Okay, probably I won’t go much into depth about Patch 5.1 considering that the most I’ve dealt with in that patch is the new dailies. But I would like to review the current game since Patch 5.2 is coming out in a week or so.
So far we’ve been introduced to a new continent with an Asian flavor to it. The way the expansion was intended was to kind of start all over since you had just defeated a mega boss in the form of Deathwing. Pandara was to create a new world and start from scratch in some ways. However, there were many major questions to be answered, namely where does the Horde and Alliance go from their previous position?
Without a primary enemy named thus far, the story is quite open ended. We do see several major enemies as the story progresses in the form of the elementals known as the Sha, the Mantids and the Mogu. These groups end up forming the basis of the first raids for this expansion. We do see the relationship between the Sha and the Mantids where the Empress, during the last encounter of the Heart of Fear, is shown being manipulated by the Sha of Fear. Also, we get a glimpse of something profound once you complete your reputation with the Klaxxi, hearing that “our gods are not our gods.” These elements seem to be foreshadowing something down the road, yet will remain in another topic some day.
Going back to the idea of what the expansion was setting to do, I felt that from an environment point of view, it’s a real mixed bag. The Jade Forest and Valley of the Four Winds end up being the stand out leveling zones for me as they feel like they’re attempting to break away from the “here’s the ultimate bad guy” prototypical storyline. However, once we get into the Sha and Mantid portions, the game ends up feeling like a South Park episode where everything just goes to hell. But the elements I do like from both areas are the little cultural aspects that attempt to go more into lore. The cooking and farming parts were a very nice break from the standard grind that has indoctrinated so many of us into the game.
As you progress through each zone while leveling, I felt that the open fields and green pastures established by the first two zones get thrown into a vomit bag. They feel as though they come out of nowhere. I mean, on the one hand, you’re in lush field growing vegetables then the next moment you’re just a few screens away from a snow storm. WTF? It feels as though the designers were compelled to create a varying environment from a graphical point of view, but not offering anything that geologically could make any sense. Obviously, Northrend was equally bad but for me it was more than just the environment that ended up shoving a reverse enema into my manvagina.
The thing that ended up irritating me was the plethora of meaningless quests which squished you into tiny spots with tightly coupled mobs and high respawn rates amidst a generally unpleasant environment. Initially, I attempted to absorb the game and environment on my first run through. I actually tried reading every single quest that I received, but in the end grew horribly frustrated because it was the same damn routine you saw from Vanilla. The Dread Wastes by far was the worst where the darker environment, high mob density, high damage and hit points and low drop rates rightfully made the area earn its name.
Once I hit level 90 on my main, the first thing I did was get flying. I didn’t bother finishing up Dread Wastes at that point but hit the main city to get flying so I could finish the quests. I was so sick of running around and evading pointless mobs that I couldn’t wait to spend all the gold I accumulated on the way for the first meaningful purchase up to this point.
Of course, the best thing would occur soon thereafter: the daily grind! Yes, we were told and promised the complexity of the new daily quests that seemed to be a resounding success from the Molten Front. They mentioned even that their math was off on the grind. So being the suckers for new content, we were off to the races….hmmm…not really a race. We’re supposed to sl…oo……wwww….do…..www…..nnnn….
Yes, as if the meaningless grind of leveling wasn’t bad enough, what do we get? More quests! Not just more quests but more meaningless quests. And better yet, we get to do them every day for various reasons, especially as a massive cockblock to better gear.
So did Blizzard learn anything from Molten Front? Why they sure did! Instead of doing something with an incredible amount of common sense, like I don’t know, selling epic gear for all the gold you just worked your ass off accumulating, you now have to get the reputation AND valor points to get anything decent. Better yet, the dailies now offered a miniscule 5 valor points per quest for those of us casuals that cannot do normal mode raids.
In other words, if Blizzard’s cheap tactics couldn’t get any cheaper, they pulled a fast one on us all by overpromising and underdelivering a system to force us to play every day. But wait! You don’t HAVE to play every day. You could just sit on your ass waiting day by day as people rush through progression while your character stagnates to the point where you’ll be struggling to play catch up. Imagine how fun it is to be sitting around waiting for a 50 minute queue to pop in the Shrine of Two Moons. Hold on a second. I thought that Blizzard didn’t want us just to be sitting around cities doing nothing, thus the daily quest grind being born.
Well, depending on the quest hub, dailies can take 10 minutes or they can take an hour or more. I think many people hate the goat steak quest because of how competitive the area was, not to mention the low drop rate of the said steaks. Or you get to the wonderful unending chain of the Golden Lotus. Yes, the Golden Lotus quests themselves in general are not that challenging but you can spend at least an hour or more doing them. That whole chain itself was the nightmare of the Molten Front x10 because you absolutely need to do them in order to unlock the other two factions.
And let’s talk about some of these quests themselves. There was an excellent topic over on the World of Warcraft forums that talked about everyone’s most hated quest hub. While the Golden Lotus themselves ended up being the number one pick, I felt that more specifically the Ogudei dailies represent everything that I hate about dailies and the way Mist of Pandaria was designed.
