Tali's description of the returning player experience is, to the word, exactly how I felt coming back to Dragonflight.

@omppu3487

6 ай бұрын

Same lol

@malficientsand

4 ай бұрын

Same, Im watching this now and dying laughing because I explained this to friends coming back from Classic and this was the exact issue. Overwhelming.

@applegate423

4 ай бұрын

SAME. As a Classic player tried out Retail but the experience was very overwhelming. I don't wanna spend 2 hours figuring out WHAT to play -_-

20:03 Man, I’m so glad Tali is discussing this. I hadn’t played any DF content for about 6-8 months and decide to pick it up again and holy hell…the amount of quests to pick up was absurd. And I’m definitely not trying to catch back up on my crafting stuff. Much too overwhelming

@DenastChannel

7 ай бұрын

Same here! Even though I played through 10.1 main quest line, I've logged in and got very overwhelmed. I even checked the adventure guide, hoping there will be a big button "new content here!" but no, new quest line is like on 10th page after all the raid wings in lfr

@ReactorKFusion

7 ай бұрын

@@DenastChannel Same here, it is one of the reasons i dropped DF after 1 month. The other one is i simply don't feel like saving elves is important.

@SoraOfTheRisen

7 ай бұрын

Yes!!!

@SoraOfTheRisen

7 ай бұрын

Omg don't get me started on crafting. I had tailoring, and apparently it's impossible to level up past 65 unless you have some high renown so you can buy a single recipe to level up with. And then renown quests give like 20-40 each so that's like months of grinding.. no thanks, I just gave up.

@hironobu64

7 ай бұрын

Returning Player Disaster is by far the most important aspect ... maybe second to story delivery.

I mean Korthia WASN'T a distraction from a narrative point of view, it was meant to be the "Secret City" that would tell us all the secrets that would enable us to defeat the Jailer. The problem was that it didn't deliver it.

@Shiirow

7 ай бұрын

it wasnt meant to be from a story standpoint but from a gameplay standpoint, a couple buildings and wall to wall enemies it was definitely a distraction I skipped on every alt. so much for a "secret city", felt more like a forgotten outpost.

@Red1Green2Blue3

7 ай бұрын

@@Shiirow That's what I said.

@manthe3711

7 ай бұрын

@@Red1Green2Blue3 Korthia didn't just fail at being a "secret city", it straight failed at being a city. It's just some random area with a bunch of buildings scattered here and there. I wouldn't raise my kids there.

Guild Wars 2 handles the story order issues perfectly. In the journal, all of the chapters are laid out in order. When you pick one, it becomes the one and only story quest, because GW2 *has only ever tracked a single story quest at a time.* It's almost like the game was *built* to convey story. During Season 3, I was able to play through all of Heart of Thorns, Season 2, Path of Fire, and Season 3 with flawless continuity, no trouble, just by picking each chapter in order and playing through it.

@shimapanzer9930

7 ай бұрын

its a shame people shat on guild wars 2 so hard when it first came out around the time of late cata/mop. it does the actual MMO bit of multiplayer, story, a big world etc so well yet everyone was so resistant to its changes back then

@MrCarlWax

6 ай бұрын

​@@shimapanzer9930Tbf it was rightfully shat on. It wasn't even close to what the game is like now.

@dunidane5206

5 ай бұрын

GW2 has that order tracking great but the last time I tried to do it you had to pay for a bunch of the seasons.

the in-game ending cinematic to dragonflight should have been a montage. showing everything our player has accomplished. cutting to different scenes like the tuskaar village thriving again with a big pot of soup on, new dragon whelps hatching in the hatchery and many different colored dragon whelps playing together, the wind spirit Ohn'ahra watching over the centaur as they hunt on the open plains, stony tony working with the drakanoids on something in valdrakken city, Chromie and Nozdormu laughing together as all of the oathstones shine brightly, the cute mole people sitting in a circle around a fire in zaralek cavern, Veritistrasz setting off with hemet nesingwary jr on a new adventure into parts unknown... etc. The take-away should be "show, don't tell".

@catrinastars

7 ай бұрын

No, this would’ve been much better as a credit role scene where they could’ve gone and visited all of those scenes And if you haven’t completed that portion of quest yet you get a blank screen with credits rolling instead, so you know what you have to go and do still. Tallie’s right the Amirdastil ending would’ve benefitted from a credit roll.

@MegaChickenfish

7 ай бұрын

I did like the way the party allowed you to take your time with it. Slowing down and recognizing everyone really gave me a lot more breathing room to take in the moment than a cutscene quickfire montage would have.

@ari54x

7 ай бұрын

That sounds awfully Ny'alotha to me

@MorganRhysGibbons

7 ай бұрын

We may still get that- there are 3 more content patches left before Dragonflight is over, so...

