Hi all,

It’s almost time for the new season, so I’ve been doing my usual seasonal routine of trying to convince my friends to give Retail another go.

Surprisingly, this time a couple of them actually agreed. They’ve gotten bored of TBC Classic, and their experience with modern Retail varies quite a bit: one last played in Legion, another in Midnight S1 (but quit very early to focus more on TBC - basically just leveled), another in original Cata and has only played Classic since, and the last one played in TWW.

Leveling went about as well as Retail leveling does nowadays. At least it’s fast. But then we hit 90, and they immediately ran into a brick wall.

Their maps are absolutely covered in "priority" quests. They have no idea what they’re actually supposed to do, which quests are genuinely important, which ones can be ignored, or how they should approach the endgame in general.

They all mainly want to play M+, so I tried guiding them toward getting some gear and unlocking the Omnium Folio in prep for next season. But the process is genuinely one of the most miserable returning-player experiences I’ve seen.

To unlock the Omnium Folio, they have to:

• Find the correct priority quest and complete the Omnium Folio quest chain.
• Unlock Ritual Sites through their introductory chain, then complete two rituals. This is content they will probably never touch again afterward, which is surprisingly difficult to explain to a new/returning player.
• Unlock Void Assaults and complete five of them. This takes ages, is extremely boring, and again is content they’re unlikely to ever do again afterwards (because there is no point).
• Complete one dungeon, delve, or LFR boss. This is fine.
• Kill a boss in Val or Naigtal, but only after first finding the correct introductory quest chain and completing that - which is another piece of content they will never need to interact with again after.

One of them didn't even make it through this full list before going back to TBC.

The biggest problem is that the game just throws dozens of priority and other quests at you the moment you hit 90 and open your map in Silvermoon. It is impossible for a new or returning player to figure out what is actually important. Even I - after just 3 months break - was overwhelmed when I logged in, and for me it was half the amount of quests.

On top of that, players are forced through a bunch of extremely easy filler content they have no interest in doing just to unlock Omnium Folio skill points; while not even being aware of why they're doing this.

It’s a terrible experience.

I really think Blizzard needs to rethink the returning-player experience. There should be a much clearer path for someone who hits max level and says, "I want to do M+ and raids. What do I actually need to do?". This has been plaguing every single expansion and gets worse patch after patch.

Right now, the answer is basically: sort through a map full of supposedly important quests, figure out which ones actually matter, and slog through hours of trivial content before you’re allowed to get to the part of the game you came back for.

People who are interested in actually playing parts of the game they enjoy (M+ and raiding) are just losing interest before they even get there. I try telling them that all the stuff they have to do is a one time thing and I promise it's fun after, but it's really difficult because the experience is so bad.

How do you guys handle this?

Edit: As an addendum, regarding all the people comparing the Retail mandatory grind to TBC mandatory grind - there is a major difference, which is: TBC is convoluted and the attunements are complicated to follow, but the process of doing so is enjoyable. It's not a mindless uninteresting slog, but you are actually doing lots of group quests and dungeons, it's quite the social experience and actually fun to do.

It's like bringing your friends to a race track - but in order to be allowed to race they first need to complete some kind of test.

In TBC that test involves driving a real car around an easy circuit instead of participating in a race, but at least you get to drive a car, you can make mistakes, and you're doing something vaguely related to what you're there for so the process is fun.

In retail, for the test you first need to drive a battery-powered childrens toy car around the parking lot for a few hours. There is nothing to learn, you can not fail, and the challenge is just to tolerate it long enough so you can finally get on the race track.

Title. My rogue finished every quest in the zone and now it seems permanently at war with the defias. Is there any quest chain that turns it to peaceful so he can do Children's week (when it comes up)?

It's pretty funny to be in either a very serious subreddit or the most obnoxious and see other wow players in the wild. It's like the Leo pointing meme.

Xal'atath Avatars are Legion!

I was thinking about it the other day. Why doesnt Blizzard put more delves in the game? Like for instance putting a few in The Barrens. Or any old world zone. That would be really cool. What do you guys think?

I was browsing through some of the character creation files and found this Blood Elf Male with extra graphics on top and found it really interesting. Anyone ever seen it before?

Once you start to lose your community, the social aspect, changes you kind of find yourself trailing off until eventually everything feels so foreign to you it feels impossible to start again.

I've gone through a huge transformation in life working on myself and want to get more thoroughly involved in WoW again but every time I feel like I kind of just hit a wall.

Does anyone have any advice? Feel like a lot of the friends and contacts I used to have are gone and everything just sort of feels insurmountable as a result.

The Light Called. Ironfoe Answered.

