle for Azeroth". Don't worry dude :D
I don't know why people want generic big bad #861 over a faction conflict. Infighting, creating drama with the main characters, is almost always better in ANY story than pulling new antagonists out of their ass. I want an expansion about the characters ffs; Legion almost did it until it dropped everyone except Illidan.
The thing is, many of those past wrong doings that people 'just need to get over' involved things like murders of character's children, or previously contributing to the almost total annihilation of an entire race. Those things are not easy to get over, even in the looming shadow of the coming void.
Also every idiot out there forgets we know more than the characters. We have chronicle, they don't. They thought Sargeras was the big bad and that's it. They don't know about the void and the few people who know about the old gods are the players. It's definitely not common knowledge and as Naptosis said, we're disconnected from what's happening. The first war was only 30 odd years ago, the victims to that still live. Would you tell a genocide vitctim to ''get over it''?
4:21 I think CD Projekt Red are pretty close in cutscene quality (mostly talking about The Witcher 3, haven't played their other games aside from The Witcher series) Still Blizzard is still the Nvidia Titan XP of cutscenes.
Battle for azeroth is a very broad title it doesn't just have to mean that the horde and alliance is fighting later you could add a threat like the old gods and as confirmed by blizzard queen naga lady. That's probably why the logo is so bland because it's not just a war between horde and alliance a future threat like the old gods can show up.
It does feel a bit underwhelmed but when the expansion cinematic was revealed just wow amazing, beautiful, astounding I had chills. But I am excited very much so for this expansion. Glad to see you again Az.
in my personal opinion, i think people who comes from PVP servers like the World PVP of a PVP server, now that they are killing the PVP servers and making them PVE, i think is fair for them to have Titles, Mounts, Xmogs, or maybe bonus exp, by doing World PVP. PVE players who already only did PVE they still have their titles, mounts, xmogs from PVE content and is a lot of achievements. World PVPers from PVP servers did not have nearly that many. It is my believe, my own personal opinion, and i feel like people who likes to gank and do plenty of world pvp are douches and assholes, but if they like that, with the toggle PVP-On and PVP-OFF now they will only face people Like Them who have the same interest, and PVEers wont even see them because of the new Phasins between PVP and PVE flag. Everybody will be happy now, from my point of view, but i may understand other people´s point of view may differ from mine, and i would be glad to see those perspectives and different opinions and why do they have thos opinions and reasonings.
I have to say that I disagree with the WPvP rewarding stuff. Having it toggled on can, and most likely will be a big hinderance to what ever you are doing in the world. You can't take on too many mobs if a random player comes by, you have to always have a few cooldowns to survive another player attacking. Sometimes you might see a player who plays a class that counters yours in a 1v1, or a group of enemies doing a quest, and you will just have to walk away or wait when that happens. Just getting engaged in a PvP fight will take time. I think that it's amazing that you will get bonus rewards for being in a PvP enabled version of the world. Of course you shouldn't reward people for ganking noobs. That would be lazy and broken design. They should bonus reward you for completing quests and world quests, killing world bosses and rares, or collecting crafting materials in the PvP enabled world. This system of zoneing PvP flagged players in their own world, also allows for quests that resemble the old school community of wPvP. Maybe some undead rogue (stereotypes lul) has been killing noobs for too long and has a bounty placed on him. Now any alliance in the area can pick up a quest to go find and kill him for rewards based on his killingspree. Maybe the alliance could try to find him based on his name and the places he was last killed at. Maybe the system could generate assassination missions, like your faction wants this damn dwarf warrior dead since he has been gathering all of the crafting mats from a certain zone. Maybe this kind of a system could spot a big battle happening somewhere in the zones, and give players quests to reinforce their faction there. It would greatly resemble the old world pvp with people asking for help in the general chat or their guilds. But it would also reward players (not too much, maybe a bit of xp, gold, honor points or some azerite). And it could have some cosmetic rewards tied to it, like transmog appearances or mounts, after a certain amount of kills or objectives completed.
...Also it's not fucking "penalizing PvE players". That's just dumb. Maybe it was the case, if the scaling was like 50% bonus everything for having PvP on. Basically enough to make the non PvP option just not even an option. But as long as it's something reasonable to offset the obvious negatives for efficiency that you are 100% going to suffer on a populated PvP realm, it's all good. I'm sorry but your whining about it just sounds like a salty elitist raider crying "I dont like it when there's a chance that PvP will be almost a viable option as content and not just a silly minigame, waaah"
I honestly like the PvP On reward stuff... It's based on a Risk&Reward system. I am one who wouldn't activate PvP while out in the world even if you hold a gun to my head. And I think that it's a bit wrong to say that those who don't activate PvP are penalized. Penalization is taking away something out of the standard, while this system keeps the standard as it is while rewarding the risk taking. I'm ok with it and will definitely encourage me to risk getting my ass ganked by higher level or better geared Petes. Nice to see you back, mate :D Missed your scrutinous beautiful face !
WE DO NOT NEED A BIG BAD!! We have had a big bad in nearly every Expansion, how can you say this would be a change?! I like the new theme because its essentially what WoW is about
Imo they NEED to hire back in Chris Metzen as the announcer on the Blizzcon showcase. That guy... jesus when he comes on everyone gets chills and gets hyped.
Their CGI has been the most consistent thing about the company over the last like, 2 decades. Every time I see it, I want a full CGI movie. I get how much it would cost, but god damn, I want a full CGI movie. Not the CGI enhanced one we got, but full CGI.
"we need to see a big looming threat constantly." You COMPLETELY lost me. Its like you want wow to turn into dragon ball z or something. As soon as a bad guy dies there is just a bigger bad guy. I cant believe you would say that sounds even remotely interesting. flabbergasted to say the least.
Not just a bigger bad guy, another bad guy. Even if it's not manifested in one character, present the player or viewer with another problem to solve. It's how most series on TV work, especially those within the detective or crime genre. Every episode present a new problem that the hero's of the story need to solve. Not many are really excited for filler episodes.
it would HAVE to be a bigger bad guy to avoid being trivial. we are about to fight a titan. Just pumping out bigger pixels with bigger pixelated numbers isn't fun just because you tell me hes big and bad. its like DBZ sagas at this point. Its really getting to the point where I feel like "I JUST CLEANED UP THIS MESS"
scenario's didnt work? i loved those and honestly worrying about the pvp change, heres an idea, FORM YOUR OWN GROUP or maybe even NOT TOGGLE, i don't care about the bonus xp n shit, if its gonna be trouble for me I wont bother tagging myself, if i want to pvp i will. that simple, bacause you talk about penalizing pve'rs to pvp? *shock* like pvp'rs having to pve for the past 13 years to be the best?
No. Enough with the big bad guys for a while. It sounds ridiculous that we have to face cataclysmic enemies every single time. It was beginning to get too much similar to DBZ, ffs. To me, simpler things like Faction Wars are refreshing.
So glad to see the man, the myth... The Legend back again. Your feelings no longer matter when it comes to wanting to leave WOW. My wife said to me about 5 months ago where is that British guy you always listen to and wake me up with. Sadly I had to say he left. This morning I got an "oh my lord not that guy again." Az you give me a reason to live!
I missed this yesterday, but saw your vlog on Mid Life-bar Crisis talking bout this video! Please put ur face on the thumbnail so its easier to see on our sub feed (just a suggestion).
Dude I'm so glad your back. Your just one of the best wow UA-cam personalities. I don't find any other game remotely fun it's only wow for me so I'm stoked about vanilla and bfa.