@TrafalgarWaterDLaw-dl5cm

7 ай бұрын

Tbh. They fked up by not giving us a proper final raid atagonist. Even in WoD we had Archimonde himself, and killing him was huge as we took away the legions top general, and he sent gul'dan off to kickstart legion at the dame time. So grommash forgiveness aside it was much more epic due to the boss itself. Fyrakk has the Jailor problem in that they forget why an Illidan or Arthas work. Or a Kil'jaeden and Archimonde. We know their motive, characteristics and the stakes. And defeating them felt diffrently. Also Vyranoth just forgiving Alex after what she did is on par with grom forgiveness bs. Her whole plot, and with it the incarnate storyline never concluded. The we want to be free of titan influence happily joined and accepted another titans gift. Now being at Azerozhs mercy. As some suggested the perfect big bad for a Dragon themes expansion were either a Galakrond brought by the infinite, or the Chromatic multi headed Dragon madw up of every flight to thematicly be all flights vs all flights. One alone, the aspects together. Not only is this a bsdass design, room for mechanics of all flights in a fight. It is an actual ancient enemy thats really strong and more interesting then "Angry fire dude who wants to burn everything" Ragnaros at least made sense as the elements in general want to conquer the world and wage war on each other. The incarnates had a complex plott, but it was abadoned by all and somehow we are supposed to forget.

The Worldsoul Saga needs an epic story, that's it. Bombastic. Big. Stupid. Wonderful. Fun. Action-packed. Sweaty. Bloody. Warcrafty.

@ChinnuWoW

7 ай бұрын

And less trivial content. More content like the Mage Tower and Horrific Visions.

@720vii

7 ай бұрын

Agreed!!!!!

@synmad3638

7 ай бұрын

​@@ChinnuWoWdelves aim to solve that it seems

@snozzmcberry2366

7 ай бұрын

​@@synmad3638Have you not listened to a single word Blizz have said about delves? They are abso-fucking-lutely NOT what you say they are. They're end-game content for casual open-world players who don't get any slots in the vault because they don't touch raid, m+, or pvp. Delves are *N*O*T* ANYTHING like mage tower or horrific visions. Please stop thinking so and please stop saying so. The last thing we need is the community hyping delves way up beyond anything Blizz have said, and then giving Blizz shit when delves turn out to be EXACTLY what BLIZZ said, and not what the delusional community went ballistic and dreamed up in direct contradiction to Blizzard's explicit statements.

@aFoolsMartyr

7 ай бұрын

​@@snozzmcberry2366 i think you went a bit overboard in communicating what you said, but you're 100% right.

Your point about the returning player experience was exactly what I needed to see, because I felt like I just wasn't reconnecting with the game, but it's somewhat gratifying to know I'm not alone in this issue. Hope you had a good Christmas!

22:05 Huge fan of this. I also recall BFA having much more "the story so far..." and filtering the quest log by patch chapter, which I think they could refine, so you'd see very clearly that shield quest #1 takes you into zaralek caverns and the "Embers of Neltharion" questline, etc.

@Ghostie34

7 ай бұрын

🙌

Dude the returning player segment was pretty mind-blowing. I dont really skip patches so ive never thought about that. Blizz REALLY needs to fix that for next expac. Thats insane.

@Tiller-Z

7 ай бұрын

I came back from being 3 levels into Shadowlands, to level 50, and I played the story arcs in the wrong order, that was just messed up.

Honestly for me the biggest lesson is the Xal'atath one. WoW is hurting for a through line big bad that lasts through multiple expansions and actually feels threatening because we can't seem to get rid of them. Do that and make them charismatic and you have yourself a winning baddie.

@ChinnuWoW

7 ай бұрын

I hope they don’t make a princess out of her with plot armor.

@clarkmichaels822

7 ай бұрын

I remember when TBC was announced and people asked if we were going to fight Arthas at the new level cap and Blizzard said 'nah you won't be strong enough yet'.

@WilBgames

7 ай бұрын

Seriously, it took us 6 expansions to topple Sargeras, needed the combined powers of the Titan Pantheon to contain him, and he still ended up creating problems we haven't solved 3 expansions later. Meanwhile there was Zovaal off supposedly pulling the strings of everything and we took him out shortly after learning of his existence with no real lasting effect on the world

@Pentacus

6 ай бұрын

Tbh they’re doing with Xal’atath what they TRIED to do with Zovaal, except this time they’re doing it properly After Legion, the series needed a new Big Bad, and so they tried to set one up, but the problem is they tried to get too clever with it. Like sure if you knew what you were looking for you could see Death was up to something all through Legion up to Shadowlands, but even if you DID realise that, Zovaal still came out of nowhere and expected to be taken seriously as The Big Baddie Behind It All. Xal averts that. We see her in Legion, even non-priests knew about her because out of all the Artifacts, she seemed to know what was going on more than anyone. Then in BFA she has a role, we meet her personally, she hands us off to N’zoth and leaving with one hell of a mixed message of “We WILL meet again, I am certain of it. Shadows guide you, my dear friend” Finally she’s not explicitly in DF or SoD, but there’s enough hints that we were pretty damn sure she was the Harbinger and Iridikron’s contact before Blizzcon confirmed it. Xal’atath’s rise to power is our fault, we’ve known her from her introduction to the series, she, N’zoth, and ourselves have a strange interconnected relationship through time and fate, and though we don’t know WHY yet, everything about her feels more personal, she seems to have plans that specifically rely on US. She is Zovaal done RIGHT.

