Update: As mentioned below, game director Ion Hazzikostas answered viewer questions during a livestream yesterday that you can watch here. During that stream, he expressed regret over the state of 8.0 and confirmed the team was hard at work fixing many of the bugs players were experiencing, including the loss of bonus experience points from dungeons. One thing he did clarify, however, was that the legacy loot mode was always intended to require players to be 11 levels higher than the expansion they wished to farm.
Enter the World of Warcraft and descend into a world of myth, magic, and legendary adventure. ESRB Rating: TEEN with Blood and Gore. Jan 3, 2018 - Whenever i try and patch the game i get this message 'This update requires 'World of Warcraft' version 2.0.0.6080' ok, so i go to patch to that.
That means legacy loot will not work in Legion. Original story: Any World of Warcraft veteran will tell you that patch days are usually a bit of a disaster. It's an enormous game, so little things are bound to break here and there any time that Blizzard releases a new patch. But Patch 8.0, which lays the foundation for when launches next month, is in a real bad spot right now, and players aren't happy about it.
Almost immediately after the patch was released, Blizzard confirmed that there were problems with players being able to log in and see their characters—a pretty common and understandable occurrence on a major patch day. Once those issues started to resolve and players got into the game, however, they found loads of problems that Blizzard hasn't—even at the time of writing this post—acknowledged. I am disappointed with how poorly things were transitioned from your development of the pre-patch to live. Solacespecs The best place to get a bird's eye view of everything is posted by solacespecs that breaks down a staggering number of issues that range from hilarious to infuriating. 'I totally understand that these things happen,' they write.
![Warcraft Warcraft](http://www.rocketchainsaw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/WoW_72_Mount2.jpg)
'But with the size and scope of your organization and the WoW team, I am disappointed with how poorly things were transitioned from your development of the pre-patch to live.' When it released on Tuesday, Patch 8.0 introduced some pretty major changes. Of those changes, the biggest and most immediately noticeable is a 'stat squish' that reconfigures the behind-the-scenes math of WoW. In Legion, World of Warcraft's stats and numbers were getting a little unwieldy.
Characters would routinely do damage in the millions-if-not-billions and I'm pretty sure at one point my Artifact Weapon had something like 14 quadrillion Artifact Power. It was all a bit silly. To fix this, Blizzard squished all the stats down to make them more comprehensible. Instead of a ten million hit, my Demon Hunter now hits for a few thousand. This squish was applied to gear, character stats, and even crafting profession levels.
Above: As of 8.0, some bosses are harder, others are just more stylish. It's a necessary change, but the stat squish has completely thrown World of Warcraft's balance out of whack—especially for lower level players. Right now, the stat squish has made. Even basic monsters die much more slowly than they used to, and dungeon bosses can easily stomp an unprepared party.
This comes at the worst possible time because many players, like me, are using the lull before Battle for Azeroth to level new characters. For new players jumping in, it's even more frustrating, which isn't doing much to help World of Warcraft's. 'I am just a bit sad, because I wanted to reach level 110 before Battle for Azeroth launches, so I can get straight into the action,' The stat squish also affects item levels on gear, which went from around 900 to 200.
But in doing so, players are running into bugs where harder versions of dungeons are than easier difficulties. Multiple achievements and questlines are also broken because of the squish. If you're itching to play some Warcraft right now, it might be best to give it a few days until Blizzard at least acknowledges that things are a little messed up at the moment. Just as annoying, Patch 8.0 also brought several changes that players aren't happy about. Bonus experience for completing dungeons, which means there's really no reason to play them while leveling up because even if you endure the way-too-difficult bosses, there's barely any reward. Also, despite added DX12 support and changing some graphics settings, players are noticing.
And the legacy loot mode, which makes it easier to farm 'transmogs' or item appearance skins, so that players can't easily farm item appearances from Legion once they reach the new level cap in Battle for Azeroth. There are some hilarious bugs too. Someone was doing Tempest Keep and discovered that Kael'Thas. Goodbye those luscious locks of blond hair. With a game as big as World of Warcraft, patching it must be a nightmare. Still, it's frustrating to see 8.0 in such rough shape.