Ogudei is a tiny cavern where you pick up 5 dailies. What makes this area horrible are the tightly packed mobs and high respawn rate. And these mobs like many at 90 have a lot of hit points and do some nasty damage. So for someone just hitting 90, unless you’re questing with a friend, you’ll find yourself getting your ass handed to you. If you use one AoE, you’ll aggro everything and die. Or you’ll encounter the two red mobs that seem to be everywhere. You have no chance to crowd control neither as damaging one will share the damage with the other. Then you get to the stairs where soldiers will knock you off. If you’re positioned wrong, you’ll die or have your hit points reduced massively, you’ll aggro the cavern and probably a few soldiers along the way. When I see this quest hub on anyone outside of my paladin, I just skip it.
But that’s the gist of these dailies. High amount of frustration for little reward on a daily basis. How can such a poorly conceived system garner any form of praise whatsoever? If this was a weekly deal where once you complete the set of quest, you’d get a fair amount of valor points and gold, then I think it would be more tolerable. But as it stands, this is Blizzard’s cry for help as it’s quite obvious that the employees who thought of such a maddening system are probably a bunch of binge drinking cocaine addicts. No other explanation can exist for something that probably will demotivate players into quitting and playing more gratifying games.
Next, let’s talk about the raids. I think LFR in itself has matured a lot more since Dragon Soul. You won’t find as many Leeroy Jenkins ninja pullers wiping raids as people wait on healers and the occasional tank. Also, there is a fair amount of variety both challenging, fun and frustrating that we see.
Let’s start with Mogu’shan Vaults part 1. Part 1 is a great introduction for those coming from Dragon Soul to the newer raids. The fights here are not that difficult and the mechanics aren’t horrible. I feel that even if you outgear this raid, it’s still a fun raid to do. The Stone Guardians will be a general tank and spank fight. At this point, there’s only 1 or 2 mechanics that you have to deal with but it’ll be really rare to wipe on this fight. Fend the Accursed at first was a pain but again it’s primarily a tank and spank type of fight where the main mechanic is just running away for a few parts of the encounter when shit is underneath you. Finally, Gara’jal the Spiritbinder is probably a great way to end the first half. The trash leading up isn’t hard but most people end up dying due to getting hit by the bombs on the ground. But once you clear that part, Gara’jal is pretty relaxing, nothing special. The only thing that you can do for fun is enter the spirit world, kill off a few mobs, get a nice DPS buff and start ripping Gara’jal apart. Again, great first half.
Part 2 is where things start to pick up. The Spirit Kings encounter starts to force people to take LFR a little more seriously. In fighting 4 different bosses, you have to go through a gauntlet of varying mechanics. Some are extraordinarily easy but others, which can be easy for the veteran, end up being something that’ll wipe a group (e.g. actually standing in front of Qiang to help absorb the blow). But the thing I love about this fight is seeing an overeager tank lolcharge to his death on the first swing. Of course, he (and others) might yell at the raid to stack up on the tank, but by then it’s too late. Point being, lolcharging just ain’t gonna cut the bread anymore folks. That said, because the fight is a gauntlet, it can start to pick up as each mechanic is layered on top of another. Individually, these mechanics are not difficult but towards the end, you’ll have tiny bits of each boss thrown in, making things tougher for those with tunnel vision.
Elegon is another fun fight with the exception of one very simple mechanic: watch out for the floor! It does become rather funny seeing how many people instantly drop to their death. In some ways, it’s a hazing you could say to wake people up to simple game mechanics. Of course, there are other simple aspects of the fight such as switching to adds but it’s very manageable compared to Spirit Kings.
Finally, Will of the Emperor deserves a lot of attention and is something that has its share of ups and downs. I think if you’re a ranged class, this fight is pretty fun and really ends up being simple add management. As a melee, this fight can be easy or a complete nightmare. The main mechanic of this fight in relation to melee classes is the deadly combination. For the life of me, I cannot handle it as a melee class. I don’t know what it is. I’ve done a lot to try and make this aspect doable but I’ve never been able to avoid the blows. I think in LFR you tend to get sloppy because it’s more forgiving. I suppose if Deadly Combination was a 1-shot type of mechanic in LFR it would force players like me to pick up their game. Usually, I end up just saying fuck it and focus on adds through most of the fight.
That said, beyond the Deadly Combination mechanic, the fight mostly is a tank and spank with add management thrown in. The one thing I will say is that this fight reminds me more of a traditional arcade game in the way the adds and Deadly Combination mechanic work. With the Deadly Combination aspect, you gain a new ability for successfully dodging the attacks. The adds themselves are like those fights where more and more spawn in increasing rate until you’re overwhelmed.
Some people found this fight to be underwhelming considering it was the last fight of the first series of raids. I found it mostly annoying since you pretty much have to go through a gauntlet of adds on top of dodging attacks that are a bit of a pain to see on screen. I did like the fact that the game provides a compensation ability for those that can handle the arcade mechanics, but in general this fight felt too much like a run around fight that ends up being long and repetitive.