@Subject_Keter

Ай бұрын

​@@clarkmichaels822idk what that has to do with anything lmao.

Thank you for talking about the returning player experience. I played the first part of Dragonflight but drifted away for a bit. Returning was so confusing (although I loved Amirdrassil). I main a night-elf druid and the ceremony for Amirdrassil was really amazing - brought a tear to my eye actually. I was one of the few that appreciated the burning of Teldrassil mission as it was genuinely horrifying in a Red-Wedding kind of way and this patch gave real closure to that horror. And I even kinda liked Tyrande's quest for vengeance (although I didn't care for nearly anything else in Shadowlands). When her Night Warrior powers fade as she has her hands around Sylvanas' neck I truly felt for her. Also I think every game should end with a party.

@gymonstarfunkle136

7 ай бұрын

Yeah parts of the Emerald Dream zone and storyline gave me a 'core' Warcraft feeling despite not being in Azeroth. It feels like Night Elves are finally getting the respect they deserve, although they still need a new capital in Azeroth proper. Having them just live in the Dream would be like having the Forsaken live in Maldraxxus or something.

I actually like flying around in the cavern. It's spacious enough to not feel like I'm constantly in danger of hitting my head, while also giving me the consistent feeling of swooping through rock arches.

I feel like another thing that they can take from BFA is the unique campaigns for each faction. You don't need separate continents each time, but there is something about having the leveling experience be different on each side, gives you more reason to level through the story on the other faction at least once, and allows for each faction to get story love that tends to be missing when we get expansions where we all do the same quests.

@alihorda

7 ай бұрын

But if ally /horde are buddies now (which I actually like. I'm tried of forced conflicts) then what's the point of different stories?

@dawn4383

7 ай бұрын

​@@alihordaTo tell different stories. They don't need to be literally fighting eachother to have different stories.

@raanab6578

7 ай бұрын

Does there need to be an excuse for why more story is good? It has been a problem that we get practically no horde story outside of the faction conflict, I think it would be nice to delve more into internal stories for the factions that don't have to deal with the other side. It can still be the same general areas, but I think it'd be worthwhile for a few reasons to have the factions have their own experiences. You get different experiences leveling on each faction, you can spend time telling stories about the subgroups of a faction and how they work together etc. Take Legion, would it have been wrong if say in Highmountain if horde had Mulgore tauren take lead in the story of that zone. Stuff like that. It would help give the story space to flesh out some smaller aspects of the factions. @@alihorda

@alihorda

7 ай бұрын

@@dawn4383 fair enough

@alexanderh2715

7 ай бұрын

You even got a mount for it :)

In regards to the story issue, I'd direct you to advocate for what GW2's got goin on. Their story journal is amazingly sorted chronologically with in-game dates of events and plot summaries, and you can select, activate, and quit any stories at a whim. Not to mention, you're also able to REPLAY stories that you already have. Would love love love to see that come to wow in some form.

The biggest problem with the Amirdrassil ending cinematic was that it was the culmination of all of Dragonflight's lackluster main storyline. The dragon flights finding out that they're family and that this fact gives them strength isn't engaging because it doesn't involve any of the player characters - and the family-theme had been hammered home dozens of times (and often in much better side content) by the time we reach the ending cinematic. There's sticking to a theme and there's bludgeoning people over the head with it repeatedly - and Dragonflight, unfortunately, did the latter.

@friezeray

5 ай бұрын

exactly! after WE restored their power, and defeated fyrak; they shoved us through a valdrakken portal and pat eachother on the back for working together

That Karlach ending is 100/10

i really loved the raid cinematic for azshara’s eternal palace. also BFA deserves its flowers fr i’ve been saying since it was live that it was actually great & one of my favorites despite its flaws with azerite armor & the final patch 😭 the zone design especially was great, like please play in any of the alliance zones in particular they feel so authentic & lived in with a cozy ambient vibe. drustvar is top tier wow imo

@hironobu64

7 ай бұрын

Agreed. BFA was extremes. The bad stuff was REALLY bad, and the good stuff was REALLY good.

@Fetalol

7 ай бұрын

As far as content goes, bfa was probably one of the best ever. The class design and some of the game systems were pretty garbage on expansion launch and kind of tarnished the whole thing.

