Tomorrow, Blizzcon begins, and I am looking forward to finding out What’s Next for World of Warcraft?
I would like to see a new class, to bring the current awkward eleven up to a nice round dozen. I’d like it to be a mail-wearing class, so that there will be the same number of classes for each armor type. It should be available to Gnomes, because Gnomes have no mail-wearing class and every other race has at least one class that can use each armor type. I confess that I’m not quite sure what such a class would be or do, though, because Shamans and Hunters between them have a good spread of roles. Perhaps some sort of mail-wearing tank?
I really hope that the next expansion doesn’t abandon dailies entirely. As unpopular as this opinion seems to be these days, I like doing dailies. Perhaps it is evidence of some great flaw in my character that I am happier when structure is provided to me than when I have to figure out how to structure my time myself (a big reason why I enjoyed TAing but didn’t do so well at research when I was in graduate school), but nonetheless, I like the structure that dailies provide.
I like dailies because they act as a convenient timing mechanism for professions farming. When my Jewelcrafter had only one primal diamond cut left to find and also needed the Sapphire Cub pattern to be my 20th Crazy Cat Lady kitty pet, I felt bored just thinking about spending hours grinding mogu in the Vale. Instead, I picked up the Golden Lotus dailies, and whatever mogu she encountered in the round-trip between the Setting Sun Garrison and the bottom of Guo-Lai Halls were enough dead mogu for one day. In this fashion, it took about a week to get the patterns I wanted — and she also got Exalted with the Golden Lotus. I did the same thing with my Monk to get the six 5.4 cooking recipes from the Vale. While I do sometimes choose to farm herbs, ore, and leather by just flying around looking for them for an hour or two, it feels like a more productive use of my time to simply pick up whatever materials I happen to come across while I’m in the process of doing dailies. I actually liked the Fatty Goat Steak cooking daily better before the droprate was buffed because Kamalia could get so much leather while doing it.
Dailies help me distribute my playtime among my multitude of high level alts. I run through my character selection screen, tending each character’s garden and doing dailies for any factions that character is currently interested in, then moving on to the next character. If my playtime is limited, I start with the character(s) whose faction progressions are currently my highest priority in-game goals.
Although I like the way dailies give me something concrete and discrete to do with each character’s playtime, Valor Points, in and of themselves, are not enough of a reward to keep me coming back to any given set of dailies/repeatable quests again and again and again. I didn’t do the Battlefield:Barrens weekly very often, and I haven’t bothered with the Timeless Isle weekly that awards 200 VP, either. The faction has to offer some kind of reward I want, whether it is a mount or an item of clothing or a title or even RP/story fulfilment. I haven’t come back to the Domination Offensive because there weren’t any sufficiently cool-for-Transmogrification items of gear and I haven’t felt like any of my other characters needed to play through the story for RP reasons (my Blood Elf Mage and Dwarf Shaman will probably do the 5.1 stuff eventually). I haven’t done Isle of Quel’danas dailies since Wrath launched because I haven’t had any characters who wanted the Shattered Sun tabard. After Kamalia had gotten her Flameward Hippogryph and Kerisa had played through the conclusion of the Leyara story for an RP desire to understand what had gone wrong with the Druids of the Flame, I didn’t come back to the Molten Front until recently. Kaelinda wants the ruby pink gloves sold by one of the three vendors that unlock late in the grind, and I find that I’m actually rather enjoying the Molten Front dailies this time around — a combination of the place being virtually empty of players, not being on a PvP server anymore, and being level 86+. I have only come back to the Isle of Thunder once a week or so, when I’ve wanted Lesser Charms or had a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen drop from Throne of Thunder trash in LFR. But I’ve run most of my characters through the Argent Tournament, and so far I’ve run most of my level 90s through the Shado-Pan dailies, too.
I do get tired of those dailies after awhile. I need a rest of a few weeks between when I’ve reached my Argent Tournament goals with one character and when I start doing it again with another character. I’d been bringing up a new character to 90 as soon as the previous one had acquired her Replica Shado-Pan Helment, but it’s been a few weeks since my Paladin got her Replica Shado-Pan Helmet, and I only just brought my Priest to Pandaria yesterday.