Warcraft has always been Alliance vs Horde. Always will be, but there needs to start being clear cut winners.Also they need to slow combat down if they want pvp to be successful
AZ. YES. THE MOVIE. I'm telling everyone who will listen that if the Warcraft film had been as exciting and good-looking as the new trailer it'd broken every box office. Also good to have you back talking about WoW.
I hope they dont go too overboard with the level scaling. One thing i miss about vanilla/bc was that sense of "Oh shit I should not be here" if i wandered into a zone higher than my level.
"We need a big bad dude, thats what wow needs" next argument: "but we have classic" wich doesn't have a central bad guy at all, also could not disagree more with you in the rewards of world pvp cause it's not punishing pve player, in a pvp server in wich happens a lot of wpvp u lvl significally slower, you migth enjoy your pvp but you slow yourself and not always you win on wpvp wich leads to slow ypurself even more. Great video keep it up! Pd: a full on horde vs alliance expansion has always been my dream and no cata and mop weren't full wars horde alliance, in cata dw was a huge threat and in mop the alliance didn't want war with the side of the horde wich was against garrosh, varian even let them have vol'jin as a warchief at peace. English is not my mother tongue sorry for any mistakes made.
I for one am happy that PVP players are finally getting rewards over the PVE players. Hasn't pretty much every expansion previously been the other way round? Especially when they made PvE gear pretty much superior to pvp gear in WPvP.
According to me and many players we don't need anything big... we're tired of big "he she it" Garrosh was a cool boss, a real character with motivation.
I always liked MoP scenerios and was sad that there weren't any in WoD... among the many, many things that weren't in WoD, of course. I felt like they helped compensate for the relative lack of dungeons in MoP. Conversely I never had any interest in challenge mode or mythics. But I think the thing I'm most interested in/worried about for BfA is how they are dealing with only the three faction zones each-sure, at level cap you can go to the other three from the other side, but what can you do there? Are there quest hubs and flight points for each faction? Or, lemme guess... nothing but world quests for you? Fuck that.
i actually want a small bonus to people who are flagged, not a large one, just a small one, i go to Argus every night, i get into pvp fights it takes up about 30% of my time, even if i get a 5% bonus for being on pvp it would make me feel like i am not losing out just because i enjoy the spontaneous pvp at times.
My guess is war will not even end. Some big evil (like N´zoth) will come and it will end up like TBC: We do not like each other, but we need to fight together. But outside fighting the main evil, we still fight each other. Conquest of EK by Alliance and conquest of Kalimdor by Horde allows Blizzard to deescalate the war easily, as the factions do not have much contact with each other in their homelands. They will simply keep to their own lands, have occasional skirmish (like in Vanilla) and that´s it. One faction winning the war in this situation simply does not make sense, because the other would be destroyed.
It didn't STIR anyone because everyone is sitting there thinking: WoW PvP Power scale - 10 Percent Alliance 90 Percent Horde. How do we get excited about a one sided future?
Yea it was like the Witcher I mean the humans(hunters) there are beeing called 'Monster Hunters". Loved ur overview of the whole Blizzcon thing, but a big bad bigger than Sargeras ?!
Honestly the expansion has 0 interest to me at all. Usually expansions have some sort of hype to it even if I don't tend to play it. I honestly first saw the cinematic and thought it was for some off shoot game and not an expansion. I can't help but feel like this is going to be another WoD where they try to throw stuff such as classic to keep us distracted in hopes of buying time for the next expansion after.
I don't think it will be as bad as WoD, but I get WoD vibes from it. Something that is going to have scantly any content and try and push other 'gap filling' content to hopefully keep pepople busy and focus on the next expansion while using this one as a 'distraction'. The classic servers and sub races (which aren't completely bad though its basically just reskins) just gives me the vibe they are trying to buy time with the Alliance vs horde focus being a 'we don't have any ideas for a big baddie' kind of scenario.
I have to disagree. Personally I get a MoP feeling from this expansion and while it might be a filler for things to come, it can be a really awesome filler like MoP. But to each their own :)
I disagree with you on Islands. They are a great way for friends to have fun, regardless of needing a tank or not. Scenarios in MOP did in fact work, most of us had fun doing them as a change up from the grind of heroics or raiding. They were quick and fun adventures you could do with your spouse, friends, etc. Far as a Big Bad ... no, rather have no Big Bad until the end of the xpac to setup for the next. Perhaps BFA can end with the Horde and Alliance basically battling each other into utter fragility leaving them vulnerable for the remaining Old Gods or the Void to take Azeroth.
Cata was never about the factions, MoP kinda was at the start in the jade forest and summit, and then later on at 90. But most of it was about the Culture and history of the Pandaren. Garrosh wouldnt be considered the horde we play tbh because he denounced anyone who wasnt an orc. So it was more like... Azeroth vs a Dictator.
No #Az you misunderstood #PvP You can only flag from major #city. And when you go into world you are #phased and x-realmed with other flagged players in their own #shard. Your “bonus” reward might be #experience to make up for time lost engaged in PvP when trying to do objectives. But nothing significant. Once you not flagged and enter world, you only see other PvE players. You cannot just switch it on and off. Think of it like twinking and BGs. You only get put in an instance with other XP off players.
I don't usually comment, but this is deserving of praise, and after giving it some thought, I just can't not comment on this video, as it has been on my mind ever since I watched it all the way through yesterday. First: Welcome back on this channel Az, we have missed you, as you have no doubt realised by now ;) I especially love the Azchats, as they have an inherent quality to them, that is almost entirely your own; there may be a lot of "here are my thoughts on x"-type videos in the WoW-community, but none come quite close to your unique blend of passion and criticism in your analysis of the current topics in the community. I may not always agree with you on everything, but given the way you lay out your thoughts in a way, that shows that you have indeed given serious thought to most of what you say, makes your critiques worthy of respect, which is why I...well, respect your opinion as much as I do. I've seriously missed your unique take on all things WoW, you add to the discussion in a way few, if anyone, else ever does. Much love, keep 'em coming :)
Seriously you nailed it on the head. The expansion needs a super villain. For Blizzard to ASSUME that we all care about AvH warfare is silly. Nothing bores me more than mindless conflict. What is making me even more pissed off is all the fan bois and gurls making huge assumptions about what the later raids will be about. They are writing all this theoretical fan fiction about how the final boss could be an old god. But Blizzard NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT THAT SO WHY SHOULD I GIVE A FUCK ABOUT IT? I will play it, but I am not jazzed about it. They did it poor job selling it at Blizzcon.
Thank for this. I'm not sure you realize how entertaining and/or fun it is to listen to you and watch your vids on WoW. -Toni (with an i) Tours -Sad Az -How to win at... were so funnny. Even some past AzChats or EmergencyAz where you went berzerk on some of that WoD crap (like Ashran being a failure - "IT'S A FUCKING ROAD!!!") was so funny and entertaining. -WoW Secrets was great too! Please consider keeping both channels - A WoW channel and your Mid-life Bar Crisis for other topics. You could do Classic wow vids!