@ziggs123

7 ай бұрын

Class design was very boring in bfa and farming all the bs was horrible, everything else was really good. If we had df classes and the freedom to do whatever, BFA would be great. (N'Zoth isn't dead, its a vision!!!)

There is probably an easy fix for the chapter quests so people don't get confused. For example, maybe match the colour of the quest shield to the colour of the campaign as it shows in the quest log.

Thank you for talking about returning players! I am a returning player and am so overwhelmed and confused that I just keep rolling alts to play through chromie time to catch up on what I missed before, rather than explore end game content. I feel like there's so much to do, but I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing or what order it should be in. I started just picking up some quests but the rewards seem irrelevant? I did a bunch of emerald dream quests but I think I finished that area (I am not sure, but seems like it's done except for weekly quests). I also do not feel ready to dip back into pugged grouped content (LFG scarred me) so I've been looking for a guild.. and even that is a struggle. It's just too much.

Iridikron is the Earth incarnate, which makes him the incarnate version of Neltharian / Deathwing. People should be more worried.

@Kylora2112

7 ай бұрын

Smart and more than likely allying with the Void...yeah, definitely be worried.

I can’t believe you really discussed best raid cinematics and didn’t include Illidan crushing Guldans skull at the Nighthold

@riva2003

7 ай бұрын

Not only the visual but also the lines. "You have seen what I have seen. You know what we face. Now, mortals, follow me...into the abyss! " gives me chill every time.

My wife and I experienced the same issues returning to the game after being gone for 6 months, and we had no idea what was going on, we did half of the Cavern quests and then got spun off on the Emerald dream dream stuff and had no idea what exactly was going on and we went back to finish the black dragon stuff then came bak again. It was a pain lol.

i completely agree on the Story problem Me and my wife (who rarely plays wow but loves the story) were going trough Dragonflight, and me despite having it all done up 10.2 still got confused on where to go once 70's dinged on our new chars, i had to use WoWpedia to dig out the "Chronological Story order". This should NOT be the case. The idea you propose with "either endgame or Story" would be great! It would make for atleast a usefull Splashscreen Popup for once. Blizzard nows how to make Splashscreen Poputs heck they were able to in Shadowlands and BFA so you didn't had to grind trough the Story each time you visited Oribos and could choose the covenant right away (beats me why they removed it NOW so i have to go trough the Story on EACH ALT again which never had been to shadowlands..what the fish Blizz) It's like they take one step forward and sommersault 20 steps back on purpose on the most easiest logical quality of life stuff they allready had fixed before! i just don't get it.

Loved Dragonflight. A feeling of danger isn't something that drives my interest with WoW. I've played WoW since original beta, raid cinematics I barely notice. Quests with lore, those have a big impact.

As someone who recently returned after skipping most xpacs since MoP, I can definitely feel the returning player experience issue. WoW desperately needs an MSQ like FFXIV. I know some players would scream bloody murder if such a system was introduced, but just let it be an optional suggested thing only for the first character leveled through that expansion's storyline and I think it would in practice be just fine. Because I really don't like doing things out of order, and right now it's really hard to know if I'm doing that.

I actually was a returning player. Shadowlands burned me out during Fated so I didn't arrive until .1.5. I did about 60% of each questline with a shield before I realized I was nowhere NEAR the cavern and had to actually look up how to even start them. I didn't stay playing the game because I was so frusterated by finding a way to go back to the endgame despite playing wow for over a decade.

@nulian

7 ай бұрын

I'm a pretty active player and I had the same experience when I used a level 70 boost on an alt took me like 1.5 hours before I noticed I was doing the wrong quest to goto endgame.

As a returning player doing the story with my friends, it let us do Emerald Dream before the Forbidden Reach, wish there was a chronological order exclamation mark 💀

@Shiirow

7 ай бұрын

the average wow player doesnt like that, they want to skip to the end of the book and only focus on the current end chapter, story pacing be damned.

My 2 cents on returning player experience from a player who attempted to return: I started dragonflight on release and it was a banger. Later on I got a bit bored and wanted to play something else for a while, and decided to return during the embers of Neltharion. Thing is, I have a serious difficulty with sticking to one class, my mood changes a lot. Now I want to be a warlock, tomorrow I want to be a shaman. I come back, level up a new character, get overwhelmed with a billion of new activities and quests old and new, I have to grind my reputation from lvl 1 again, but this time a lot of open-world content is unavailable because nobody is doing them and you can't really solo great hunts, oh and also there was Forbidden Reach and story there, but the game wants me to do the newest content first and that confuses me, I do not understand what is going on, I do not understand what quests should I do next, I get overwhelmed and I quit. And yes, with SoD I attempted to look at what's been going on in Dragonflight, I get blasted with even more new activities, and now the game urges me to go straight to Emerald Dream content and location skipping all the story and locations of previous patches, and yes I also want to play different class, so I smile, delete retail, and go back to playing SoD. So what should change for me to stick with the game when I try to return? Basically make the game more like FF14 please thankyouverymuch. I know we can't have one character - all classes, but can we have shared quests and reputations with all of our characters if I want it to? And can we keep content evergreen AT LEAST during the expansion in which it has been introduced? If you weren't playing in 10.1, good job, you have missed Forbidden reach, nobody will help you kill rares there, so the content is already outdated. And the story? Can we have a cohesive story progression for the expansion, where if I get back the game will tell me to go through everything I missed in chronological order instead of forcing me to do the latest thing?