At least this patch is out a month before Battle for Azeroth properly launches, which hopefully gives Blizzard enough time to fix everything. For what it's worth, Legion, the last expansion, had a buttery-smooth launch. But if you're itching to play some Warcraft right now, it might be best to give it a few days until Blizzard at least acknowledges that things are a little messed up at the moment.
Game director Ion Hazzikostas will be hosting a, and I'm guessing this topic is going to pop up. We'll update this post accordingly.
Last year was easily one of World of Warcraft's best. While Legion arrived in late 2016 and quickly won our hearts with its gorgeous zones and excellent new systems like 'Mythic+' dungeons, 2017 was the year that the expansion really came into its own.
With two major updates adding new quests, zones, raids, and dungeons, there was never a shortage of things to do or look forward to in Azeroth. But in 2018, the battle with the Burning Legion is finally winding to a close—. That leaves us with the massive question of what's next for Blizzard's seminal MMO. During BlizzCon back in November, Blizzard announced not only a new expansion, Battle for Azeroth, but also —official vanilla servers that fans have been wanting for years now.
Still, 2018 is likely going to be a weird year for World of Warcraft. Uncharacteristic of their expansion announcements, Blizzard hasn't even announced a rough release window for Battle for Azeroth. It's likely that the expansion might not release until the end of 2018. With only one minor patch announced to finish off Legion (and the usual pre-expansion patch which will come ahead of Battle for Azeroth), the first half of 2018 might be a tad boring. That isn't to say there's nothing to get excited about, however. While there won't be oodles of new quests or a challenging raid to conquer, here's what to look forward to in 2018 in chronological order.
Level-scaling for all of Azeroth The next few months are going to be an excellent time to level a new character. Patch 7.3.5, expected to be the final patch of Legion, is already on the PTR and should hopefully go live in the next couple of months. One of its biggest features will finally give us a good reason to go back and level a new character or two, as every zone and previous expansion will now have. Previously, leveling in World of Warcraft was disappointing. While the rates at which you gained experience were quick, the catch-22 was that you'd often out-level zones and their respective questlines too quickly. It was hard to appreciate some of the quality storytelling that was introduced in the Cataclysm expansion. That's set to change thanks to this new level-scaling system, which will let you experience Azeroth at your own pace.
When patch 7.3.5 launches, quests and monsters will dynamically scale to always match your level, but only within a certain range. Starting zones like Elwynn forest will scale up to level 10. After that, each of the original zones will have a minimum level requirement and then scale up to level 60. Expansions will also be level-scaled, and you can even choose which ones you want to tackle first. Both The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King's areas, for example, will scale from 58 to 80.
Community site Wowhead has a for each individual zone. A new battleground and Timewalking raid Patch 7.3.5 isn't just about the fancy new level-scaling. It's expected to bring closure to the Legion storyline and summarize the events following the defeat of Argus and Sargeras, the big-bads of this whole expansion. One way Blizzard is doing that is with a new Battleground set in the old zone of Silithus. Called the Seething Shore, this Battleground will play similarly to classic Arathi Basin but will include a battle for a resource called Azerite that will become a foundational system for upgrades once Battle for Azeroth launches. It's not entirely clear whether Seething Shore will be available in 7.3.5 as Blizzard has only said there will be a 'preview' of it.
What that means is anybody's guess—but it will likely be available with the pre-expansion patch at the very latest. One thing that is definitely coming with 7.3.5 is the new. Timewalking is a system that revamps old dungeons and raids to make them relevant again for max level players. Longtime fans will remember Ulduar as an infamous raid back from Wrath of the Lich King, with a really cool concept for unlocking harder difficulties. Instead of just selecting the desired difficulty like normal dungeons and raids, players had to complete extra hidden objectives during the fight in order to make the encounter harder and unlock better loot rewards. While it's not clear yet, 7.3.5 should hopefully include some story quests that help bridge the ending cinematic of the Antorus, The Burning Throne raid (which you can if you want to spoil it for yourself) and the conflict between Alliance and Horde that is set to boil over before Battle for Azeroth launches.
