WoW, Blizzard is finally listening to it's players

just on a whim I thought to check to see how World of Warcraft is doing. just a little peek. after browsing through wowhead I found out some interesting things. if you played WoW and left for various reasons. it's something to check out.

First off the player models are FINALLY getting an update. and I have to say they look good. more in line with all the models that have been installed sense Cataclysm and Mists. yes they still look a bit more on the cartoonish side but that just adds to the appeal. and yes I do mean all the characters. the original 8, Humans, dwarves, gnomes, night elves, orcs, tauren, forsaken, troll. plus the drenai and blood elves.

Second. housing is being implemented. ones you get to build, level. and maintain. you can even hire npc's to do various tasks such as farming your crafting material or even crafting itself. kinda interesting.

and probably the most significant. they are implementing a lv90 boost. meaning you can create a level 90 toon right from the start of the game. or create a level 1 toon and boost that up to lv90. on that note they are also creating starting scenario's like the death knight intro. to help newer players learn their character, not to mention help teach how to Tank, Heal, DPS and Solo.

then there's the new story line featuring the rebuilding of Dreanor. and a few dungeon restorations both of which look amazing.

While I'm not ready to go back to World of Warcraft yet, these new changes does have me concidering it for the future. we'll just have to wait and see.

~Valtyrian

I went back to wow about a month and a half ago....i am loving it so far and am looking forward to the changes in warlords xpac.  the player housing is also cool because you can invite as many that fit into a raid into your "compound".  Each compound will have multiple buildings and lots of different craft and quest centric things to do.  In my mind i was thinking, wow they are so close to guild housing.  :))...

I like the direction WoW is moving.  It still lacks the rvr that gaiscioch loves (the only thing remotely close is rated bg's and those are very different than rvr).  As far as the pve aspect of the game i feel they are making lots of positive changes...flexible raids and scenarios are awesome for guilds with a heavy casual player base.  If you want to tackle the hard stuff that is still there available also for the hardcore crowd.

i also love that they are merging and/or connecting servers.  Love that i get to actually group with friends on other servers and be able to play with them instantly by porting to their server(kinda works like the gw2 overflow instance porting to people within your party).  They are steadily working toward something akin to the megaserver that is in TESO.  Time will tell and i am enjoying playing it while i wait for TESO.

I've been playing wow off and on for the past four years, and really enjoy it. I play with my family, which helps a lot, but it's a really good game. I am glad to see the changes blizzard is making. Part of me thinks it's cause they want to continue to do well, and part of me thinks it's cause they finally have realized they DO have competition. That being said, for any and all of my GSCH brothers and sisters who play WoW, I'm horde side on Earthen Ring, my main is a holy pally named Artrath. Let me know your servers and names and I'd be happy to play with you!

The sweeping changes they are making to WoW in this next expansion are incredible for such an old game. It makes me wonder if they just plan to keep evolving WoW instead of ever releasing an actual game dubbed "WoW 2." I wonder if that would work though. The buzz and hype for a "new game" generally far exceed anything an expansion ever has - with the one exception being FFXIV:ARR.

Interesting thing is that they are doing the big item squish to deflate item level / gear inflation. I wonder if they could do that with levels at some point. Essentially level 90 is the new level 1 and the game now has 10 levels to the cap. I wonder if they could just squish it at level 100, back down to 1, and just start the whole cycle anew. Or maybe it's just that character levels are more or less irrelevant. Dunno, interesting idea though.

I have also recently returned to WoW with my fiance and we have been really enjoying it! Like many multiplayer games, it's all about who you play with! So in light of the recent interest and upcoming changes, if anyone decides to rejoin the game and you need help or someone to game with let me know! As previously mentioned, it's a great way to pass the time till ESO arrives! Currently playing on a normal (PvE) server. 

Server: Doomhammer

Characters: Esven, Vorag

i have ally toons on greymane, ruw, ruwmage, ruwund, ...pretty much most of the "ruw" names...lol

also i have started some horde toons on arathor with the same name combos.

Why play wow when you have FFXIV!

I agree with Hex. I almost got drawn back to WoW seeing what was coming with the next expansion but then Marrra reminded me of all the parts we didn't like in the end when we left after Cataclysm. The dailies, getting rep for raid gear/enchantments, the bad RNG and having to change gear so often to be able to compete in raiding.

FFXIV ARR at present doesn't annoy Marrra and I at all. It is repetitive but the gear obtainment at end game is bearable and not a chore :)

Why play anything when you have another game? It's just how us GSCH roll. We play what we want, when we want, how we want.