Az, every expansion has a grind mechanic embedded within it, it all started from what I can recall in Wrath: You had: Wrath: Justice/Valor points and Honor (which never went away either). Cata: More of Wrath Mists: Daily quests Wod: GODDAMN APEXIS CRYSTALS Legion: Artifact Power BfA: Azerite This isn't rare for an mmo either but it does not bother me in the slightest since it has always been there, it's just more on the forefront now
When it comes to the big boss matter, I again have to disagree :D Personally, I am a bit sick and tired of larger than life threats and galactic enemies. I want a return to form, back on the ground at least for this expansion. I want something political, some intrigue, some betrayal, something more palpable. Of course, I guess the Old Gods will come, but until then I want something a bit more grounded.
I cannot fucking wait for Classic. If you just make videos about that, I'd be happy dude. If you feel like making videos about the current content, that's cool too. Welcome back.
glad ur back AZ. I dont agree that its penalizing PvE players that PvP get some bonus that PvE dont get, ur not being penalized for anything ur just not getting a bonus just like how ur not getting bonus loot for not doing mythic+ bc its not ur thing. Also you do get the benefit of not getting stabbed in the back of the head by some asshole while ur questing so u can focus on questing more and get more XP than those on pvp who on average wont bc ya know knife in head.
I definitely agree with a lot of your criticisms I really feel like it down plays N’zoth if he comes in the very end of the expansion considering this is something my self personally wanted to see. Unless they plan to not introduce him at all but save him for a full on old god expansion. Wow needs a good villain that makes people wanna stand up to, that plays a part in your story something older players like myself would like to see. Something like the lich king stands out to me and I was a burning crusade fan when in launched.
the only real problem that I had with Classic was travel time between places, quests, etc. the player walks @ 0.5(whatever the blizz measurement is), first mount adds 0.5, and the "faster" mount seems to adds just 0.5 to the first mount. These mounts are not fast. On certain private servers the admin would give temporary speed boosts of like 3-5, where for ~ 5 minutes you could outrun *anything* , and could run circles around *everything* . It was fun. With a walk speed set at 3 or 4 you'd never need a mount, and it made flying(taxi) painfully slow.
What about alternate storytelling? They have made "server" specifik things before. Lets say that battlefronts would actually impact the world and the story and how it would unfold. Every raidparty of 20 players combine with efforts from all other raids from the same side. Etc, If Alliance win the battle of ----- alliance story moves on and the fight would move on and pushback the horde, story keeps on from there. Same thing if the Horde wins the battle. This way the no matter how the story unfolds with "horde or alliance winning" Its depending on the server your on, and the efforts put into winning the war. It would also bring out the good old days of fighting for YOUR side. YOUR server means something again. Just my 2 cents :)
13:38, that name.. ''Afraziabi'' I remember seeing that name on the Warrior in Tier 1 Gear standing outside of SW, where the head of Onyxia used to be hung. I remember seeing that name on this Warrior waaay back in Vanilla WoW, thinking he looked like a badass warrior, and finding the name ''Afraziabi'' to really sound like an awesome name, like some high-fantasy warrior name.. Funny thing is, I never knew it belonged to a real person, left along a developer of World of Warcraft. Pretty cool. Keep up your good work Az, loving me some Warcraft stuff from you!
the cutscene literally did nothing for me... i sighed at the end.. and was like "here we go again another horde vs alliance expansion" i dont claim to be dead inside... just sick of this game i think... i played the SHIT out of legion.. and looking back on it.. i mostly just logged on every day and did daily quests around the world.. and raided the easiest raids that have ever been made... some mythic bosses were tough.. and some very high level keys were tough.. but nothing that just grinding and getting lucky titanforges couldnt fix in a week or 2... -edit- AND FUCKING LEGENDARIES UUUGGGHHHHH .. yes i have every single fucking one now for my character.. but that doesnt mean i didnt suffer or along time getting useless ones.. and didnt get my BiS ones till near the end of 7.1
43:50 about the pvp rewards, i will use a example so you can understand in a better way HeelvsBabyface You take 10 min to do 10 world quest, rewarding in total 100 gold for you(in PvE mode) You take 20 min to do 10 world quest, rewarding in total 120 gold for you(PvP mode) What is the best way to do? you know why take longer to do WQ in pvp mode? because there is people killing you and gank your death body... they are not giving bonus to people gank other people.
Great vid Az, one thing I disagree with though is your stance on World PvP rewards. I think you approaching them as penalizing PvE players is a bit unheeding and backwards. If anything, not giving world PvP at least some type of simple reward is penalizing players who like to PvP. You're taking the extra time to fall behind compared to other people who only do world content just to have fun in the way you'd like to have fun. Also, some people don't like battlegrounds and would rather just PvP in the world instead, giving the ultimatum that "You can only have PvP rewards if you do it in a battleground!" is very grim. World PvP is distinctly different content then Questing, and should be considered as such. And Ian made sure to reiterate that the rewards would be small, because we all know world PvP is a lot shorter and uneventful then completing a quest, or playing a battleground. Otherwise, I loved the video and recently subscribed, love the podcasty feel. Keep it up.
im actually pretty hyped for wow again! classic is just awesome, and BfA seems pretty cool too! but i cant help but feel i wish they went a different direction: instead of a classic server, id rather have them update the current game to play more like classic wow. make drastic changes like: LFG dont teleport, flying is limited by time, time-to-kill is increased, mana/energy pools MATTERS, squish levels, make gear hard to get(epics being epic) etc. as much as i am hyped for all the new stuff, id rather see blizz trying to bring back that feel and quality to the game witch it once had. the "problem" i see with classic is the lack of progression. if they however do progress it, its just wow relaunched basically
Okay you also missunderstood the flag for PvP aswell... First of all, you DONT see PvP marks people if you are marked for PvE. Also the rewards are to offset getting killed once in a while.. The rewards are gonna be small, not big. Also you can ONLY change settings for PvP/PvE in a Major City ...
Why on earth you confuse reward with penalty? Players who dont get reward for being on pvp shard are NOT penalised, if you see it that way then people not being in high end raiding guilds are penalised with worse loot? NO. Players doing mythic raids are REWARDED- same with pvp. Wanna do pvp? fine-here is reward. Dont wanna do extra job being carefull and defending yourself- no reward. But its NOT penalty...
Just a minor point on the US/EU, Horde/Alliance side of things. Warcraft Realms lists the US as generally favouring Alliance at a ratio of 1.4:1 and Europe generally favours Horde with a ratio of 1.1:1. I think it kind of makes sense from a cultural perspective - Alliance are more the Heroic Golden Boys and Horde are like the misunderstood angsty teenagers.
Right as i slip into a depressed state from life. Az in all his gloryness comes back into my life. A complete turn around, thanks Az your voice is quite soothing. That and i love hearing your thoughts
It is NOT penalizing a person to give a bonus to another. They will NOT take away experience from people who choose to not be PVP flagged. If you want the reward you MUST accept the risk of getting killed by another player (possibly of a higher level). Risk vs Reward. Its a thing. Look it up.
I think the argument in favor of experience reward for being PvP flagged is that naturally you're experience/hour slows dramatically when you actively engage in world PvP. My level 37 holy priest in Feralas is leveling very slow since I keep engaging every horde I see (and dying half the time). I could have ignored the horde and healer insta-queued dungeons and hit level 60 in the two days I've spent in Feralas. I don't think the experience boost for being PvP flagged is as bad as you think. Anyone who truly wants to level faster will keep their PvP flag off some they don't get ganked. The XP buff is not to encourage people to flag, it's to discourage people from not flagging when fair fight conditions arise.