Massive changes to how PVP works In an attempt to revitalize open-world PVP, Blizzard is scrapping PVP servers entirely. One of the most interesting announcements out of BlizzCon was sweeping changes to. Since World of Warcraft's launch in 2004, servers have been divided into PVP and PVE versions. If you wanted to kill others while questing in the open world, PVP servers let you deal death without restraint. The problem with that system is that if your server heavily favors one faction or the other, finding a fair (and fun) fight is incredibly rare. In an attempt to revitalize open-world PVP, Blizzard is scrapping PVP servers entirely. Instead, a new system will allow players to go to their capital city and flag for PVP.
When they venture out into the world, they'll only encounter other players who are also flagged for PVP. If you're currently trapped on a PVP server that favors the enemy faction and just want to get some questing done, this is great news.
There's no window set for when these changes will be implemented, but my expectation is either with Battle for Azeroth's pre-launch patch or soon after. Battle for Azeroth.
Following BlizzCon, we sat down with game director Ion Hazzikostas and creative director Alex Afrasiabi to talk specifics about Battle for Azeroth's island expeditions and new Azerite armor. As I've already said, my guess is that Battle for Azeroth won't be arriving until autumn 2018. That's a long wait now that Legion's final raid is out, but hopefully it, like Legion, will be worth it. With the Burning Legion now in shambles, this new expansion is all about reigniting the conflict that was always at the heart of Warcraft: The mighty Alliance versus the barbaric Horde. Players will sail to the islands of Zandalar and Kul'Tiras as they help their faction's war effort. Part of Blizzard's for expansions is ditching the need to treat each system like a permanent part of the game. For example, Battle for Azeroth will retire the Artifact Weapons that players used all throughout Legion.
Battle for Azeroth is introducing a hell of a lot of new systems to replace it, however. We've already covered them extensively in. Easily the most exciting is the new island expeditions. Here, teams of up to three players can set out explore dynamically generated islands that Blizzard wants to feel like a mini Dungeons & Dragons campaign. There will be puzzles to solve and monsters to slay and each time you visit an island, the campaign might be something totally different from the last time.
Adding an interesting wrinkle is the presence of three enemy players (either AI or players of the opposite faction) who will be working to undermine your team, effectively turning island expeditions into a kind of PVP-hybrid race. With Artifact Weapons going the way of the dinosaur, Battle for Azeroth is introducing the new Azerite armor system.
Each piece of Azerite armor comes with its own tiers of perks that can be unlocked as you gather Azerite and imbue it into a magical necklace each player will receive. You can only choose one perk from each tier, but thankfully they aren't randomly generated so you won't be throwing away gear hoping for a good set of perks to use.
Azerite armor, while the spiritual successor to Artifact weapons, thankfully sounds less like the exhaustingly infinite grind than the latter was. World of Warcraft: Classic. There's a lot of questions surrounding World of Warcraft: Classic. Blizzard isn't talking any concrete details just yet, but they did open up about the one major breakthrough that made it all possible in. Considering how withdrawn Blizzard has been about the announcement that they're working on official vanilla servers, it would be crazy to expect WoW: Classic in the next year. In fact, my guess is we won't see it for several years at least.
What I do expect is that 2018 might have some more information on how exactly Blizzard plans to implement a return to World of Warcraft as it was back in 2004. There's a lot of concerns players have, and it'll be interesting to see how committed Blizzard is to rebuilding an authentic classic experience. Still, that's a long ways off. If you're a dedicated player, there's far more pressing concerns—after all, Antorus, The Burning Throne has only been open for a month at this point. The lull between expansions is always a drought for hardcore players, but the new level-scaling will hopefully give you a reason to go back and start that class you've always dreamed of playing.
Until Battle for Azeroth launches, however, 2018 is likely going to be a quieter year for World of Warcraft. I only hope that it ends up being the calm before the storm.