I'm still in WoW, have been for the last 8 years. I mostly log on to do guild admin tasks these days though, so my once-glorious paladin is growing cabbages in Pandaria, and my rogue is parked outside the entrance to Alterac Valley for the occasional unrated BG nostalgia run. Most of my toons are Alliance, although I have a couple of Horde so I can see the storyline from the other side. My Horde toons are rather neglected though - I logged onto  one of them last night and noticed that he still had the Midsummer Fire Festival Buff (60 min duration) from 2011.

BattleTag is Rhynor#1898

They finally listen to their members.... after what, 9 years?  :)

I played that game religiously until they announced Panda-land.  It's too bad the player housing, etc was not implemented into the game from day one. 

I'm glad to know there are other Gaiscioch members who are into WoW.  It seems WoW has not really caught the eye of many guildies, but ~8 million subscribers can't be wrong? Right?

It won't happen, but if WoW ever went F2P, I'd check it out again.  

I didn't see a problem with Pandaclysm personally, I remember the silly Panderan art from WCIII and wondered how it would fit in if they ever did go down that path.  I played World of Warcraft from the moment I got back from Iraq in 05, right up until my old F&F guild took down Yogg Saroth HM, my reasons for leaving weren't Panda's or Goblins or space-goats, it was more to do with the all of the daily repeatable tasks that they started bringing in with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.  It stopped being a game about fun and beating bad arse bosses and started to become a checklist of chores to log in and do each day.  It is one of the reasons I am so dead against time gating and daily tasks, there is nothing worse than feeling like you have to log into an MMO to do a checklist of things before you can sit down, relax and enjoy the game with some friends.  It's a shame really, because I have loved the Warcraft Lore and basically grew up with it from the beginning, along with the Diablo franchise.  All things come to an end eventually though, as each year passes on, WoW loses another chunk of their subscriber base.

I highly doubt they are still pulling in eight million subscribers, even at it's peak of twelve million, the majority of it came from the Chinese market who have long since moved on to their own home grown MMO's like Silk Road.  Last time I played WoW, the PvE zones were shared with several servers, you could see various nameplates from other servers in your battlegroup which really leads me to believe that they are squashing servers together to make it look populated.

All that being said, I like to think back fondly on the game as it was back in 05-06 era, when Paladins were alliance only and Horde Shamans used two-handed weapons and cut a windfury swathe through the ranks of AV's 3 day long matches.

My wife and I have went back to Wow as well.  Enjoying our time.  There are many things to enjoy about Wow and many things I suppose, that many are tired of.  For us-we have tried every MMO out there and yet we come back to wow.

Tera had great combat - FFX has a lot of things right but I really hate all the instancing-seems like just walking to the other side of the street- I am watching my screen load.  GW2 - just never could get into the fighting other players with the generic "Defender" over their head.  Love the characters though.

My wife and I left right before Pandaria and it wasn't because of pandas. Every update just brought the same grind and by the time you got the next shiny bling it was replaced by the next big thing. Over and over, the same thing with just another skin on it. Plus, you always felt like you had to grind out the gear so you were prepared for the next dungeon, raid, etc.

I just don't see them changing their formula despite all the new spray paint. I hope they do, we played it for many years and ran our own guild that had many players at its peak. Maybe if it goes ftp I will check it out again but just too many negative feelings to pay for the pain again.

For me, a painful aspect of WoW was doing those daily grinds to get reallly good gear (purple) gear, only to have it replaced easily with new expansion (green) gear.  

This thread prompted me to login to my account.  I noticed I have a 10 day free pass to play Pandaland.  Of course, I made a monk, since I've tried all the other classes.

I fear I'll be sucked back into the game to level up this monk to max level. :P   And here I thought I was safe from WoW in this guild.  Oi.

I have played wow since the beginning and enjoy the game.  I have taken several breaks over the years which has helped but I can't ever leave, to many memories.  

Rhynor - I will add your battle tag.  My battle tag is flygirlg#1374.  Anyone else you wants to add feel free or post your battle tag as well.  I mostly play on Aerie peak as alliance with my main being a mage Kamia but I have some horde around as well on other servers.

Don't think I could pull myself to play again....6 years of WoW and that was enough for me.

FFXIV has provided me with all the PvE content I need and I'm just now coming back to GW2 for some more RvR goodness.

I havent really been following news about the new expansion, but I remember that it looked pretty interesting. Anyone want to fill me in?

Good to know that if I get the itch to go back I can have something to look forward to.  Problem is I am not really all that interested I. Wow right now, even with all the shiny new stuff.

@Ckemikal

Here's Battle.Net's interactive piece on the new expansion, Warlords of Draenor: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/warlords-of-draenor/

The introduction of player garrisons seems to be one of the big selling points.