Thursday, July 31, 2008

Ponderings of the Futures

Okay, here's the thing. We's going to Northrend. Soonish. Preparations is being made for ships, rumours is flying, is gonna happen. And is gonna be like when the Dark Portal opened, sort of, with a huge mass of folks what been at the max level for a long time charging at once, and then a slow stream of alts, newcomers, and folks what just took they's time coming in the months to follow.

But here's what I think is different. The Epics. As I understands it, ya pretty much hadda raid ta get yer epics back in the day. And raiding meant starting in Molten Core, which meant 40 people. And no badges off of bosses, so only a few could get epics each week. There was some craftable epics, but these was tied to reputations which was mainly built up by raiding ZG or AQ or whatevers. So, I's pretty sure alot of folks didn't get any, or only a few, epics. Me, I were still looking for Mankrik's wife at the time, so I's kinda extrapolatifying here.

But here in Outland things is differents. Take me, fer example. I ain't never killed a heroic boss, never been to Kara or any of the raids what comes after, and I've got a few badgers of justice from the SSO but not enoughs ta buy nuthin' yet. And yet, a quick check of me gear shows I's got seven epics on. Seven. PvP gear, rep rewards, crafted, BoE's, and loot off the Headless Horseman. I's got more epics in the bank fer tanking and fer PvPing. And I's planning to pick up a few more before going to Northrend. So, I think is fair ta say what epics is easier ta get then they used ta be. Mebbe good, mebbe bad, I dunno, but it is.

Now, we all know at somepoint epics is gonna be replaced by quest rewards. And that's fine. But, what I's pondering is, how tough is those quests gonna be? 'Cause, ya see, that slow stream of adventurers behind the initial wave won't have had months to assemble epic gear. Or even blues. If they's only level 68, they won't even have them PvP faction rares we 70s all think is so entry level. So. What's it gonna be? Is that first zone gonna be a walk in the park fer me, or is I gonna be challenged? Is me young friends like Ellspeth and Palintera gonna find it to be comparable to the leveling they've been doing (once they get there) or is they gonna get creamed because they're only equipping greens from Nagrand and Blade's Edge?

I guess we'll find out, won't we?

9 comments:

Wildhermit said...

Have not considered that at all Rat. I remember when my Lock hit Outlands. I was semi-geared up... not all purps, but a fare share. When I hit outlands I really do not remember having many problems. It went quick for me.

When my other toons hit Outlands... I remember thinking.. "Self, this sucks."

I am on the fence here. I would love to be able to roll through things with my lock just to get to 80 and breathe.. you know.. so I can start alllllllll those achievements. On the other hand, don't want it to be so easy it is painful.

Hmmm...

Anonymous said...

You've got a good point there Ratters. I'm going to be leveling a healer through it, hoping I can manage myself.

Anonymous said...

My paladin hit Outland in full Tier 2, and burned through Hellfire and Zangermarsh like a house on fire. Fast forward several months when my shaman finally got to 58, she went to Outland wearing a mix of Scarlet Monestary and ST stuff, and things were vastly different. However, the early quest rewards were huge upgrades so things picked up after that. I expect Northrend will be the same way.

Awlbiste said...

Echoing the sentiments that starting northrend will be similar to hellfire. Seems like blizzard comments on the subject are that hellfire worked quite well. We likely won't see the gigantic leaps in gear that we did before (because, face it, pre-outlands greens were terribad) but I expect it won't be ridiculously difficult.

Blizzard seems aware that not all of its customers are raiders and arena players. Althought sometimes it's easy to think that they are.

Townes said...

I'm guessing it'll be easy. I didn't play pre-TBC and did fine with a mage, lock, priest, hunter, and druid hitting Outland at 58. You gear up quickly, your stats double by 60, and it's all good. I still remember trading in my Staff of Jordan for that Staff of Twin Worlds on the first quest or so and boggling. I really think the expansion will be the same.

I was looking at Northrend quests earlier today on Wowhead, and there are level 70 quests rewards that are pretty much up there with my Kara gear.

So I'll be going in purple with a few characters, but I don't think it's going to be remotely necessary. I may be wrong.

Armond said...

Hellfire quests sucked at first. There were a few with horrible drop rates, and a few where the monsters were just far more powerful than their level 58 Azeroth counterparts, but having bought every piece of level 50+ gear I could find for under 4g (and there was a fair amount of it - you'd be surprised at what people throw up on the AH for 2.5g when there's a very slight downgrade available for 40g), I managed to survive long enough to get some of the insane rewards.

...That said, everything in Outland seems to be pally plate. Ugh.

As for purpling up, well... PvP gear. It's amazing. Start PvPing early in your career (I started around 47) and you can get some pretty amazing gear by the time you hit 70. (If you're worried about your gear when you hit Outland, you can get some of the level 55 gear, too - it's pretty good for the level, and it's relatively cheap if you've been doing a lot of PvP.)

Come to that, I kind of doubt fitting up with purples, or even full blues, is going to be totally necessary to move on to Northrend. (We may be able to one-shot Onyxia by the time we're finished, but we won't need purples to get to that point. How's that for strange.)

Anonymous said...

Ive seen a few screenshots of quest reward blues from northrend with lvl requiredments of 76. They didnt look particularly more powerful when compared to lvl 70 blues and purples. It looks like blizzard is going to leave the BIG gear up in hellfire and let the quest rewards steadily improve to counter the difficulty of each of the zones. That worked well for them in all the outland areas, and as long as they maintain that gearing philosophy through northrend then it shouldnt even be a slowdown for players leveling up straight through outlands into northrend. There is a distinct possibility that raiders may be hard pressed to REPLACE those epics until well into thier mid to high 70s!

Though a blue post on this would be nice, since so many people are starting to wonder if raiding is worth it right now. If its slow gear progression, its worth it. If its hellfire style gearup again, then its not ( and horde those badges too!! gotta be something better to spend them on soon!)

Unknown said...

Darn, I hate agreeing with everyone. But yeah, what they said. I never raided before going to Outland with my mage and it was a real struggle. My warlock had it easier but I knew more about what gear to pick then.

With Northrend being friendly to 68s in basic greens, deep purple 70s should have it easy for a time. It doesn't sound like the Northrend greens will be as super as the outland greens, either. For all my chracters, the outland super greens have been an upgrade over what I had.

Aboo said...

To be honest, I'm more concerned with the content than the gear. I REALLY hope they don't leave the Outlands Raids worthless to do once Northrend hits. Not all of us have been traipsing about in the Black Temple, Mount Hyjhal or SSC for months and months. :(