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How I Would Have Done WoW’s BFA Pre-Patch

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I was able to run through the next phase of WoW's BFA pre-patch content today, and I have a few thoughts on how I would have done things differently.

The BFA pre-patch event has gone for almost two weeks now. Week one was the removal of artifacts, class balance changes, etc. Week two they added the first wave of the quests leading players to Darkshore where the Alliance and Horde are once again fighting each other as the War of the Thorns: Chapter 1.

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The video makes it look way cooler than it plays.

Week 2's (Chapter 1's) quests were really lackluster. I was able to go through them in under half an hour. I thought the writing (in terms of the overall story) to be lackluster. There weren't any "woah!" moments in these quests, nor were the objectives interesting at all. Several of them were 'click 7 boxes' or 'kill 10 orcs' or 'gather 6 nodes'. I really felt no hype or significance from them.

When I reached the last quest of this phase, I actually didn't realize it had ended. It was abrupt and didn't really have any "come back next week" notification. It just sort of died mid-thought. 

Instead of a big buildup to the expansion, this has been small nuggets of content leaving you feeling ripped off -- not wanting more. The current version felt rushed and underdeveloped. 

My Version of the Pre-Patch

I would have made the event all 'live' for at least 3 weeks. This event would have been more of a buildup to the war. 

Players would be able to earn currency/commendations for their faction by completing certain objectives:

  • Invasion-like events where players kill horde/alliance NPCs to hold back attacks spread throughout Azeroth or Kalimdor. These could have siege weapons, defense points in towns, etc. Players would earn points for how they participate in these events or loot something from NPCs. These could be like WQ's and also give rewards. They would be 
  • Players could earn points for turning in resources like certain metals, herbs, crafted goods like weapons and potions, etc. This would give the economy a reason to keep going and also give crafting professions a reason to feel like they were still contributing.
  • Rewards for the commendations would include tabards, armor/weapons with good stats for catch-up mechanics, transmogs, pets, titles, mounts, you name it.
  • Gamepad
    Toward the end of the pre-patch event, the war would be progressing closer and closer to the objective (which I think is burning Teldrassil or something). So each week the invasions would be moved to different zones. It would feel like a progressing war front and more like a 'living' battle for Azeroth.

Doesn't that sound like a better event?

  • I like your ideas, but I guess I’m in the minority here that I sort of like the “episodic” release of the quests towards the pivotal moments. It does suck that the quest ended right before the battle, but it sucks in the same way you can’t wait for next weeks episode of “X show” to see how it turns out.

    That’s just me, though. I would’ve enjoyed more content but I think that’s something I could’ve said about any part of any expansion.

    • I like the idea of releasing the content in waves. They could have done that in the way I would have done the event, too.

  • It sounds like Legion-prepatch. Not that I don’t like it, but I wasn’t expecting a repeat either.

    Besides, how does it actually reflect in the real-lore though? As horde, your army has to defend from the assaults all over the world, yet you still have enough army and resource to do the same to the alliance all over the world????

    The Burning Legion can do that because they supposedly have “unending” amount of armies. Alliance/Horde don’t.

    • Yeah it would be similar to Legion’s. That was a great event.

      For the lore, they could have done exactly what they’re doing in the actual lore. The Alliance had to defend Darkshore against the Horde invasion force. Horde players could have contributed to that attack. Alliance players could have contributed to that defense. Instead it was a 3 minute one-time quest.

  • If the pre-BfA events had been similar to the pre-Legion invasions I would have re-subbed just to do them, li ke I did for Legion. I was planning on doing that until I started to hear the feedback about just how different this expansion’s pre-amble is and now I’m a lot less interested. I might still sub for a month but with the return of the Festival of Four Winds and the Crown Pavilion in GW2 and Tinkerfest and Fabled Guk in EQ2 (not to mention Blaugust) subbing WoW seems like a waste of money right now.

    • I kept my sub because I wanted to do the pre-patch. Despite them being sort of bleh/terrible, it’s still one of those moments of “this will never be in the game again” and I don’t want to miss it.

  • It’s only been one week, actually – the Artifact drain was available before the pre-patch.

    But, my theory is that BfA is the next Warlords (intentionally) – corners are cut for this expansion so that they can have time to make the next expansion even better (like they did with Legion.)

    • I’ve been worried about this being the next Draenor. Sort of a ‘meh’ expansions. But really that’s only because Draenor lasted a year longer than the content. If this expansion lasts only one year, then that’s fine. Maybe it’ll be a shorter expansion.

  • It sounds pretty much identical to legion prepatch, but yes, that was a better event than this.

    I don’t mind the episodic content either though, I never really cared that much about the prepatch happening and in general prefer it not being anything big, as it kinda forces you to play/grind (depending on the event) in a very short period of time, and if you miss it it won’t return. I would be perfectly happy with prepatch being rolled into BfA actual post release starter quest.

    • I like how it builds up hype for the expansion. It’s a nice way to up the excitement in contrast to the crawl of the end of the expansion.

  • I don’t mind “episodic” time gating, but each episode has to be good. In this case it wasn’t great. A lot of flying between hubs to talk to NPCs, and killing Furbolgs? Really, Furbolgs? That is not how you build hype for Alliance vs Horde.

    Hopefully tomorrow’s content will be better.

    • Agreed. The episodic release of the patch is fine. They could have done that in a meaningful way, though.

  • Got say I am totally underwhelmed by it all. Grant it I’ve been playing P99 for the last 3 months but it’s all so mindnumbingly easy. No challenge, no sense of accomplishment, general mmo crap which has lead to the death of the genre.

    Doubt much will change with the leveling experience. Wow is what it is, a nice to look at, unchallenging theme park with some high-end raiding if that’s your thing.

    Funny how in P99 a group of “normal” mobs can mean death with a bad pull. That will never happen in wow and if it does what does it even matter.