8:29 * Khadgar beams at you with pride from Dalaran for that pun *

That returning player experience was my exact process. Currently back to SoD, I'll see you retail-andy's in The War Within.

Resubbed to WoW for SoD. Hadn't played retail since the first month or two of DF. Thought I'd check it out and after the beautiful simplicity that I've always loved with Classic, I was insanely overwhelmed stepping back into retail. I had no idea where to begin to continue my journey. And this is coming from someone who has played retail on and off for 15+ years, so I'm no stranger to the complexities of retail WoW. However of all the breaks I've taken from the game, this one felt the worst trying to come back to it. I logged off so fast lol. Glad it's being talked about.

The first character I ever made on my account nearly 20 years ago, and which is still my main, is my shadow priest. Tali, thank you for properly representing spriests when you were talking about Knaifu in the 24' mark.

The Darkmoon Faire music as you explain the experience when you ding 70 is chef's kiss.

As a player that fell off after the first few months of Dragonflight I can confirm that the returning player experience has got to be fixed! It felt pretty smooth back in BFA, so idk what went down to make Dragonflight so much a pain

I would be shocked if Xal'atath gets killed off in The War Within. Surely the Midnight expansion makes sense for her to be even more important!

16:10 I completely agree with you. Just showing that scrolling credits scene, gave me a wonderful feeling.

One thing (you did mention in your video) that really bugs me - and has been an ongoing issue - is that things get really messy for new or returning players partway through an xpac. My wife recently started her own account and has been playing and trying to figure out which quests to do in which order is very very unclear. Even for new alts, at this point I just abandon and skip everything if they're max level.

Karlach swearing is such a relief, on the other side we don't even have Thrall's Balls anymore :P

@Elysian777

6 ай бұрын

I named my garrison Destroyer ship 'Thrall's Balls'.

Was honestly expecting turing the tea sipping that there was going to be a Grand Hunt tribute show up in Tali's inventory with a "Nice work!" taking us back to this time last year XD

as always, some great points. Wish we could get more infographics from Wow, for retail, like the hardcore deaths infographics. They don't have to give us numbers; it could just be the % of players doing things. It could really help the community understand where the priorities are and could be

19:00 I cannot decribe how much I agree with this part. They just drop you there, lost with no directions and the problem is, when you have too much choices most of the time you end up doing any of them, or just going to m+ or pvp.

I think a reason why the Amirdrassil "cinematic" was only cinematic for a short part is that it was probably done by the new live-content team which I think is probably smaller than the expansion teams and might not feature these professional cinematic creators as in the expansion teams who for example made the War Within cinematic. This is just a speculation of course, because we don't actually know how the teams are structured, we only know that they are separated like this.

Remember when the 10.0 storyline was about getting the "oath stones" to reactivate the aspects' powers and then those were never mentioned again and they just randomly got their powers back from a tree at the last minute

"It's some dracthyr the distraction is using as a distraction!" 🤣 very on point, love it!

Excellent feedback! Asking players what they want to do next and then highlighting the quests they need to go there? Awesome idea.

You'd really hoped that Blizz would have learnt their "don't kill off all your cool baddies" after fucking BURNING CRUSADE, where they absolutely MASSACRED fan-favorite characters like Illidan, Kael'thas, Lady Vash and more - abd have struggled to bring them back in ever since.

Perhaps a minor thing, but please Blizzard fix the bag issues. My bags are fileld with mats, things I may or may not need to buy reputations stuff, lore books and currency'ish items. Please do something about it. Give us a collection tab for books and stuff, make items of different quality stack do something.

really admire Taliesin's ability to express my thoughts more succinctly than I ever could

You hit the nail on the head with the new/returning player experience segment. I had to sit out a couple of patches to focus on RL stuff, and coming back and trying to navigate every renown/campaign quest and do them in order (completionist here) is so confusing. I would have loved something like the pop-up idea you suggested.

On item 4, I was so very happy for Guild Wars 2's story log. Choosing the story chapter you want to follow, unlocking new chapters in sequence, etc. while also leaving end game content open for you to access.