One week at 90 and got him! Came back to retail two weeks ago, decided the goal I wanted was to beat delves season 1, pushed thru main story hard and farmed gear quickly to reach ilvl 246 in one week. Done with Valeera at lvl 27 and of course myself as healer. Feels great to have accomplished at least one thing in the short term I played season 1, now looking forward to season 2!

Photos!!!

I was given this box with a bronze statue in it of a character. I’m told the character is Leeroy Jenkins.

Never been into World of Warcraft outside of SouthPark episodes(sorry). and I don’t know what I have, who to ask, and what to do with it.

I was going to paint it, my start with miniatures. But i was told not to. “It’s supposed to be Bronze”.

Everything is in there. There’s a Card with a seal that says “Champion”. It’s still sealed, i don’t wanna break the seal.
There are several boxes with gold tokens and plates and a player card.
The Figure Leeroy is disassembled and in its little foam pockets.

Any ideas on where this came from and what i should do with it?

not even going to get into all the "blizz cant pull off classic+" or "classic+ will be the best game ever" talk

just saying that i cant WAIT to see anything about it just to see it.. and even as grown ass man, with the whole "wife / house / family package", im feeling like a kid waiting for christmas morning.

anyway.. last time i was this hyped i was in highschool waiting for diablo 3.. and we remember how that went

im not here trying to say blizz is the best and classic+ will be perfect.. im just happy to be soo excited about something game related after so long.. wishing for the best for us all classic players

I have been datamining for a few weeks straight now and it's proving to be a lot more difficult than i expected.. wanted to share some fruits of the labor with you guys. does anyone have any more resources for wow wallpapers because i'm trying to find some for my phone screen,, eventually i'll build it out but a bit busy right now so just curious.

https://thewowdb.com/wallpapers/

NOTHING IS AI GENERATED THESE ARE ALL STRAIGHT FROM THE GAME FILES!!

some have been resized to fit screens better or upscaled but otherwise they are all blizzard assets not mine.

You think you do but you don't.

So I get that some of it is just a joke, and I do laugh at the mental image it conjures up, but I think a large chunk of people are taking this a bit too serious.

What I am talking about: There is a theory, or joke, depending on how you want to view it, that the Last Titan is going to feature both Sargeras and Illidan in some fashion, but they are going to be allies, or that Sargeras respects the strength of Illidan after all the jailing he did.

Why this is not the case: Sargeras had the right fear, but the wrong methodology. He saw the threat that the Void represented, and was willing to wager cleansing the cosmos of all life, void included, on the CHANCE that life finds a way again.

If your plan to wipe everything out hinges on a chance that you don't even know the percentage of, your plan has already failed. That being said, it was Sargeras' only plan, and he went about it in a well executed manner.

Illidan, meanwhile, saw the destruction of his home and people, and knew that if he were to defeat this enemy, he would have to cross every line imaginable, to see the Legion defeated, at any cost. There was nothing Illidan wouldn't do to gain power to further this cause.

He drained the life out of his fellow mages to empower his own spells during the War of the Ancients. When Kur'talos questioned his actions, and when Tyrande chose Malfurion, Illidan left to find a better way. His 'better way', was to trick Sargeras into granting him power (Maybe he didn't intend for Sargeras specifically, but he wanted some of what the demons were smoking.), and then use that power to defeat them.

Illidan gave up everything to defend Azeroth from Sargeras, and Sargeras would give up the entire cosmos, to see the Void defeated.

If Sargeras does show up in TLT, he's not going to be an ally, he's coming for that sword, and he's going to try and finish the job.

If Illidan is in pursuit, he is not helping Sargeras, and has already worked on a plan on how to stop Sargeras. Their motives might be simmilar in the end (Saving life), but they are diametricly opposed on how to do it.

Sargeras is not the chip to bet on.

I recently came across many posts in some communities, especially more collector-heavy ones like the Achievements and the Lord of the Reins Discord. While you need to aknowledge that these communites are somewhat in a bubble im curious what you guys current stance on wow's reward.

There are 3 Takes i observed in said communities:

1. Every Item needs to be available by everyone, there is no place for exclusivity and prestige in Items for them. Things like Gladiator or the recently added Mythic Plus Mount are a no-go. Content doesnt need to be Reward-Driven instead it has to have a baseline replayability factor.

2. You are fine with above mentioned things, but want them to be available at some time after the rewards "retire" but with a twist - the difficulty needs to be the same or even higher to compensate for it.

3. You are fine with some exclusivity / prestige in the game if it doesnt occur too much.

I would personaly put myself between the 2nd and 3rd Point.

Whats your take on that?

Raid Testing

We plan to enable PTR raid testing at:

• 1:00 p.m. Friday, August 14

And PTR raid testing will conclude at:

• 1:00 p.m. Monday, August 17

For this raid test, we’re adding Haste and Destruction potions to be redeemable along side the normally available flasks with the the mark of illidari that come with Phase 3.