Party sync and replaying quests in 8.2.5 PTR

Blizzard published development notes for patch 8.2.5 PTR, the new Goblin and Worgen models are coming in this patch which is nice, and with it both races will get a heritage armor.

The other interesting thing is what Blizzard called an experiment, party sync, a way to make everyone aligned to the same quest state, for example let’s say a friend have an alt with a multi-steps quest, you as a high level player can join your friend in a party and use this new feature to get the same quest.

Also Blizzard is testing replaying quests, an idea some other MMOs offered for a long time, but from the notes it seems like and idea for a group not for solo players, too early to judge that, but a high level player can replay a low level quest and get useful rewards.

Another idea is “relaxing level restrictions on queueing for instanced content with your friends.” which allow high level players to join low level players in a queue for dungeons, but a high level player may lose some high level abilities temporarily when they do that.

So what Blizzard is trying to do here is making leveling with friends easier, it does not matter if you are a high level player and they are playing a low level character, you can make a group with them, sync the quests and join dungeons together.

That is nice.

I’m hoping that Blizzard make most quests replay-able for solo players, there should be a cool down for these quests so players don’t stick to one zone and repeat it over and over.

Things i wanted to do in WoW

We are getting closer to Classic WoW and i’m getting more excited by it, i thought i’ll play SWTOR and leave Classic for later this year, but as always i’m indecisive, i’ll know what i’m going to do when Classic is released, probably i’ll get even more excited and i’ll buy subscription and just do it.

As for current WoW, i uninstalled after taking a long walk around Panadria, it was a sad (wistful?) moment, there are things i still want to do.

Heritage armor, after taking two alts to level 110 to get Heritage armor (Void elf and Lightforged) i lost any motivation to do the same for other races, i like these armors and i think they look cool but the way to get them is not rewarding.

I wish Blizzard will lower the required level to 60 or even 40, because i want to use the armor while i’m leveling not after i’m done with it, this will give me some side quests to break the monotony of leveling.

Collecting banners! i mean taking screenshots for them, i don’t know why i love looking at banners in WoW, the art work is beautiful and each race or faction have its own design, luckily for me some one else already did the job and put all banners in one page.

Leveling Durzzam the pink orc, he is just need 2 levels to reach 90, which means reaching Draenor and leveling faster, i found playing Druzzam fun because i’m trying to go against the game play of WoW, and try to level him without quests.

 

Restarting Nixxle story, he is a goblin hunter, i found playing him fun because i’m trying to roleplay him by writing in his voice, something i never did before, and i liked that.

I want to go back one day to WoW but i want a better PC to do that because as i said before my PC now frustrate me with slow loading and not enough RAM (Thanks Microsoft!).

The WoW Classic counter says 42 days remains, until then i’ll write about SWTOR and other games.

One last walk in Pandaria

It’s been a while since i opened Battle.net app, there was an unclaimed gift for me, 3 free days of WoW, that was nice of you Blizzard, you hope people like me will login to remember how much they love the game then resubscribe.

I miss the game, not playing WoW feels like leaving home and not coming back, no matter how long you are away you’ll always miss your home.

So logging in i did, i miss everything about this game, my main was there in the middle of my favorite place in WoW, Halfhill Market, with a mixed gear because you can’t get this look on mail gear, i have to buy the blue overall and equip it.

 

First thing i did was walking around Valley of Four Winds, SWTOR almost made me forget mounts, i walked to the world boss place where other players are standing around waiting for it to spawn, killed it, no mount, then went Isle of Giant to do the same, also no mount drop from Oondasta.

Try it, in your favorite zone walk around without a mount, you’ll notice new details, it’s like real life, whoever is walking will pay more attention to the world around them compared to someone driving a car.

I thought about coming back to WoW, how do i feel about reputation grind? the world quests? new zones? i didn’t feel excited by most of this, i want to explore Mechagon but that’s not enough.

So What can i do with free 3 days? i thought i’ll talk a screenshot walk (like a Photowalk) around Pandaria, starting from Paw’don Village and walk without a mount or swimming, see where i can go.

Here is some of the screenshots:

The journey started here

Hozen “art”

Jinyu art, looks funny, 50% head and tiny tail

Did they upgrade Jinyu models?

I wish i can put offering here, or take some!

The size of this gate is impressive

To training ground

Crimson Peony vs White Orchid

Syra Goldendraft and Lo Wanderbrew, i liked their quest line.

Staring contest

Smiling Waiyu offered banana and an onion!

Noah and Maximo, funny kids

spooky woods

How did you reach there?!

Eagles playing with sheeps

ex-sheep

Binan Village … beautiful

Protecting Grummles

Reaching the other end of Pandaria

Walking in real life or in games is soothing, it gives the mind a space to think without interupption, it gives you a chance to look at things, to notice new details, to see people and maybe say hi and good morning.

That’s why i love games like Dear Esther, Journey and Everyone gone to rapture, while other games give me fun and entertaining these games speaks to my soul, it’s an experience that i can’t put in words.

That’s why i wish to see walking as a content in MMOs, once a year you walk from this point to this point, no mounts allowed, no teleportation, in a way players do that with Gnome runs, but i want more.

I saved the Republic and all i get is this lousy sign

One class storyline is done, seven to go, and what do i get for that? a sign for my house! not complaining here, i like the sign and i can now do the next chapters in the story line which is shared between all classes or level other classes, i’ll probably do both.

My main is a Cyborg smuggler and the class have a buff, 5% crit chance, at level 50 i unlocked many cosmetic choices for Cyborgs, which means if i make a new Cyborg character i’ll have more options for devices to put on the character face.

After Chapter 2 of class storyline i unlocked the Smuggler buff for all other classes, each class have it’s own buff but now when they use their own buff they’ll see another one, and the more classes finish their storylines the more buffs all the alts gets.

I like how SWTOR deal with alts, they all share:

• Legacy storage space.
• Reputation with factions, no need to grind those on each alt.
• buffs.
• Achievements.
• Housing.

At least i feel that leveling 8 characters is useful since each class have a unique storyline and each class will provide a useful buff for other alts.

Anyway, i’m far from done with the Smuggler, there are expansions to play, i’m just done with the first storyline.