Beta Bits

I finally got in some beta time on Sunday. Here are a few impressions.

  • Prophet Velen is all powerful now, and he’s using that power to troll everyone.
  • His words inspire, but they also cause massive lag and disconnects, and he won’t shut up.
  • This bug really needs to be fixed. It doesn’t just affect Shadow Moon Valley. It affects all of Draenor.
  • City portals now pulsate. They grow and shrink. I find it distracting and annoying, and unnecessary. If you really want to change portals, how about making it harder for Mages to troll the party?
  • Pets are a little buggy right now. My wolf “wandered off” at one point and I had to quest without a pet for a while. I couldn’t dismiss, revive, heal, or call. Nothing would work.
  • Things die very quickly while questing, so even without a pet it’s pretty easy.
  • I forgot to copy Darkbrew over with the Garrosh bow and I can’t mail it to him from another character. I get an error.
  • I’m curious to see how the Garrosh bow scales up each level and how it compares to my heroic, err… Mythic weapon. I have the flex, err… Heroic heirloom.
  • We really have been squished. It’s weird seeing such small stat numbers on gear now. We’re still powerful, but it looks weird.
  • Hit and Expertise are indeed gone and they’ve been replaced with Crit and Haste on gems and gear.
  • If you’re a new 90 you will get some nice starter gear from the intro. event.
  • I’ve read War Crimes and now done the intro event. It’s still not clear what Garrosh has been up to. I guess that will be unveiled as we level up and play this expansion.
  • The intro event was fun and it’s where I tamed my void wolf, Haze.
  • Void wolves look amazing. I’m afraid to get attached as it’s not clear if they’re intended to be tameable or not. I’ve reach out to Muffinus for clarification.

  • Shadow Moon Valley may be the prettiest zone ever created in WoW. I hope the other zones are equally impressive.
  • The new character models are incredible. It’s not just players that are updated, it’s all the NPCs. This is good because I spend the majority of time looking at my character from behind.
  • Blizzard really needs to give players a free customization when the expansion launches.
  • Addons are currently disabled in the beta.
  • You don’t realize how dependent you become on them until you don’t have them.
  • One of the addons I rely on is OminiCC. I’ve used it for years. It’s functionality is now built into the game and is an option you can turn on. Another addon bites the dust.
  • I mostly miss not having my action bar, unit frames and bag addons. If I could have those, I’d be very happy right now.
  • Garrisons are shaping up to be a great feature. I’m intrigued.
  • Then end of this expansion is a long way off, but I suspect I’ll be sad to leave my Garrison in the next expansion.

3 Comments on “Beta Bits”

  1. As you’re setting up the non-custom UI, have many of the features seemed helpful? I’ve been somewhat looking forward to needing less addons. Are the action bars as customizable as they were with addons like Bartender? Any updates to unit frames?

    Also, I’m happy to see Velen trolling everyone. He should be bitter that he’s not in charge of the alliance. Though instead of bugging out, i’d rather see him trash talking in /2. I so desperately want to kill that dirty rotten no-good dastardly tyrant varian wrynn and see Velen take over.

    1. I haven’t looked at all the interface options, but as far as I can tell you can’t move bars around like you can with an addon like Dominos or Bartender. The CD text was the major change.

      No changes to unit frames. There is a separate option to set your graphics for when you’re in a raid. That’s kind of nice.

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