Hey AZ, it's nice to see you making videos again (namely referring to AZ chats here)! But a quick remark if I may, but I somewhat disagree with the necessity of a "Big Bad Raid Boss", at least for this expansion. As you said earlier in this or another video, a big part of the Horde vs. Alliance theme is to attempt to breathe life into the PvP side of the game indirectly through PvE content; more or less in aspiration of Blizzard pursuing esports. This much I agree with you on, but in reality this is something the PvP base of players (including PvErs with an enthusiasm for the Horde vs. Alliance themes) desperately needed something along the lines of what this expansion generally aims to deliver. This is partly because, since parts of Cata and MoP the game has been directed towards fighting some impossible foe that requires our strength united to defeat. Over time this slowly dulls the flames of the Horde vs. Alliance conflicts, to a point where they almost don't even feel relevant anymore. As a result, many PvErs will likely not feel a need or desire to dip their toes into PvP, especially with content like the PvP towers in Legion and Ashran as a whole because they offer the rewards of actual PvP while undermining the true PvP game-play. Over time, this dries out an already dying community with our class imbalances, faction imbalances, lack of care for gear, and honestly slim content. While I do agree that a "big bad" is overdue because it fuels the PvE drive of an expansion... I feel, partly out of a bias of being an exclusively PvP player, that this direction will hopefully breathe life and into a community which is slowly crumbling. Apologies for the length, but I tried to make sure I didn't miss a step.
Had the same feelings... underwhelmed, not actually motivated to return... what WoW needs is a big change in what every expansion brings... "more of the same" A third faction with its story, playable races, heroes and classes only this faction can have - at least at the start... For this I would gladly return... And this faction would actually be the BIG BAD BOSS Az is speaking about... not just one character, but a whole faction of them and actually all the players playing would become the biggest enemies for alliance and horde...
I think you misunderstand the combined pvp/pve realms... they won't all be together, you wont see unflagged players if you're a pvper and vice versa, you also won't change your flag and attack someone who is flagged... you CHOOSE if you're going to be pvp or pve in your capital city (say Stormwind)... you can only change the flag there, not in the field... once you choose pvp or pve, your put in a shard of that realm with like-minded people... so if you choose pvp, you're only with other pvp people, and vice versa for pve. Bottom line, if your flagged for pvp, you'll only see other people flagged, you wont see people who aren't flagged, they're on a different shard. As for rewards... people that choose pve are already rewarded... they'll never get ganked while leveling... people that choose pvp will never level as fast as a pve person because they can get ganked multiple times and waste time returning to the questing... an xp bonus for pvp players is to LEVEL them with the pve players who already get a reward for choosing pve... no ganking waste of time.
What they should have done was merged the cutscene and the reveal together, so that we had no idea what was going on (Like I did because I saw the cutscene first) Lead off with the speech but no visual, and cut off at "I didn't listen..." Cut to the cutscene. Then, instead of the cutscene cutting to "Battle for Azeroth" the music instead went into a dramatic ascending fanfare and we immediately pan way out above the city into a map of Eastern Kingdoms. Show the text "New Warfronts!" fly over to the ocean "TWO brand new continents!" Continue the rundown; Allied Races, plunder uncharted isles... and then at the final shot give Sylvannas a cool line, about "The time for working together is over..." and give the shot of her standing on the shore watching Teldrasil burn. Fade to black, and give soft dreadful music with the title reveal.
I found the BFA cutscene really subpar when compared to the vanilla / wotlk or even cataclysm one. It didnt feel epic, it was just visually appealing with no intelligent concept behind it . It was just effects and the horde vs. alliance scenario all over again. Yawn. Personally im just 0% hyped for BFA. Contentwise it seems to be Legion all over again..(and a filler expansion for the next big addon which will be heavily old god based)
Square enix with its End of an era is the absolute best cgi scene I’ve ever seen as well as the cutscene where you can see what really happened to Louisoix were just amazing, but this cgi for Expansion was really impressive as well
I don't get your point about PvP. If you don't like PvP, just don't flag yourself as PvP. This makes players who likes PvP and the danger to have it turned on and actually seeing other players around, because other players also might do the same. More BG's and Arenas don't bring more into the world of PvP. That's what they've always done. This is a new initiative, which i as a none-pvp'er suddenly feel more compelled to do pvp.
Keep coming back dude
Wesley VL Wonders of the sayings in AA lol
So glad you're back Az :)
+
he has a 2nd channel in the description
I think it's possible that they're going to drastically alter the faction system after this expansion. They've *never* completely centered an expansion concept around the faction conflict to this heightened degree and I don't think they'd do it unless they planned to make insane changes to the way that the faction system works after the expansion is over. I mean, faction conflict has been brought up so many times, if they made an expansion centered around this idea and then just didn't resolve it somehow at the end, it'd feel like a re-tread. It would honestly just feel like a repeat of the same thing. I don't know about you but if I were going to remove the faction system or completely re-work it, I'd want it to go out with a *massive* bang like this.
We already know that the 2 first raid will have old god relate stuff, one thing that bugged was he saying cata was horde vs ally focus LMAO
I don't necessarily think this is a alliance vs horde expansion, you can see the old god influences in the features trailer. You can see it in Dalaran in the current live version of the game. They even say we will be going toe to toe with Azshara in a raid. Which means we will almost certainly end up dealing with N'Zoth at some point. We have our big bad, it's not in the nature of a old god like N'Zoth to put themselves front and centre, they feed of the chaos of those caused around them and fuel themselves with it, causing more chaos. They strike decisively at the right moment. This Alliance vs Horde war is the spark that will stir them, and the story will flow from there.
Woot! FEED MY AZCHATS ADDICTION!!!
Wonderful hour of my time spend here.
I missed these videos
The PvP flagging is that really such a big deal? It's like giving people an extra banana or whatever for taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Should be nothing to complain about.
I always plan my chores around Azchats. The dead prostitutes and piles of cocaine always get cleaned up when Azchats comes on. 10/10 I would definately recommend to someone else.
Azdaddy IS the eye candy
You are incorrect about the heritage armor being able to be Xmogged on non allied races. Ion confirmed its only able to be used by that race, however it is account wide.
Shiirow Except you need to level it to 120 to even get the armor so no.
Do you get the armor if you boost to lvl 110 and only lvl from 110-120?
I love you
glad you made this :)
They reward flagging because you can set yourself in pvp or pve area only in resting areas. meaning you're going to invest time in whatever set you're going to play in.
The reason they want to reward pvp is because you're clearly losing time fighting eachother opposed to PvE that doesnt have to fight anyone. So why not reward world pvp that is by far the most fun aspect of WoW. If you want to PvE, fine you'll do everything in an increased pace compared to a pvp player anyway so it should balance out.
Perfect, and we don't even know the rewards that can be change in the PTR
Vinzenz Stein Ferrari Freitas Exactly it might be some piss ass trivial rewards aswell
I don't think Blizzard has a real understanding of how many millions of players don't care about Horde Vs Alliance at all. It's just an excuse to keep PvP alive for many, if not most, of us, and we don't PvP so we pretty much ignore it. The "war" in Warcraft is about the PvE content - questing, dungeons, raids that don't express any "Horde vs Alliance" character at all. It's about warring against the big threats, not warring against each other for some past wrong-doing that people just need to get over.
I simply can't get excited about something that won't have any kind of resolution in it in the end. One thing I love about Legion is that it was about ending a threat, having a sense of final accomplishment against an entity that was world-threatening. Ion said that we aren't going to have a resolution, the conflict will go on, likely forever, so the major theme this Xpack is built around holds no interest for me.
