It's not news by now that the Warlords of Draenor launch has been rough for Blizzard, who's managed some very polished expansion releases in the past. We've had queues the like of which we haven't seen since vanilla or BC, crashes, disconnects, bugged out quests and perhaps most damning: the complete implosion of the expansion's main feature, Garrisons. I got lucky in that Cookie and I both ordered retail, and couldn't even play Draenor (Draenic?) content until 10AM yesterday. We missed out on the DDOS because of that and work; got enough behind the leveling pack that we don't have to face the competition, crashes, and sheer dickery that came because of the number of players in one small area; and had a more or less uninterrupted two windows of playtime. The biggest hiccup we ran into was when the garrisons crashed around 3pm EST yesterday and I got stuck RP walking through the terrain on a flight path. But like I said, we had to be to work anyway, so it was probably a good thing.
It kept us from calling out, which would have been bad, not least because the rest of the afternoon and evening was shot to shit by shoddy performance and hackattacks from China. (A guildmate's conspiracy theory is that the Chinese farmers want to slow the progress down in NA and EU so that they can get ahead and then transfer their resources West and make buckets of money off gold sales. I laughed. He's probably not wrong, but it's still laughable.)
I know an expansion's not an easy thing. And like with my calls for patience with ArcheAge's abysmal launch, I'm trying my best to keep an open mind and a level head about all of this. When Cookie and I decided which days to request off, we sort of planned ahead for this- that's why we took Friday/Saturday/Sunday instead of launch day and the days after it. The first day is always the roughest, and I'm guessing when the servers come up here in a little bit things are going to be better. Say what you want about Blizzard CS, they fix shit quickly. With decades' worth of experience supporting multiplayer games, they'd better.
If you'd asked me last night how I felt about Draenor, I probably would have ranted, raged, and rampaged at you about broken this or bugged that. I was pissed. Then again, last night I ran into a quest in Frostwhatever-that-first-zone (too lazy to learn proper names, you should know me by now) that was set up basically as a scenario. Cookie got credit for it, I didn't, and when I found out I couldn't complete it because the game had a set order of operations in mind and I hadn't followed it...
Freya's balls, you would have thought someone beheaded my puppy, pissed on it, and broadcast the whole thing on Al Jazeera. I'd forgotten what tears of rage were like. But I'm not the most...grounded of individuals at four in the morning after a sprint through content. I'm just not.
Anyway, the biggest complaint I've got about all of the Draenor bullshit is really that my free boost to 90 requires that I quest in Tanaan Jungle to get my ablities. If I'd boosted a level one, I could understand treating me like a Deathkinght and making me earn my abilities, but for fuck's sake my rogue was 60. The game TOOK AWAY her skills, left me with three skills, and said GG. No vanish, no cloak of shadows. Hell, no sap or recuperate. What the hell were they thinking when they made that a thing. All of the boosts before Draenor's release, free or otherwise, simply granted you a level ninety like it just popped out of an Easy-Bake Oven. I understand that they couldn't do it that way with the Warlords content not out yet, but... fuckstockings, man. You can't just TAKE THINGS AWAY from someone after they already had them. And seriously? Soloing this shit on a rogue without skills is worse than trying to do it as a holy priest. At least they have fucking smite and can heal themselves. I'm in shitty greens and have no access to any of my abilities or talents. It's a fucking nightmare.
That, imo, is the BIGGEST mistake Blizz made with the launch. Not the Garrisons bugs, not failing to anticipate Every WoW Player Ever coming back for the xpack and anniversary... The motherfucking boosts.
Which reminds me. I need to feedback that shit.
All in all, it's a rough launch, but not as bad as it could have been. The game's still playable, the layout and design of the new zones is kind of cool (if a little Wrathy so far with all the damn snow and cliffs), and I've only had a few instances of OH JESUS GOD WHY OH FUCK GET IT OFF MY FACE because I explored someplace I shouldn't have been. I'm a little disappointed that I can't get ANY upgrades to my gear until like 98, but... ultimately, that's the price for having raid gear. It's a good thing in the long run, because it means the stat inflation won't be as bad as it has been in the past. (Cataclysm, Pandaria...I'm looking at you.)
The After Dark crew is going to be streaming live for most of the day through the weekend, so you've got plenty of opportunities to drop by and say hi.
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