16:45 omg I didn’t have words for this until I heard you say them. I recently got a good buddy back into the game after years away and it’s been a nightmare. He has no idea what to do when I’m not with him. And there’s so much catch up work with dragon glyphs, flight points, questing, etc. I never know where to start him.

the photo of Aneurin and Penny warmed my heart

the Saurfang cinematics were so amazing. Wish we could go back to one of those every major patch

25:09 is the best xD. Tali explodes rightfully so. Great vid and solid points. Im really fired up with Chris being back. When he said “ we will be called to lay down indiscriminate justice on those who got it comin!” I definitely felt that. Im looking forward to The War Within and happy to see Nerubians back to sinister stuff. Really excited for Midnight as well being a Sin’dorei focused player.

1) Roadmap: Agree 100% great hope they keep them up. 2) 'Danger': Disagree, I think they did a good job, Sarkareth's story is important to dragon isles, the new class, and the black dragon flight. I do agree they needed maybe a few more quests with Sarkareth in 10.0 leading into 10.0.5, but this needed to closure before last raid. 3) Cinematics: VoI and Aberus had good end cinematics. Amirdrassil would have been much better as 1 pre-rendered cutscene starting with Fyrak being defeated, then the surge through the aspects, and ending with the line about the blessing being from Azeroth. The jarring-ness of it being split into two and all of the rest of the conversation should have happened after the raid in by the feast, or outside, or in Valdraken. 4) 'return experience': Agree 100% needs help, on the upside this was mentioned in a blizzcon panel that they talked about how quests are marked so maybe has hope. 5) 'killing off big bads': Agree, definitely should not kill of good antagonists early. '10') I think the pacing has helped the story delivery a lot and the number of cutscenes has been great, but I would LOVE to see War Within, Old Soldier, Reckoning, etc style cutscenes more often.

One thing I want them to keep, as it's been a game changing feature for me, is the Revival Catalyst. I much prefer world content these days, and I NEED a gearing path that isn't raiding or mythic+ so I can keep up with my family members who do raid and do dungeons. My primary reason for playing is because it's an activity we can all do together, otherwise I'm doing other things. The Catalyst has let me participate in the game with my family while respecting that I cannot spend long periods of time grinding. I've got a job and I am, in many ways, one of the only able-bodied people in my family. I want to play with them, and it lets me do that.

@brosirs

7 ай бұрын

What's so great about the catalyst is that it's deterministic loot. For those of us who are time-challenged, chasing RNG drops is not fun. You have no control above and beyond doing something once a week. It doesn't matter how good or bad you are at what you're doing, you could be waiting 2-3 months and still not have the item drop. This feels bad.

Thank you for, once again, speaking out the things that I didn't realize I've been thinking about. Well done!

What really sucked for me, on the Amirdrissil raid ending cinematic, was that I didn't even notice that the dragonflights were even there during the fight. There was no leadup to it and no planning, and when they popped up I'm wondering more where the heck they came from rather than paying attention to what they were talking about.

I also started Dragonflight with the level and gear boost 3 weeks ago and it was exactly like this, I had no idea what to do first and what is the order of the quests, it was like a chronological puzzle

Recently returned player here: Can confirm that if I hadn't had T&E in the periphery during my 2-year vacation to FFXIV from mid-SL to mid-DF, I would have been absolutely lost on taking in all the story bits and parsing what "order" things fell in. I *will* say that my experiment of "return for the last patch because WoW's catchup game is top tier and always must be" served me well *logistically,* because I don't feel behind in "numbers," but as for doling out the story, huge fail!

THANK YOU! I have missed the cinematics we got in BFA. I would really like to see those make a comeback. I was excited to see the latest and I hope that it is the first of many to come.

I would love a lore focused video soon! Some tali speculation is needed

The game is lacking in immersion, imo. I'd love to see them go back to an expansion 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 a main narrative, bringing back the 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 of Warcraft. To me, part of the thrill of Classic, TBC and mostly Wrath was a sense of a bustling, thriving world/continent, where characters didn't solely exist to be pushing the main plot. They have their own quest/town/zone problems to be dealing with, that have nothing to do with the expansion's "big bad". Future gameplay loops, systems and narratives would benefit from falling back on the foundational philosophy of "𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓"; which is ironic considering the "Worldsoul Saga" is literally seeing Azeroth as a main character. Fingers crossed for The War Within 🤞

You are so funny to watch! Thanks for this year, catch you in the next! :D

the party at the end was something i didnt want to finish just cause it was awesome to have everyone there. loved it

I always loved how W3 had the campaign menus with the characters and the background adjusted for it. I have no idea why Belizzard refuses to use the thing they created! Just make a glossary or campaign menu where you can pick ANY expansion then select the story campaigns to start it or continue, just like you did 30 years ago Belizz!

@MatthewTheWanderer

7 ай бұрын

Warcraft III was 20 years ago not 30, lol.