It won't just be based around Horde vs Alliance. Evidence of Queen Azshara and old gods being in this xpac has been hinted and stated countless time! Thus explaining why the title was so bland "The Battle for Azeroth". Don't worry dude :D
I don't know why people want generic big bad #861 over a faction conflict. Infighting, creating drama with the main characters, is almost always better in ANY story than pulling new antagonists out of their ass. I want an expansion about the characters ffs; Legion almost did it until it dropped everyone except Illidan.
The thing is, many of those past wrong doings that people 'just need to get over' involved things like murders of character's children, or previously contributing to the almost total annihilation of an entire race. Those things are not easy to get over, even in the looming shadow of the coming void.
Also every idiot out there forgets we know more than the characters. We have chronicle, they don't. They thought Sargeras was the big bad and that's it. They don't know about the void and the few people who know about the old gods are the players. It's definitely not common knowledge and as Naptosis said, we're disconnected from what's happening. The first war was only 30 odd years ago, the victims to that still live. Would you tell a genocide vitctim to ''get over it''?
4:21 I think CD Projekt Red are pretty close in cutscene quality (mostly talking about The Witcher 3, haven't played their other games aside from The Witcher series)
Still Blizzard is still the Nvidia Titan XP of cutscenes.
Well, CDPR has no other games...
But it will. Next big Project is Cyberpunk 2077... which will be gigantic... knowing what these guys and gals are capable of.
Battle for azeroth is a very broad title it doesn't just have to mean that the horde and alliance is fighting later you could add a threat like the old gods and as confirmed by blizzard queen naga lady. That's probably why the logo is so bland because it's not just a war between horde and alliance a future threat like the old gods can show up.
It does feel a bit underwhelmed but when the expansion cinematic was revealed just wow amazing, beautiful, astounding I had chills. But I am excited very much so for this expansion. Glad to see you again Az.
I think you got the PvP misunderstood. If you flag you are in a PvP shard. You will not see people who have not flagged.
He definitely misunderstood the whole PVP thing.
in my personal opinion, i think people who comes from PVP servers like the World PVP of a PVP server, now that they are killing the PVP servers and making them PVE, i think is fair for them to have Titles, Mounts, Xmogs, or maybe bonus exp, by doing World PVP.
PVE players who already only did PVE they still have their titles, mounts, xmogs from PVE content and is a lot of achievements.
World PVPers from PVP servers did not have nearly that many.
It is my believe, my own personal opinion, and i feel like people who likes to gank and do plenty of world pvp are douches and assholes, but if they like that, with the toggle PVP-On and PVP-OFF now they will only face people Like Them who have the same interest, and PVEers wont even see them because of the new Phasins between PVP and PVE flag.
Everybody will be happy now, from my point of view, but i may understand other people´s point of view may differ from mine, and i would be glad to see those perspectives and different opinions and why do they have thos opinions and reasonings.
I don't think that's fair for those of us who hate PvP and don't have anything special.
I have to say that I disagree with the WPvP rewarding stuff. Having it toggled on can, and most likely will be a big hinderance to what ever you are doing in the world.
You can't take on too many mobs if a random player comes by, you have to always have a few cooldowns to survive another player attacking. Sometimes you might see a player who plays a class that counters yours in a 1v1, or a group of enemies doing a quest, and you will just have to walk away or wait when that happens. Just getting engaged in a PvP fight will take time.
I think that it's amazing that you will get bonus rewards for being in a PvP enabled version of the world. Of course you shouldn't reward people for ganking noobs. That would be lazy and broken design. They should bonus reward you for completing quests and world quests, killing world bosses and rares, or collecting crafting materials in the PvP enabled world.
This system of zoneing PvP flagged players in their own world, also allows for quests that resemble the old school community of wPvP. Maybe some undead rogue (stereotypes lul) has been killing noobs for too long and has a bounty placed on him. Now any alliance in the area can pick up a quest to go find and kill him for rewards based on his killingspree. Maybe the alliance could try to find him based on his name and the places he was last killed at.
Maybe the system could generate assassination missions, like your faction wants this damn dwarf warrior dead since he has been gathering all of the crafting mats from a certain zone.
Maybe this kind of a system could spot a big battle happening somewhere in the zones, and give players quests to reinforce their faction there.
It would greatly resemble the old world pvp with people asking for help in the general chat or their guilds. But it would also reward players (not too much, maybe a bit of xp, gold, honor points or some azerite). And it could have some cosmetic rewards tied to it, like transmog appearances or mounts, after a certain amount of kills or objectives completed.
...Also it's not fucking "penalizing PvE players". That's just dumb. Maybe it was the case, if the scaling was like 50% bonus everything for having PvP on. Basically enough to make the non PvP option just not even an option.
But as long as it's something reasonable to offset the obvious negatives for efficiency that you are 100% going to suffer on a populated PvP realm, it's all good.
I'm sorry but your whining about it just sounds like a salty elitist raider crying "I dont like it when there's a chance that PvP will be almost a viable option as content and not just a silly minigame, waaah"
I honestly like the PvP On reward stuff... It's based on a Risk&Reward system. I am one who wouldn't activate PvP while out in the world even if you hold a gun to my head. And I think that it's a bit wrong to say that those who don't activate PvP are penalized. Penalization is taking away something out of the standard, while this system keeps the standard as it is while rewarding the risk taking. I'm ok with it and will definitely encourage me to risk getting my ass ganked by higher level or better geared Petes. Nice to see you back, mate :D Missed your scrutinous beautiful face !
WE DO NOT NEED A BIG BAD!! We have had a big bad in nearly every Expansion, how can you say this would be a change?! I like the new theme because its essentially what WoW is about
More videos please, so go into details.
Imo they NEED to hire back in Chris Metzen as the announcer on the Blizzcon showcase. That guy... jesus when he comes on everyone gets chills and gets hyped.
Oh yeeees
I am so happy you are back Az! Even if it is more for Classic. You are a staple WoW personality! Welcome home my friend! :)
I hope we will still be able to explore on both alliance and horde toons an not just on one toon to get the battle of Azeroth pathfinder achv.
They fact they change up the zone level cap opening the door for those that want to fill in missing zones for the so many quest per zone.
Thanks for uploading again. I love to see your honest opinion. You make great points and you spice it all up with your humor.
Their CGI has been the most consistent thing about the company over the last like, 2 decades. Every time I see it, I want a full CGI movie. I get how much it would cost, but god damn, I want a full CGI movie. Not the CGI enhanced one we got, but full CGI.
"we need to see a big looming threat constantly." You COMPLETELY lost me. Its like you want wow to turn into dragon ball z or something. As soon as a bad guy dies there is just a bigger bad guy. I cant believe you would say that sounds even remotely interesting. flabbergasted to say the least.
Not just a bigger bad guy, another bad guy. Even if it's not manifested in one character, present the player or viewer with another problem to solve. It's how most series on TV work, especially those within the detective or crime genre. Every episode present a new problem that the hero's of the story need to solve.
Not many are really excited for filler episodes.
Every expansion new big bad guys remind me of supernatural, and that gets kinda boring after a while
it would HAVE to be a bigger bad guy to avoid being trivial. we are about to fight a titan. Just pumping out bigger pixels with bigger pixelated numbers isn't fun just because you tell me hes big and bad. its like DBZ sagas at this point. Its really getting to the point where I feel like "I JUST CLEANED UP THIS MESS"
So much this.
