WoW Petopia Community

So the Patch 5.3 PTR was announced earlier this week, and I am currently downloading the files for it as I write this. Patch 5.2 only went live a couple of weeks ago, and its PTR began in January, a mere few weeks after 5.1 was released. Oh, and Mists of Pandaria itself has only been available since October! Whew! Ladies and Gentlemen, content in WoW's fourth expansion has been coming at a breakneck pace, and I'm not entirely sure I like it.

I'm a slow player, in all honesty. I like to take my time and explore, do lots of quests, level professions, and generally just take my sweet time. I play WoW largely to relax, and for me, racing through everything as quickly as possible is not relaxing. I also have a pretty hard limit to the amount of time I can spend playing before I start to go stir crazy and really need to get up and do something else. That isn't conducive to rapidly completing things like daily-based rep grinds. So for me, I'm a little disappointed by the short spaces between new content being released. It kind of stresses me out, makes me feel like I need to play more, and harder, to keep up. I realize that feeling is all in my own head, but it doesn't stop me from wishing I had, oh, maybe two extra weeks before the 5.3 PTR was announced!

Of course my wonderful bosses are quick to remind me that content for WoW equals content for WoW Insider. In that regard I would like to thank Blizzard for helping keep us writers employed and providing us with a steady source of material. So it's not all bad that patches are coming quickly. It's just overwhelming at times. It also makes me wonder how long Mists of Pandaria, as an expansion, will last. If patch 5.3 is in testing now, we can probably expect to see it live in June sometime. We already know that 5.4 will contain the Orgrimmar raid, so if the patches continue to release as they have been, we can likely expect to see that in September-October, almost exactly a year after Mists release. Then, what, 6.0 in December? That doesn't seem right! Blizzard has a track record of announcing the new expansions at Blizzcon, and Blizzcon isn't happening until early November.

Clearly, thinking about this any more will only result in further confusion as I lack the clairvoyance to read any developer's mind and attempt to layer assumption upon assumption. Still, I personally would have been slightly more comfortable with just a couple more weeks before the 5.3 PTR. What about you?

Bulletdance wrote:I think its a good pace for patches. I have a few reps and other older things I'd like to do, but I'd rather have more things to do than be forced to do them because there isn't any better option. More options are always good and its exciting to see how things are in the ptr. I think it'll be a while yet before 5.3 anyway.

Murderface wrote:This just in. YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING. Speed of the patches is fine, more content the better. besides the patch hasnt even come out yet and its just being put on the PTR .. its not likely well see it for a few more months... if anything i thought it was a little easier to get exalted with sunreavers etc.. (took me less than 2 weeks) i dont even really do their dailies anymore except the weekly valor. people would complain either way honestly .. it seems thats what wow players (not this forum) does best... i guess if you are an ADD completionist or want to level 3 toons all at the same time yes its too much too fast..theres plenty of 5.2 loot being thrown at use for next to nothing (sunreavers mount 3-4 522 ilvl shado pan items) not to mention all new lfr and scenarios etc... i guess i try to look at the overabundance of stuff to do as a positive vs how cata seemed to drag on forever and saw many friends and guilds fall apart...

Thing is, I don't do everything. I'm never going to get the blanket achievement for getting exalted with all the factions in Pandaria since there are 3 factions I can't be arsed to do dailies for in gankfest areas. It takes me a couple of months longer than most to get into heroics, let alone LFR. I've responded to content that way in all the past expansions. Hell, in Wrath I ignored most content for about 7 months until I got my TLPD. So when I say this does feel a bit fast, I do have the context to say so, and I'll stick by my post above.

I'll give you another couple of observations. Cataclysm had an astounding amount of new conent, but a lot of us old fogeys didn't really notice because a lot of it was in the restructured old world and the new player leveling experience. So for the first time super-slow me was able to get 2 other toons to max level and into heroics and LFR, and also experience all the introductory quests and areas of both the Goblins and Worgen. Dailies in Hyjal, Twilight Highlands, The Molten Front, etc. were tolerable. All in all a very balanced, well-distributed and satisfying experience for an expansion about a shattered world.

In Mists, most of the new content is geared towards the players who reached max level by the end of Cataclysm, and its development was said to have begun shortly after Cataclysm released (concurrent with the development of Cataclysm patches like Molten Front, Firelands and Deathwing). It is also geared towards newer players who experienced the game for the first time and leveled new characters in Cataclysm, as well as towards completely new players who may have had a rather set or stereotyped view about WoW. Now we have pet battles and farming. There's something for players of all stripes.

So I'm not saying a whole lot of new content is bad. And of course I'm not going to do everything. I'll play as I've always played, cherrypicking the content I like.

And yeah, I still say it's coming a bit fast. Hey Slickrock, did they meet your expecations?