WoW Petopia Community

I'd probably run from a walking shark with a laser on its head.

Run.......no. I will not run. I WILL KILL IT WITH FIRE.

The tooltip for the seahorse says swim speed +280%, but because it's swim speed its not as fast as a +280% mount. Not nearly ...

More on underwater movement: After the initial couple of quests, you can walk along the bottom of the ocean at a normal running speed (and speed buffs work normally). You can also ride ground mounts and get the normal ground mount speed boost along the bottom, although I'm not sure if that's intended.

When you leave the bottom of the ocean, you start to swim. (This is very disconcerting the first few times you try to jump over an obstacle because you never come down again.) You also swim faster than normal, although I can't tell if it's as fast as a normal running speed. It feels slow, but then I don't like swimming. And so far as I can tell, ground mounts don't help at all while swimming. (Also my pony has a very awkward swim animation. His ankles turn out.)

There are also small areas where the ocean effects don't apply -- namely when you are transitioning from 'land' (ships and underwater caves) to ocean. In these areas you'll pop up a breath meter and be unable to walk underwater. But these are just slivers and so this is no more than an annoyance.

The breathing, walking and increased swim speed only apply in Vashj'ir. (Side note: The map for Vashj'ir is broken up into a couple of zone maps, so it's really not clear to me if it's one zone or three. But Blizzard seems to consider it one zone.) You can ride the seahorse in any water, however, much like the sea turtle mount.

The ocean floor is not at all flat -- there are a lot of cliffs and coral spires and deep chasms and whatnot -- and even on the flatter bits there are a lot of obstacles, so you spend a lot of time swimming. There is a lot of vertical content as well. For example, a quest might have you killing crabs on the bottom, then the next quest sends you after sharks who swim above that, then the next quest sends you closer to the surface to kill orca. (And for each quest you're watching the layers above and below you carefully.)

The vast majority of the content is deep underwater. The shallowest parts, at the beginning of the zone (and not including the underwater caves) are probably ... <mentally estimating> ... 100 feet below the surface? You'll do a few quests that are closer to the surface, but most of the zone is probably closer to 300 feet down and the deep chasms as probably pushing 600 feet down, so 'closer to the surface' is a relative term. (The deep chasms terrify me -- I am scared of getting trapped down there, nevermind the faceless.)

My opinion?

• I tend to think giving you some way to breath down there was absolutely necessary, although I probably would not have implemented it as a flat effect that you get almost immediately. (Ironically, perhaps, I think gillyweed from the gilgoblins would be a perfect consumable component.)
• Similarly with increased swim speed. Necessary, could have been made more interesting.
• Walking on the bottom of the ocean is a weird compromise that is supposed to make underwater questing more accessible to people like me who can't handle true 3D content. Unfortunately because so much of the content is in vertical layers, it doesn't help me much at all. (And the first part of the zone is the worst -- I almost gave up in the first half hour.)

If I were Blizzard, I probably would have ditched the notion of an underwater zone entirely. It's interesting ... but as one of two intro zones to a new expansion -- one of the two places that hordes of people will be channeled for the month after launch -- it may just turn off too many players, forcing them into Hyjal and lagging the hell out of everything. I love the visuals, I love many of the quests (naga visions FTW!) but getting through the zone was pretty painful for me.

Argh. I should just give up the blog and point people to my overly long posts here.

That does sound like a headache, Mania. I'm the same way with underwater quests. Not only does the dimensional aspect disorient me, but I don't care for deep water in the first place. Even in video games it makes me uneasy (The chasms you mention...dear god I won't be able to go near them!), and with things like Whale Sharks swimming around I'm going to be very on edge if I quest there. xD

I'll definitely give it a try, the visuals do look amazing, I'm just not sure if I'll be able to 'cope' well with the mechanics of it.

Hehe, you could always copy your posts here into the Blog and cheat a bit. :3

Lol Mania. =D

Beta is always painful, so I guess you just have to bear with it for now. There's a couple of months to go before it's ready to ship, so hopefully Blizz will smooth things over with the whole underwater theme. In the meantime, seahorse mount!

Hehe, you could always copy your posts here into the Blog and cheat a bit. :3

We will pretend not to notice.

Jangalian wrote:Run.......no. I will not run. I WILL KILL IT WITH FIRE.

Pft.

Jaws > Lazer Shark.

Mirror reflects lazer shark's power. JAWS EATS MIRROR.

D:

@Mania: That actually sounds interesting for me tho. Also hoping Blizz doesn't do a decompression debuff.