So we should be fighting Bob the auction house third shift janitor?
scenario's didnt work? i loved those
and honestly worrying about the pvp change, heres an idea, FORM YOUR OWN GROUP or maybe even NOT TOGGLE, i don't care about the bonus xp n shit, if its gonna be trouble for me I wont bother tagging myself, if i want to pvp i will. that simple, bacause you talk about penalizing pve'rs to pvp? *shock* like pvp'rs having to pve for the past 13 years to be the best?
Welcome back to the realm of the living!
No. Enough with the big bad guys for a while. It sounds ridiculous that we have to face cataclysmic enemies every single time. It was beginning to get too much similar to DBZ, ffs.
To me, simpler things like Faction Wars are refreshing.
So glad to see the man, the myth... The Legend back again. Your feelings no longer matter when it comes to wanting to leave WOW. My wife said to me about 5 months ago where is that British guy you always listen to and wake me up with. Sadly I had to say he left. This morning I got an "oh my lord not that guy again." Az you give me a reason to live!
AWSOMENESSS!!
I don't think there is one World of Warcraft player that does not want Blizzard to do a cinematic feature film. "We hear you!" I bloody well hope so!
I missed this yesterday, but saw your vlog on Mid Life-bar Crisis talking bout this video!
Please put ur face on the thumbnail so its easier to see on our sub feed (just a suggestion).
Dude I'm so glad your back. Your just one of the best wow UA-cam personalities. I don't find any other game remotely fun it's only wow for me so I'm stoked about vanilla and bfa.
Warcraft has always been Alliance vs Horde. Always will be, but there needs to start being clear cut winners.Also they need to slow combat down if they want pvp to be successful
AZ. YES. THE MOVIE. I'm telling everyone who will listen that if the Warcraft film had been as exciting and good-looking as the new trailer it'd broken every box office.
Also good to have you back talking about WoW.
I hope they dont go too overboard with the level scaling. One thing i miss about vanilla/bc was that sense of "Oh shit I should not be here" if i wandered into a zone higher than my level.
"We need a big bad dude, thats what wow needs" next argument: "but we have classic" wich doesn't have a central bad guy at all, also could not disagree more with you in the rewards of world pvp cause it's not punishing pve player, in a pvp server in wich happens a lot of wpvp u lvl significally slower, you migth enjoy your pvp but you slow yourself and not always you win on wpvp wich leads to slow ypurself even more.
Great video keep it up!
Pd: a full on horde vs alliance expansion has always been my dream and no cata and mop weren't full wars horde alliance, in cata dw was a huge threat and in mop the alliance didn't want war with the side of the horde wich was against garrosh, varian even let them have vol'jin as a warchief at peace.
English is not my mother tongue sorry for any mistakes made.
carlos lfr I loved Garrosh, I quit because I didn't even want to kill him lol
carlos lfr Sorry, i not perfect englesh, you try use word, or grammarly, next time, spell check.
Beeticus Lul let me gues a hamburger eater that is never leaving his country or trying to learn another language? Yes, bye.
carlos lfr bed joke
I for one am happy that PVP players are finally getting rewards over the PVE players. Hasn't pretty much every expansion previously been the other way round? Especially when they made PvE gear pretty much superior to pvp gear in WPvP.
How I felt a few months back: Stop, Don't, Come Back. Good to see ya back tho AZ
Az is that you back to this channel full time? if so I will be over the moon! :)
I must say I actually quite like the subtle look of the new Expansion and its Logo
First :) And welcome back Az!
According to me and many players we don't need anything big... we're tired of big "he she it" Garrosh was a cool boss, a real character with motivation.
Orcs can't be cool bosses. They are orcs. We should be able to one punch them. They're just orcs.
32:58 is the moment AZ got Apexis crystal flashbacks
I want you to talk more about classic please! Give us ur vanilla stories!
I always liked MoP scenerios and was sad that there weren't any in WoD... among the many, many things that weren't in WoD, of course. I felt like they helped compensate for the relative lack of dungeons in MoP. Conversely I never had any interest in challenge mode or mythics. But I think the thing I'm most interested in/worried about for BfA is how they are dealing with only the three faction zones each-sure, at level cap you can go to the other three from the other side, but what can you do there? Are there quest hubs and flight points for each faction? Or, lemme guess... nothing but world quests for you? Fuck that.
i actually want a small bonus to people who are flagged, not a large one, just a small one, i go to Argus every night, i get into pvp fights it takes up about 30% of my time, even if i get a 5% bonus for being on pvp it would make me feel like i am not losing out just because i enjoy the spontaneous pvp at times.
YOU ARE FUNNY!! Please dont hit me.. :c
Why don't they make the player base play the game to decide who wins the war? Just have two alternative endings prepared, that would be so cool.
My guess is war will not even end. Some big evil (like N´zoth) will come and it will end up like TBC: We do not like each other, but we need to fight together. But outside fighting the main evil, we still fight each other.
Conquest of EK by Alliance and conquest of Kalimdor by Horde allows Blizzard to deescalate the war easily, as the factions do not have much contact with each other in their homelands. They will simply keep to their own lands, have occasional skirmish (like in Vanilla) and that´s it.
One faction winning the war in this situation simply does not make sense, because the other would be destroyed.
It didn't STIR anyone because everyone is sitting there thinking: WoW PvP Power scale - 10 Percent Alliance 90 Percent Horde.
How do we get excited about a one sided future?
Yea it was like the Witcher I mean the humans(hunters) there are beeing called 'Monster Hunters". Loved ur overview of the whole Blizzcon thing, but a big bad bigger than Sargeras ?!
@HeelvsBabyface pls do a whole video on allied races
This is probably an old god forced horde vs ally theme i would guess.
When are you going bk to /violin 24/7 ?
Keep making these videos AZ, i need to clean my house from time to time :P
too bad the cinematic isn't in game gameplay footage, but I guess Blizz would have to use a newer and different engine.
Honestly the expansion has 0 interest to me at all. Usually expansions have some sort of hype to it even if I don't tend to play it. I honestly first saw the cinematic and thought it was for some off shoot game and not an expansion. I can't help but feel like this is going to be another WoD where they try to throw stuff such as classic to keep us distracted in hopes of buying time for the next expansion after.
This expansion might be worse than WoD?
I don't think it will be as bad as WoD, but I get WoD vibes from it. Something that is going to have scantly any content and try and push other 'gap filling' content to hopefully keep pepople busy and focus on the next expansion while using this one as a 'distraction'. The classic servers and sub races (which aren't completely bad though its basically just reskins) just gives me the vibe they are trying to buy time with the Alliance vs horde focus being a 'we don't have any ideas for a big baddie' kind of scenario.
I have to disagree. Personally I get a MoP feeling from this expansion and while it might be a filler for things to come, it can be a really awesome filler like MoP. But to each their own :)
I'm pretty sure Blizzard learnt there mistake from WoD. Thank god Ion is now incharge of WoW, because he would not let that happen dude!
That part where Sylvannas goes Banshee had my jaw down a well Az lol Blizzard babe ruth'ing it YET again with their cinematics 👌
Thank you for this video Az!
I think someone should win in the end. Everyone plays for both factions anyway.
I m so happy that your back doing wow videos Az! Without doubt your one of my favorites to watch! I love your sexy voice to! ;)
I disagree with you on Islands. They are a great way for friends to have fun, regardless of needing a tank or not. Scenarios in MOP did in fact work, most of us had fun doing them as a change up from the grind of heroics or raiding. They were quick and fun adventures you could do with your spouse, friends, etc.