@PhenomRom

7 ай бұрын

@@MatthewTheWandererit might’ve been 40

@MatthewTheWanderer

7 ай бұрын

@@PhenomRom no

as a person who hasnt played wow since the middle of the patch before the last of SL, it was nuts and nearly overwhelming. all the quests all at once, including all the quests for each patch and everything else with it. it was nuts

Appreciate that your merch prices aren't outrageous, I might actually be able to afford something. Great video as always.

Well said man if a seasoned player like yourself had this much confusion just getting to the right quest when returning imagine how a new player must feel, my wife has been playing for 8 years, and my best friend has been playing for 14 they are both lost as all hell and too discouraged to do anything without my guidance (been playing 18yrs).

Calling Iridicron Iridi-diddi is a moooooood. Great video Tali and Evi especially love the squarespace ads. They are basically the only ad spots I ever stay to watch. ❤

As someone who jumped in after Blizzcon and tried to follow the story chronologically, I'm so happy you spoke about the mess of quests when you finish 10.0 content. I immediately grabbed everything, and ended up doing things completely out of order, the story immediately became a jumbled mess.

@dr.zoidberg8666

7 ай бұрын

I wonder if they were caught off guard when players came back for 10.2 instead of for 11.0 -- because we know they have the ability to do the "Do the story? Or jump to the end?" They did that with Shadowlands threads of fate.

The ending cinematic should've been something like: *After the final phase of the fight when Fyrakk is defeated by the player base, he's on a knee, wounded, holding himself up by his axe. The player base is shown unfocused at the bottom on the screen so that it can represent all of us in the moment. He's there, wounded and angry, but not yet finished. He stands, enraged that he is once again stalled in his efforts, and begins to growl at all present: "You think you have won? You think you saved your precious tree and that these 'Aspects' will protect you here after? No, you have not. You will be LIT ABLAZE IN FIRE AND SHADOW! YOUR ASHES AND BONES WILL BUILD MY THRONE AS I RULE THIS WORLD!" *He then transforms into his dragon form once more, and then everything around us becomes ablaze, all of our efforts seem to be for naught, and as he cackles maniacally during his build up of a ultimate flame breath, it seems like we are done for. He lets loose his power and RIGHT AS IT SEEMS LIKE IT WILL KILL US, Alextrasza jumps in front of us and briefly stops an contain his fire breath with all the power she can muster. But it is too much, and when it seems like it will overwhelm her, then jumps in Merithra, and then Kalecgos, and then Nozdormu, and then Ebyssian. All join in to help in stopping Fyrakk's fire breath. But it so powerful, that it may seem like it will overwhelm them.... Until.. Their eyes begin to glow, being recognized by Azeroth herself, for their sacrifice in trying to save us champions, she grants them the return of their Aspect powers and at that very moment, their combined efforts was enough to push back his fire breath and and smack it right into his face, defeating him finally, and we all get to see him basically become aflame of his own fire and die within it. Then end.* Or something like that, idk, I'm not a game storyteller

with your option of choice, auto complete with no rewards all prior quests so they dont show up with a disclaimer that you wont receive any rewards for the quests but it will clear your map. Give nozdormu an option to bring back those quests if you chose the option to remove them from visibility prior.

So true about the cinematics

Glad I'm not the only one who actually starts to feel nostalgic to how good BFA was storywise, music was god-tier, still listen to bfa zone's ambience music on KZread! Drustvar is still my favourite questing experience in wow, played since TBC 2007 :)

As someone who started the expansion and came back later I was definitely confused where to even pick up from or what came next and just shot straight for Emerald Dream. But even after I still felt lost on story and where to backtrack at to see content I missed without looking up a list of patches and what quests to start. The idea of having the option to pick continuing the main story in order and eliminating unnecessary map spam or jumping into current content would be a great start.

12:30 I 100% Agree Tali, the Prerendered cutscenes should be the emotional reward for beating the final boss of each raid.

As a returning player (i played a little at the start of DF), i found the returning experience to be overwhelming, like you described. I ended up getting to the 10.2 randomly, but now am doing story quests out of order. So, save the world tree, and then did the story quest that explain that there was a world tree.

I heard that Outer Wilds music in there, Taliesen...I heard it. Good on ya.

Okay Tali, first, I’m gonna need to watch this again cuz I was driving the first time and couldn’t watch that demonstration cinematic you had inserted, but I need to because it sounded awesome AF! I was too busy focusing on the road to get any of the context, but I was getting ‘Optimus Prime monologues at the end of the movie’ levels of epicness vibes, and I totally need to put a face to it. Second, the part where you suggested giving the option to either do the storyline or skip to the max level content? Isn’t that what Shadowlands did, and everyone hated it? Isn’t that what Dragonflight was supposed to fix?

