If i was a betting man, i would risk 1€ in Classic MoP release for 2nd quarter 2025. Classic cataclysm will be shorter than wrath was. Cataclysm has 3 tiers while wrath had 4, less boss than wrath overall plus Blizzard has hinted that don’t want cataclysm to overstay its welcome like the first time around. While classic wrath lasted 18 months, i think classic cata will last about 12-14 month.
I disagree however on the quality of the content. Cata raid and dungeon are top quality. Loaded with mechanic, requiring strategy and execution, and very thematic.
For all its quality, i found MoP weird. A giant rabbit pushing its giant carrot in dungeon does nothing for me. Which is weird, MoP touches some very mature topic, like fear, hatred, zenophobia. The first zone even intruduces you to what could be seen as warcrimes. Those are very mature topic, but the presentation is goofy and childish. I don’t know what to think of MoP
Exclude Al’akir HC from that and I 100% agree… We’re just 1 month in and that boss is already giving me headaches (mostly due to P1 being a total mess).
The problem with Cata in my opinion is the last patch. Currently we’re in the best phase of Cata, I think. Firelands is a solid patch aswell, but not as good as this one. And while I enjoy the last patch 5 man dungeons, Dragon Soul as a raid is meh… atleast from my memory.
In a perfect world, this current patch would be prolonged together with Firelands, and Dragon Soul patch would be on the shorter side. But unfortunately I believe we’re gonna be stuck with Dragon Soul for the longest when Blizz is working on a possible MoP Classic.
While Dragon Soul isn’t the greatest raid ever, the main issue with it was (like with pretty much every last raid of an expansion) that it simply went on way too long, as people were stuck with Dragon Soul for around a year. This obviously isn’t going to be a thing this time around.
I really enjoy cata and I enjoy it more than Wotlk. The raids is fun and interesting. Gearing feels good and questing is nice. I have leveled in Vanilla zones, tbc and wotlk zones to death. So getting ready to level a new char in new zones with new story is making me very excited.
Just gonna get my warrior fully geared first.
A 25 man raiding guild, yes. Currently 10/13 heroic. Both my previous raiding guilds died in mid/late WotLK, so I was guildless for about 6-7 months (basically majority of ICC patch), and found a freshly started one just in time for Cata launch.
My main server, Firemaw, is doing really well. According to ironforge.pro, the current numbers from mid june are the highest since may 2022.
As for your server, Mirage Raceway, it seems to be at its highest number since august 2023 (sometime during ToGC I believe).
Doesn’t look empty at all to me. Was expecting you to be alone basically, but there are loads of players on that picture?
Also, if you want overcrowded, there are several servers with a higher population than Mirage Raceway. You choosing to play on one of the lesser populated ones is not really the games fault.
Well that’s not true, compare the first patch between Cata and Wrath, it’s not even close, Cata wipes the floor with Wrath Naxx is arguably the worst opening raid that any version of the game has had, it was on farm from week 1. It’s only saving grace was OS3D.
Was needed, god wrath sucked without it. Cata isn’t vanilla, stop treating it as such, it’s not the same game and Classic Era is still around if you want that experience. Also how are you saying this is bad and then saying that it’s good that you capped 4 chars thanks to RDF!?
Yes it does, wdym?
Also how are you saying the zones are bad and then saying you didn’t do them?
I will agree on this, but it also means I can play more alts so I’m not that mad at it. But, if you only play one main, I can see why people would get bored, outside of your weekly raids and heroics, there’s not a lot to do once you’ve done all the rep, got what you need from TB that is.
Are you on a dead server? Firemaw is packed day and night. Like was stated above, it’s not the games fault if you chose a quiet server.
You REALLY think that? With Cata bugs & nonfunctional features?
Do you think it’s an entirely different dev team for mop? Its the same people who made cata. If you find Cata buggy mess, MoP will be even worse, with alot shorter dev time and bug testing.
The guy who rants about cata in 15+ topics, thinks cata raids are bad, wow im surprised.
No they’re not. Theres like 20+ groups on pyrewood recruiting for raids everyday. Have only gone up since cata came out, as people can start focusing on alts.
Mmyeah. Imo it’s mostly P1 being annoying. I haven’t looked into the exact numbers on our logs, but my guess is that the vast majority of our whipes have been between 95-80%.
It’s just an RNG-fest. There are several abilities that can overlap, and be really punishing if they strike the same position roughly at the same time. It can be outplayed, ofc, but it can get real bad real fast. If the abilities strike different parts of the platform though, it’s smooth sailing. You just never know what you’re gonna get.
I also feel it’s easier to play around the RNG element of P1 in a 10 man setting. Less people means more individual space. There’s a reason why Paragon had 7 people waiting outside of the Al’akir platform the entire P1 on their 25 man kill back in the days. Lightning strike in particular is way easier to handle in 10 man than 25 man.
P1 aside, the rest of the boss fight is alright, though. The last air phase suffers from the same proximity issue as Vashj’ir, I feel. But it’s just something you have to get used to. Our air phases are way more clean now than they were in our first kill week 2.
You are totally right about the RNG. I had wind burst into a tornado that spawned 5yards away. You also have people getting you killed because they can’t sit on their assigned positions and they chain lightning. Ascendant council is the same rng crap. Cata relies on RNG to make things difficult which is cheap.
Yeah. The RNG also makes it so you can’t truly have it on farm mode (atleast not us it seems, I’m sure guilds like Progress can though). There are several heroic bosses on farm status we consistently oneshot at this point (Magmaw, Chimaeron, Atramedes, Halfus etc). But as for Al’akir, we got our first kill after 17 whipes. After that, we’ve still whiped to him a total of 65 times, spread out over 3 resets (that includes a week of having a really scuffed setup though). There’s no other farm-status boss this far in this tier that causes us that amount of whipes, not even close.
Can’t speak for Council though, we haven’t even attempted that boss yet. But it is probably the boss we’re going for next.
Eventually all bosses go on farm because of the gear bloat. Al Akir phase 1 becomes very short because of the extra dps so the bad RNG is lessened.
Council is RNG especially in phase 2 because you might have a twister spawn next to or fly over a grounding vortex which means that if you try to get the buff you’re screwed. Or grounding vortex spawns on you and you’re slowed so you won’t get the twister buff on time. Or you run to get the twister/grounding vortex debuff but you get the Lightning Rod debuff which means that you either chain kill people or just sit in the corner and die. It’s really bad. Horrible game design solely attributed to RNG reliance for difficulty.
Cata is the start of everything that classic community hates about retail wow so obviously it’s the worst “classic” expansion.
I stopped playing wow 15y ago when Cata was released and so far looks like I will stop playing classic on Cata again.
At least 15y ago I switched to other great Blizz game SC2 and later D3 (yes it was great before they nerfed everything). Now Blizz is ded so it’s time to start playing hundreds of other games I have in my Steam/EGS/GOG/Game Pass libraries lol.
We’re just 1 month in and that boss is already giving me headaches (mostly due to P1 being a total mess).
Naxx is arguably the worst opening raid that any version of the game has had, it was on farm from week 1. It’s only saving grace was OS3D.