Even though I need a break from my favorite sets of dailies sometimes and there are certainly many factions whose dailies I am quite happy to leave behind, I fear that the next expansion will not hold my interest for very long if it eschews dailies completely in favor of Timeless Isle-like content.
For me, the replay value of the Timeless Isle has been rather limited. It’s fun enough the first time I bring a character there. After I complete the one-time quests and I’ve solved Rolo’s Riddle and all that is left is grinding for Timeless Coins, Epoch Stones, and armor tokens, I get bored. I’m not much interested in the pets, rare spawns, or vanity/toy items. I’d rather go to the Timeless Isle with another fresh character than visit multiple times with the same character. I am more satisfied by time spent on the Isle of Thunder running through the Sunreaver Onslaught’s daisy-chain of dailies than I am by time spent wandering around the Timeless Isle looking for things to do.
The Isle of Giants, which is even less structured, I’ve barely bothered with at all. I’ve taken Kam there a couple of times for Transmogrification photo-shoots. I’ve been there twice with my Hunter. The first time, I got my Tome of Dinomancy, tamed myself a Direhorn, and ran all over the island in the direhorn disguise just to see what was there (I liked how the scenery is like Zouchin Province with touches of the Lost Isles). The mounts and most of the pets available there didn’t interest me much, but I did come back a couple of weeks ago to try to farm the Direhorn Runt while BTH’s guild was fighting Garrosh — I wanted to be doing something I could drop quickly to go watch the cinematics if they defeated him. I got SO BORED. I bought a Direhorn Runt off the AH a day or two later.
BTH’s guild didn’t defeat Garrosh that night that I was on the Isle of Giants, but they did defeat Garrosh a few days later, on the Monday just before the last wing of Siege of Orgrimmar LFR opened. I watched the cinematics and quest events over his shoulder. I’d seen the name of the new warchief mentioned a couple of times already, but that wasn’t really much of a spoiler. Blizz has spent Mists building up just two of the other Horde leaders, so it was either this guy or that other guy. I still haven’t done more of Siege of Orgrimmar LFR than the Vale of Eternal Sorrows myself, though. I did finally finish up with Throne of Thunder by bringing Lei Shen’s black heart to Wrathion, but now I’m stuck on Chi-Ji’s challenge. After the way the NPCs have shown up in my raid frames for the Thunder Forge scenario and the Proving Grounds, it is very frustrating to me that Wrathion does NOT show up in my raid frames for Chi-Ji’s challenge. It makes the whole thing quite a bit more difficult. My third or fourth attempt was really good — I got quite close to completing it — and then I failed and failed and failed. Kam is still sulking and procrastinating tweaking her talents (and possibly glyphs) for further attempts… and I probably won’t do much more Siege of Orgrimmar LFR until she’s got her legendary cloak and Wrathion’s quest to kill Garrosh.
But that might take awhile, because I’d rather be leveling my Priest and my Blood Elf Mage and then, when they reach level 90, doing their dailies.
I am glad I am not the only one who likes dailies! I too hope they won’t get rid of them. I really enjoyed the Dominance Offensive/Operation Shieldwall Dailies. The Dailies themselves could be a little harsh but the storyline woven into them was so intriguing that I was excited to do them hoping that would give me the rep to progress it further. I do lots of dailies and when I can’t figure out anything I really want to do in game Seish often goes back and picks up Argent Tournament Dailes or Tol Barad Dailies so he can work on getting mounts.
I agree with you about the Timeless Isle as well… it lost most of its thrill for me in about a week, I still go on new alts, and sometimes to work on Seish’s rep grind but oh man I wish the rep grind came from dailies more than endless yaungol murdering. That gets OLD. I really think when it comes to Dailies the real problem they ran into was less the number of dailies than the way they had gated two sets of them behind Golden Lotus originally. That kind of made me feel obligated to work on both August Celestials and Shado-Pan as soon as they were available as well as continuing with Golden Lotus… and that was a lot. Dailies aren’t bad, Timeless Isle isn’t bad, but maybe we could have a little of both instead of all one or the other?
I would be all over that Emperor Shaohao rep grind if it involved a string of dailies. As it is, being a pure grindfest? BO-RING! No thanks, Emp.