I'm glad you DID talk about the returning player experience, I skipped a patch or so (Zaralek was so...so boring and claustrophobic for me...) and came back and even THAT was a lot. And when Pyromancer came back, he had to make an excel spreadsheet to figure out what order to do the story in.

Best expansion ever, especially for world content, looking forward to AI in dungeons (lfr one day). Raid boost has totally confused a returning friend and my advice was take a Shadowland alt and lvl it up! I also introduce him to events at the rate of 2 to 4 a day. He did the Emerald Dream campaign, now is doing Zaralek and is yet to start the Obsidian quests: how can anything make sense? I love the solution offered: guide the campaigns in chronological order or skip to present content. Another problem is rares no longer made relevant and disappearing after 15 min in Zaralek, so now 8 weeks ago is "older content": what a waste. Crafting being RNG and depending on chats is also a no-no as well as many players asking max rank with no mats and 1 to 100 gold not covering the thousands of golds in mats. However in comparison to SL it's day and night (life and death?), so they are heading in the right direction and players are slowly returning.

merry chrismas and happy new year to you guys!!

I was very surprised at how much Tali's BG3 character looked like him lol

20:03 I just came back with the BlizzCon news after leaving near the start of Shadowlands. Made a Dracthyr and got to about 64 and decided to use my boost on a new charater, and now it's just so confusing on any character I play there lmao.

I hadn't bought Dragonflight prior to buying the expansion+boost from the Black Friday sale. It's every bit as confusing as you say. But I'll let you in on a little secret: They do this every expansion, dump massive numbers of questlines on latecomers and tell them to do them all at once. I've said they need to have available a freaking flow chart. So they saved a few hundred dollars and there's players like me who aren't even doing DF content besides events. And trying to learn the dungeons. Well, at least I managed to get honor gear. I look at the map and see dozens of quest markers and go do old content.

I'm a returning player, stopped not too long after getting to level 70... and the best part is that there is a 35 active quest limit which is very easy to hit just by wandering through Valdraken

If they could nail down a storyline and stick to it, we'd probably get way more high budget cinematics. That's what I'm hopeful for. Not just the high-fidelity trailer ones, but even the in-game cinematics would look better with more time to produce them. That can only happen if they know for absolute sure the systems people aren't going to throw a wrench in and force a story change.

I recently had some friends return to the game and the boosted char experience is shocking. I never did a boost, so i couldnt guide them properly either- its a nightmare. I have no idea what the process behind the scenes is, but im stunned there wasnt just a priority list available! Its nuts

to be fair, Shadowlands did manage to keep the returning/alt players a nice option to choose how to start the expansion, either follow the storyline or choose which zone to play. i can't remember how the maxlvl questline went once you got there as a fresh character.

I came back to WoW last week after having not played since the end of BFA. You couldn't be more right regarding the quests. I was completely lost. I've done them all now, but I very neatly turned the game off I was that overwhelmed. Heck, I'm still lost regarding a bunch of other systems, but I figure I'll get there in due course.

2 days late but I think the pacing is also important. One fun adventure expansion and then one big war event expansion would be a lovely way to play. Give breathing room for Dragonflight style fun in between big threatening events.

Tali, why are noone talking about the fact that Azeroth is breaking apart in the logo thing? Also the planet stops its rotation on Kalimdor, normally it keeps turning. Get on it Tali.

I came back in July, I had quit during Shadowlands, and once I hit 70 there was almost too much to do. At first I thought it was better than having too little to do, but there really has to be a happy medium going forward. I'm still finding new things I hadn't seen/done before.

beyond my other comments and happy to you yall are known enough to make a difference, and this little video might just do it. these are the simple suggestions needed to really put he cherry on top of world of warcraft.

Re: the lack of clear order of campaign quests for returning players, I thought of another question - is there an addon that gives you an estimate of how many minutes each questchain will take (either skipping text speed runs/slow reading lore runs)? Often I dread staring quest chains as I don't know how long it will take and I've got Stuff To Do.

I just came back a few weeks ago. It's been a very good experience. When I tried coming back during tier 2 instantly quit as soon as i unlocked the underground area. Just seemed overwhelimg with all the quests. But this tier has been great and much easier.

I came back to wow in the middle of season 2 after several years gone… I still haven’t done all the quests and still have no idea what order they’re supposed to be done in.

Returning and new players need A LOT of love and attention. The story of previous expansions needs an IN GAME way for you to get the basic idea of what happened in those expansions. As you mentioned they could do much better on the first character you play through with directing you to the flow of the main story quests and not just plop multiple on the map at once.

1000% agree on returning player experience. I played 10.0 and loved it, but a year ago, half my mythic plus group had their first child and ended their wow time. I ended up stopping too, but just had some time off at Christmas and decided to come back. I spent 5 minutes in Valdrakken, wasn't really sure what was the current stuff and just logged out.