Far as a Big Bad ... no, rather have no Big Bad until the end of the xpac to setup for the next. Perhaps BFA can end with the Horde and Alliance basically battling each other into utter fragility leaving them vulnerable for the remaining Old Gods or the Void to take Azeroth.
Cata was never about the factions, MoP kinda was at the start in the jade forest and summit, and then later on at 90. But most of it was about the Culture and history of the Pandaren. Garrosh wouldnt be considered the horde we play tbh because he denounced anyone who wasnt an orc. So it was more like... Azeroth vs a Dictator.
No #Az you misunderstood #PvP
You can only flag from major #city. And when you go into world you are #phased and x-realmed with other flagged players in their own #shard.
Your “bonus” reward might be #experience to make up for time lost engaged in PvP when trying to do objectives. But nothing significant.
Once you not flagged and enter world, you only see other PvE players.
You cannot just switch it on and off. Think of it like twinking and BGs. You only get put in an instance with other XP off players.
I don't usually comment, but this is deserving of praise, and after giving it some thought, I just can't not comment on this video, as it has been on my mind ever since I watched it all the way through yesterday. First: Welcome back on this channel Az, we have missed you, as you have no doubt realised by now ;) I especially love the Azchats, as they have an inherent quality to them, that is almost entirely your own; there may be a lot of "here are my thoughts on x"-type videos in the WoW-community, but none come quite close to your unique blend of passion and criticism in your analysis of the current topics in the community. I may not always agree with you on everything, but given the way you lay out your thoughts in a way, that shows that you have indeed given serious thought to most of what you say, makes your critiques worthy of respect, which is why I...well, respect your opinion as much as I do. I've seriously missed your unique take on all things WoW, you add to the discussion in a way few, if anyone, else ever does. Much love, keep 'em coming :)
Seriously you nailed it on the head. The expansion needs a super villain. For Blizzard to ASSUME that we all care about AvH warfare is silly. Nothing bores me more than mindless conflict. What is making me even more pissed off is all the fan bois and gurls making huge assumptions about what the later raids will be about. They are writing all this theoretical fan fiction about how the final boss could be an old god. But Blizzard NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT THAT SO WHY SHOULD I GIVE A FUCK ABOUT IT? I will play it, but I am not jazzed about it. They did it poor job selling it at Blizzcon.
the way they backed out of the DK stuff im not really holding my breath you were going to unlock them as well but thats not how it ended up
Thank for this. I'm not sure you realize how entertaining and/or fun it is to listen to you and watch your vids on WoW.
-Toni (with an i) Tours
-Sad Az
-How to win at...
were so funnny. Even some past AzChats or EmergencyAz where you went berzerk on some of that WoD crap (like Ashran being a
failure - "IT'S A FUCKING ROAD!!!") was so funny and entertaining. -WoW Secrets was great too! Please consider
keeping both channels - A WoW channel and your Mid-life Bar Crisis for other topics. You could do Classic wow vids!
Az, every expansion has a grind mechanic embedded within it, it all started from what I can recall in Wrath:
You had:
Wrath: Justice/Valor points and Honor (which never went away either).
Cata: More of Wrath
Mists: Daily quests
Wod: GODDAMN APEXIS CRYSTALS
Legion: Artifact Power
BfA: Azerite
This isn't rare for an mmo either but it does not bother me in the slightest since it has always been there, it's just more on the forefront now
When it comes to the big boss matter, I again have to disagree :D Personally, I am a bit sick and tired of larger than life threats and galactic enemies. I want a return to form, back on the ground at least for this expansion. I want something political, some intrigue, some betrayal, something more palpable. Of course, I guess the Old Gods will come, but until then I want something a bit more grounded.
I cannot fucking wait for Classic. If you just make videos about that, I'd be happy dude. If you feel like making videos about the current content, that's cool too. Welcome back.
glad ur back AZ. I dont agree that its penalizing PvE players that PvP get some bonus that PvE dont get, ur not being penalized for anything ur just not getting a bonus just like how ur not getting bonus loot for not doing mythic+ bc its not ur thing. Also you do get the benefit of not getting stabbed in the back of the head by some asshole while ur questing so u can focus on questing more and get more XP than those on pvp who on average wont bc ya know knife in head.
I definitely agree with a lot of your criticisms I really feel like it down plays N’zoth if he comes in the very end of the expansion considering this is something my self personally wanted to see. Unless they plan to not introduce him at all but save him for a full on old god expansion. Wow needs a good villain that makes people wanna stand up to, that plays a part in your story something older players like myself would like to see. Something like the lich king stands out to me and I was a burning crusade fan when in launched.
the only real problem that I had with Classic was travel time between places, quests, etc. the player walks @ 0.5(whatever the blizz measurement is), first mount adds 0.5, and the "faster" mount seems to adds just 0.5 to the first mount. These mounts are not fast. On certain private servers the admin would give temporary speed boosts of like 3-5, where for ~ 5 minutes you could outrun *anything* , and could run circles around *everything* . It was fun. With a walk speed set at 3 or 4 you'd never need a mount, and it made flying(taxi) painfully slow.
What about alternate storytelling? They have made "server" specifik things before.
Lets say that battlefronts would actually impact the world and the story and how it would unfold.
Every raidparty of 20 players combine with efforts from all other raids from the same side.
Etc, If Alliance win the battle of ----- alliance story moves on and the fight would move on and pushback the horde, story keeps on from there. Same thing if the Horde wins the battle.
This way the no matter how the story unfolds with "horde or alliance winning" Its depending on the server your on, and the efforts put into winning the war. It would also bring out the good old days of fighting for YOUR side. YOUR server means something again.
Just my 2 cents :)
13:38, that name.. ''Afraziabi'' I remember seeing that name on the Warrior in Tier 1 Gear standing outside of SW, where the head of Onyxia used to be hung. I remember seeing that name on this Warrior waaay back in Vanilla WoW, thinking he looked like a badass warrior, and finding the name ''Afraziabi'' to really sound like an awesome name, like some high-fantasy warrior name.. Funny thing is, I never knew it belonged to a real person, left along a developer of World of Warcraft. Pretty cool.
Keep up your good work Az, loving me some Warcraft stuff from you!
the cutscene literally did nothing for me... i sighed at the end.. and was like "here we go again another horde vs alliance expansion"
i dont claim to be dead inside... just sick of this game i think... i played the SHIT out of legion.. and looking back on it.. i mostly just logged on every day and did daily quests around the world.. and raided the easiest raids that have ever been made... some mythic bosses were tough.. and some very high level keys were tough.. but nothing that just grinding and getting lucky titanforges couldnt fix in a week or 2...
-edit- AND FUCKING LEGENDARIES UUUGGGHHHHH .. yes i have every single fucking one now for my character.. but that doesnt mean i didnt suffer or along time getting useless ones.. and didnt get my BiS ones till near the end of 7.1
43:50 about the pvp rewards, i will use a example so you can understand in a better way HeelvsBabyface
You take 10 min to do 10 world quest, rewarding in total 100 gold for you(in PvE mode)
You take 20 min to do 10 world quest, rewarding in total 120 gold for you(PvP mode)
What is the best way to do? you know why take longer to do WQ in pvp mode? because there is people killing you and gank your death body... they are not giving bonus to people gank other people.