Come up to quickly and you explode. Oh what fun >_>

Ryai wrote:@Mania: That actually sounds interesting for me tho. Also hoping Blizz doesn't do a decompression debuff.

Come up to quickly and you explode. Oh what fun >_>

*nod* I know it will appeal to a lot of people. My innate conservativeness in terms of game design is why I never get jobs at 'innovative' game companies.

And oh god, please don't mention the decompression thing to Blizzard!

Mania wrote:

Ryai wrote:@Mania: That actually sounds interesting for me tho. Also hoping Blizz doesn't do a decompression debuff.

Come up to quickly and you explode. Oh what fun >_>

*nod* I know it will appeal to a lot of people. My innate conservativeness in terms of game design is why I never get jobs at 'innovative' game companies.

And oh god, please don't mention the decompression thing to Blizzard!

*uses white out*

What decompression. I see no decompression.

OH LOOK OVER THERE.


WHALE SHARK!

best damn distraction ever

Why would they add decompression? THEY'RE GIVING US THE ABILITY TO KEEP OUR BREATH INDEFINATELY FFS! Decompression is the least of our problems.

Deep breath, Saturo.

Ooh, you know what would have been interesting? That pink breathing goo from the movie The Abyss. Fixes breath and decompression at the same time. The quest givers could give you a not-very-good version to start and you can buy more, or alchemists could make much better stuff.

You're right. Our biggest problem is....THE KRAKEN.

He'll lurk in those deep chasms, waiting to wrap one long sticky suctiony tectacle around you so that he can drag you down to your doom in the icy depths. He'll be like an underwater fel reaver......but, a kraken makes no footsteps. Heh. Heh. Heh.

Mania wrote:Deep breath, Saturo. ;)

I know, I know... Sorry. It just irritates me to no end.

Mania wrote:Ooh, you know what would have been interesting? That pink breathing goo from the movie The Abyss. Fixes breath and decompression at the same time. The quest givers could give you a not-very-good version to start and you can buy more, or alchemists could make much better stuff.

That would be neat... Or Professor Farnsworths pressure pills! (An apple-sized suppository...)

Jangalian wrote:You're right. Our biggest problem is....THE KRAKEN.

He'll lurk in those deep chasms, waiting to wrap one long sticky suctiony tectacle around you so that he can drag you down to your doom in the icy depths. He'll be like an underwater fel reaver......but, a kraken makes no footsteps. Heh. Heh. Heh.

I was actually thinking about some enormous beast living at the bottom of those chasms Mania mentioned. Swim too close, a tentacle comes out and drags you down.

*shudders*

I personaly can't wait for the under sea bits getting abit bored of land if you know what i mean

>D Delicious!

But it would have to be a Pirates of the Caribbean kraken, not the clunky WoW one that shows up in Theramore Bay.

Saturo wrote:Why would they add decompression? THEY'RE GIVING US THE ABILITY TO KEEP OUR BREATH INDEFINATELY FFS! Decompression is the least of our problems.

I thought you were gonna drop it too Saturo :/

And I was JOKING. PLEASE. JOKING.

Joke.

Haha.

As in to laugh mock make fun and just... not gonna bother.

I was actually thinking about some enormous beast living at the bottom of those chasms Mania mentioned. Swim too close, a tentacle comes out and drags you down.

*shudders*

First: C'thun who whispers to you in AQ.
Second: Yogg'saron who whispers and invades your mind in select points of Northrend
Third: Their sibling who DRAGS YOU TO THE ABYSS. And explodes you.

Ryai wrote:

Saturo wrote:Why would they add decompression? THEY'RE GIVING US THE ABILITY TO KEEP OUR BREATH INDEFINATELY FFS! Decompression is the least of our problems.

I thought you were gonna drop it too Saturo :/

And I was JOKING. PLEASE. JOKING.

Joke.

Haha.

As in to laugh mock make fun and just... not gonna bother.

*Sigh*

Do I have to put you two in seperate corners? /hands on hips

Ryai, I think Saturo knew you were joking and was just expressing some continued frustration, not at you specifically.

It's hard to read the subtleties of tone in text. For instance, that last *sigh* could mean any of 10 things, from "You got me!" through "I am playing along in a friendly fashion by pretending to be exasperated," to "I wish I could explain my point better," to "It's not worth talking to you about this."

So my method is to always assume that nothing is personal. (Well, unless I'm personally being called names, I suppose. But that doesn't happen much here.)

Oh! And I found a post for the blog today: Pickaxe-wielding monkeys!