I openly admit that I am having an absolute hoot with the new pre-legion events. I love seeing just how many people are around partaking, the talk in trade and general is as active as I’ve ever seen it, and people seem to have some fairly positive views on how things are going. I can’t help but wonder – will it last. Will people continue to play right up until Legion the amount that they’re already playing. Will more return with the actual launch of legion, and with so many people decked out in ilevel 700 gear, what will keep them playing until the 30th?
I was a bit surprised that demon hunters released early. Sure it gives people a chance to get to 100 and then to get some gear but offering early content could turn out to be a bad thing, too. People burn through it and then log off dejected because they have nothing to do. Not that I’ve ever encountered this, there’s SO many different things for me to partake in – but not everyone has my play style, so grinding battle pets or reputation or going profession recipe hunting may not be what they’re interested in.
With that being said, I’m still having tons of fun. Yesterday I decided to dust my horde hunter off and ran her through the introduction scenario and a few invasions. She’s not quite at ilevel 700 yet, but she’s getting there, sitting at a respectable 698. I also got one of the fel weapons, a longbow and upgraded it once (so far) to 705. Hopefully I’ll be able to collect a few more of those.
I still have not created a demon hunter yet. I don’t really have the desire to start another new character, and I’m having a good time focusing on the ones I already have. My new priest that I made yesterday is sitting at level 27, I’ve been taking a break from leveling her through dungeons because I find it pretty tedious. It’s still a 10 minute wait to queue as a healer, and at these low levels with only three heals (and one of them an emergency heal on a one minute timer) and everyone running off in their own direction makes it a stressful ordeal. Everyone thinks they’re the tank and then blames the healer when things go wrong.
What do you think, is there enough content to keep people playing as they have been right up until Legion, or are things bound to taper off and slow down once the initial rush is over? Let me know in comments and as always happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.
Looking at other public quest games, I’m hoping that Blizzard has some plan for keeping invasions relevant. I’ve not done investigation, so I don’t know if they’ve addressed it, but I think we’re familiar with the state of rifts in RIFT and even lower-level events in GW2 that don’t get extra passes later in their life to get people to return to them.
Other than that, I’m also just farming the gear to get a head start, although I don’t know if it’ll be worth it for my non-capped characters since they’re still growing.
I am having a great time as well. It is so nice to see the world so alive and so many people active. I agree, there seems to be a real sense of optimism at the moment, which is a great change from the last year. Allowing people of lower levels to participate too – man how far WoW has come!
I think that optimism will carry us through well past launch for at least a few months, then it really depends on how well they have structured the end game for everyone. I hear good things from the beta testers so I am hopeful.