Great vid Az, one thing I disagree with though is your stance on World PvP rewards. I think you approaching them as penalizing PvE players is a bit unheeding and backwards. If anything, not giving world PvP at least some type of simple reward is penalizing players who like to PvP. You're taking the extra time to fall behind compared to other people who only do world content just to have fun in the way you'd like to have fun. Also, some people don't like battlegrounds and would rather just PvP in the world instead, giving the ultimatum that "You can only have PvP rewards if you do it in a battleground!" is very grim. World PvP is distinctly different content then Questing, and should be considered as such. And Ian made sure to reiterate that the rewards would be small, because we all know world PvP is a lot shorter and uneventful then completing a quest, or playing a battleground. Otherwise, I loved the video and recently subscribed, love the podcasty feel. Keep it up.
im actually pretty hyped for wow again! classic is just awesome, and BfA seems pretty cool too! but i cant help but feel i wish they went a different direction:
instead of a classic server, id rather have them update the current game to play more like classic wow. make drastic changes like: LFG dont teleport, flying is limited by time, time-to-kill is increased, mana/energy pools MATTERS, squish levels, make gear hard to get(epics being epic) etc. as much as i am hyped for all the new stuff, id rather see blizz trying to bring back that feel and quality to the game witch it once had. the "problem" i see with classic is the lack of progression. if they however do progress it, its just wow relaunched basically
Okay you also missunderstood the flag for PvP aswell... First of all, you DONT see PvP marks people if you are marked for PvE. Also the rewards are to offset getting killed once in a while.. The rewards are gonna be small, not big. Also you can ONLY change settings for PvP/PvE in a Major City ...
Why on earth you confuse reward with penalty? Players who dont get reward for being on pvp shard are NOT penalised, if you see it that way then people not being in high end raiding guilds are penalised with worse loot? NO. Players doing mythic raids are REWARDED- same with pvp. Wanna do pvp? fine-here is reward. Dont wanna do extra job being carefull and defending yourself- no reward. But its NOT penalty...
Just a minor point on the US/EU, Horde/Alliance side of things.
Warcraft Realms lists the US as generally favouring Alliance at a ratio of 1.4:1 and Europe generally favours Horde with a ratio of 1.1:1. I think it kind of makes sense from a cultural perspective - Alliance are more the Heroic Golden Boys and Horde are like the misunderstood angsty teenagers.
Right as i slip into a depressed state from life. Az in all his gloryness comes back into my life. A complete turn around, thanks Az your voice is quite soothing. That and i love hearing your thoughts
It is NOT penalizing a person to give a bonus to another. They will NOT take away experience from people who choose to not be PVP flagged. If you want the reward you MUST accept the risk of getting killed by another player (possibly of a higher level). Risk vs Reward. Its a thing. Look it up.
I think the argument in favor of experience reward for being PvP flagged is that naturally you're experience/hour slows dramatically when you actively engage in world PvP. My level 37 holy priest in Feralas is leveling very slow since I keep engaging every horde I see (and dying half the time).
I could have ignored the horde and healer insta-queued dungeons and hit level 60 in the two days I've spent in Feralas. I don't think the experience boost for being PvP flagged is as bad as you think. Anyone who truly wants to level faster will keep their PvP flag off some they don't get ganked.
The XP buff is not to encourage people to flag, it's to discourage people from not flagging when fair fight conditions arise.
Hey AZ, it's nice to see you making videos again (namely referring to AZ chats here)! But a quick remark if I may, but I somewhat disagree with the necessity of a "Big Bad Raid Boss", at least for this expansion.
As you said earlier in this or another video, a big part of the Horde vs. Alliance theme is to attempt to breathe life into the PvP side of the game indirectly through PvE content; more or less in aspiration of Blizzard pursuing esports. This much I agree with you on, but in reality this is something the PvP base of players (including PvErs with an enthusiasm for the Horde vs. Alliance themes) desperately needed something along the lines of what this expansion generally aims to deliver. This is partly because, since parts of Cata and MoP the game has been directed towards fighting some impossible foe that requires our strength united to defeat. Over time this slowly dulls the flames of the Horde vs. Alliance conflicts, to a point where they almost don't even feel relevant anymore. As a result, many PvErs will likely not feel a need or desire to dip their toes into PvP, especially with content like the PvP towers in Legion and Ashran as a whole because they offer the rewards of actual PvP while undermining the true PvP game-play. Over time, this dries out an already dying community with our class imbalances, faction imbalances, lack of care for gear, and honestly slim content. While I do agree that a "big bad" is overdue because it fuels the PvE drive of an expansion... I feel, partly out of a bias of being an exclusively PvP player, that this direction will hopefully breathe life and into a community which is slowly crumbling. Apologies for the length, but I tried to make sure I didn't miss a step.
Had the same feelings... underwhelmed, not actually motivated to return... what WoW needs is a big change in what every expansion brings... "more of the same"
A third faction with its story, playable races, heroes and classes only this faction can have - at least at the start... For this I would gladly return... And this faction would actually be the BIG BAD BOSS Az is speaking about... not just one character, but a whole faction of them and actually all the players playing would become the biggest enemies for alliance and horde...
I think you misunderstand the combined pvp/pve realms... they won't all be together, you wont see unflagged players if you're a pvper and vice versa, you also won't change your flag and attack someone who is flagged... you CHOOSE if you're going to be pvp or pve in your capital city (say Stormwind)... you can only change the flag there, not in the field... once you choose pvp or pve, your put in a shard of that realm with like-minded people... so if you choose pvp, you're only with other pvp people, and vice versa for pve. Bottom line, if your flagged for pvp, you'll only see other people flagged, you wont see people who aren't flagged, they're on a different shard. As for rewards... people that choose pve are already rewarded... they'll never get ganked while leveling... people that choose pvp will never level as fast as a pve person because they can get ganked multiple times and waste time returning to the questing... an xp bonus for pvp players is to LEVEL them with the pve players who already get a reward for choosing pve... no ganking waste of time.
What they should have done was merged the cutscene and the reveal together, so that we had no idea what was going on (Like I did because I saw the cutscene first) Lead off with the speech but no visual, and cut off at "I didn't listen..." Cut to the cutscene. Then, instead of the cutscene cutting to "Battle for Azeroth" the music instead went into a dramatic ascending fanfare and we immediately pan way out above the city into a map of Eastern Kingdoms. Show the text "New Warfronts!"
fly over to the ocean "TWO brand new continents!"
Continue the rundown; Allied Races, plunder uncharted isles... and then at the final shot give Sylvannas a cool line, about "The time for working together is over..." and give the shot of her standing on the shore watching Teldrasil burn. Fade to black, and give soft dreadful music with the title reveal.
I found the BFA cutscene really subpar when compared to the vanilla / wotlk or even cataclysm one. It didnt feel epic, it was just visually appealing with no intelligent concept behind it . It was just effects and the horde vs. alliance scenario all over again. Yawn. Personally im just 0% hyped for BFA. Contentwise it seems to be Legion all over again..(and a filler expansion for the next big addon which will be heavily old god based)
Square enix with its End of an era is the absolute best cgi scene I’ve ever seen as well as the cutscene where you can see what really happened to Louisoix were just amazing, but this cgi for Expansion was really impressive as well
I don't get your point about PvP. If you don't like PvP, just don't flag yourself as PvP. This makes players who likes PvP and the danger to have it turned on and actually seeing other players around, because other players also might do the same. More BG's and Arenas don't bring more into the world of PvP. That's what they've always done. This is a new initiative, which i as a none-pvp'er suddenly feel more compelled to do pvp.