I totally agree about the biggest problem with dailies in Mists being the way the Shado-Pan and August Celestials were gated behind the original version of the Golden Lotus. My alt leveling didn’t really take off until the reps were uncoupled — and by now, I’ve done both Shado-Pan and August Celestials more than I’ve done Golden Lotus!
“Dailies aren’t bad, Timeless Isle isn’t bad, but maybe we could have a little of both instead of all one or the other?”
Aye, indeed!
I too quite like dailies, I admit I didn’t like the early gating but overall I like them. I think it’s because I don’t ever feel like I have to do them but they’re there if I want to.
The only reason Cim got to revered with the Emperor was for the pet and she grinds cloth on those Ordo, lol. I seriously doubt anyone will get to Exalted with him, I mount just isn’t enough motivation for me.
A nice mix of Timeless Isle and dailies would be perfect!
“I think it’s because I don’t ever feel like I have to do them but they’re there if I want to.”
I definitely feel that way about dailies, too. I tend to ignore dailies for long stretches of time with characters whose reps are Done, but sometimes I just get in a dailies sort of mood and pick out my favorite faction to go do some stuff.
I saw someone on the Shaohao rep mount the other day. It sure was shiny, but it still wasn’t enough motivation for me 😛
My issue with dailies happens when I feel like there’s TOO MANY OMFG. Early in Mists, it was ALL THE FACTIONS, and then when I got to Isle of Thunder, EVERY DAILY QUEST CHAIN TURNED INTO ANOTHER and it just felt freaking endless. If it’s just a handful, ok, sure, I can do those. But if it’s 1.) meet so and so who has three or four quests for you, then 2.) go meet so and so who has another quest or two, then 3.) go meet so and so who has a kinda “finish” seeming quest, like killing a single, fancy target, BUT OH NO you’re not done 4.) go find so and so over here, who has another three or four quests and I JUST CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE.
” I actually liked the Fatty Goat Steak cooking daily better before the droprate was buffed because Kamalia could get so much leather while doing it.”
… I hated it 100% before and after because the mother trucking goats could knock me halfway off the mountain where I couldn’t get to my body. Either that, or everybody was AoEing the damned goats. UGH. That is one daily I REFUSE to do EVER AGAIN. EVER.
Yeah, it was definitely dailies overload at the beginning of Mists. Nowadays, with alts, I only do one or two factions worth of dailies at a time. It’s longer and slower to get all my factions done that way, but more enjoyable. I go back and forth over whether I like to get all my dailies at once in one big clump better, or if I like the string-of-hubs pattern of Molten Front, pre-5.4 Golden Louts, and Isle of Thunder better.
Heh, I think we all have our least favorite dailies ever. I refuse to do the Survival Ring:Blades daily from Golden Lotus, and when the Shado-Pan dailies are Sra’Vess, I take the day off!
OMG yes that Golden Lotus daily was evil. EVIL. In fact, it’s one of the header images for my blog.
I remember doing it on Thermalix – I would specifically choose the spirit beast just to have a heal because WHY am I letting pandas punch me into swords again? Golden Lotus bears are MESSED UP in the head, I’m telling you.
I generally like to have several objectives IN ONE AREA, though I’m ok with one or maybe two strings of quests after that.
I like dailies as well. I’m a huge fan of Profession dailies and wish there were more. However, there’s a balance to how they need to do them or present them. I really thought they were introduced rather well in Wrath. Cataclysm had some unique ideas (I loved the Molten Front) and then some that I just didn’t like as much. Watching the Mrs. when she was in Pandaria long before I was made me have no interest in them at all. I think dailies should continue but vary in their purpose.
A new class? Whenever an expansion comes, people seem to want or expect the Demon Hunter. As much as I don’t know if I’d want the Warlock/Hunter/Rogue hybrid…it certainly fits your request for another mail class. What other class would I propose? I honestly don’t know. It’s hard to say at this point what could be introduced but still feel right (or more importantly, play right).
More profession dailies, yes! Dailies for each profession? Yes, please!
I liked the variety in the way dailies were presented — it made them more interesting for each faction to have a different pattern for its dailies.
I suppose a Demon Hunter could tank, too 😛 It would sure make the Enhancement Shamans green with jealousy, though.
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