Next we have the Heart of Fear. I will say this: I hate Heart of Fear. The atmosphere, mobs and fights are just a pile of shit like the Dread Wastes it inhabits. Some people aptly describe the Mantids as just “more bugs.” Personally, I think they should rename this raid Heart of Annoying or maybe Fart of Fear because that’s what it smells like.
So when you first enter, the first mob group isn’t so bad. But the following trash packs are nasty. They are everything wrong about Mist of Pandaria encounters and let me explain why. First, the trash packs end up being far tougher than the main first encounter. But they serve absolutely no purpose except to wipe groups or at least kill a few groups. And the reason is simple: the fight is a fucking clusterfuck. Yes, there is shit on the ground but you can’t see it. You can’t see it because there’s so many stupid effects that serve absolutely no purpose outside of distracting people. Why have this shit? What’s the point? Just wipe people so that people spend yet more gold on repairs then force people to grind out more dailies to make back all the wasted money from dying? The trash mobs aren’t even remotely interesting outside of the prototypical gay cum their drop on the ground.
Fortunately, the boss encounter that follows is like ejaculating after being setup with a prostitute on a drunk night that is trying to charge you extra for a second girl to fuck. Whoa! Where’d that come from? Anyway, Imperial Vizier Zor’lok is a pretty easy fight in LFR. Just get under the bubble, attack him from behind, run to the next platform, dodge stupid bubbles, run to the next platform, AoE buddies, run to the center and do it all again. Probably, the best part about this fight these days is watching all the idiots click on warlock portals that go to the wrong platform. This clearly demonstrates how brain dead people are in terms of their bodily functions being completely automated after a certain point in time. Outside of dodging stupid shit, you can probably AFK this fight, maybe even taking a dump if it’s an emergency.
The next fight is Blade Lord Ta’yak. Again, the trash mob serves no purpose except for the instructor who can toss you into the air. I was a little surprised when Blizzard decided to pull the trigger on the one major mechanic in this fight, which was dodging the tornadoes. My reason is that for someone completely new to this instance, it’s a rather unpleasant thing. Just like falling to one’s demise in the Elegon, the tornado mechanic, if not practiced, can show the uninitiated being tossed back to the starting point. The other mechanic is the stacking aspect. Like the first encounter in Spirit Kings, this mechanic can break one’s spirit (nyuk nyuk nyuk). Okay, if anything you’ll see the occasional dead body. If the group ends up wiping, people will handle this part a little better.
Then comes the ultimate raid breaker and quite possibly the worst encounter in this entire expansion thus far: Garalon. This fight is so terribad that Blizzard was forced to nerf the LFR version in the first week. Initially, people would simply quit once they got up to this point because of the horrors from the first week. It was known how this encounter could take groups 2 hours to pull off. These days, you’ll probably see 1-2 wipes before the boss goes down.
But the reason why Garalon was such a horrible boss was just a piss poor design. It is the very definition of clusterfuck. In fact, I am willing to bet that one day Garalon will make it into Urban Dictionary as an entry under clusterfuck. The thing with this fight is that you really need one person who can kite. Without a good kiter, you’re hopeless. Even then, this fight is a merciless encounter and even those doing normal raids are having a tremendous time bypassing this encounter. Like Will of the Emperor, you’re going through a very repetitive encounter. Yes, you are moving constantly, trying to dodge things like pheromones or avoid being crushed. But most of the fuck is just trying to whack the fucker’s legs apart. As easy as that sounds, the constant movement and dancing you have to do just to hit a fucking leg that ends up regrowing gets wearisome quickly. You just start asking yourself, “When the fuck is this stupid fight going to end? When God when?!???!”
After the horrible, soul crushing expose of killing Garalon, you’re tasked with Heart of Fear part 2. How can things get more epicly bad after that unpoddy trained dick fart? Well, the nice thing about once you enter part 2 is that Wind Lord Mel’jarak ends up being add management with some interrupts. You don’t even have any mobs leading to him, which is really nice because you dive straight into the encounter. Outside of some intro crowd control and your typical get-the-fuck-out-shit aspects, there’s nothing in this encounter that is annoying nor difficult.
Of course, your hopes for a smooth run are all dashed by the end dick shrinker Amber-Shaper Un’sok. There are a few annoying mobs leading to him but nothing disheartening as what this encounter can be. This encounter is randomly good and bad. It’s this way because of one idea that probably is a horrible notion to introduce to a raid: you get turned into a vehicle.
Let’s say you’re just coming along for the first time and doing some boring rotation. Now, you become this yellow flaming gay thing. WTF are you supposed to do? You get 4 buttons, none of them which you have any time to read and you’re supposed to react very fast. This is where someone in Blizzard should be shot dead multiple times, resurrected get his -1 constitution +10 years aging for the resurrection as per AD&D resurrection rules until he has 1 constitution then provided a moldy convalescent home to ponder what a fucked up life he/she has lead to make him/her deserve such a horrid fate. Okay, Blizzard, you can’t assume every motherfucker on this planet plays on the PTR, watches youtube, reads every entry out there. You can’t. You have to assume that your players are VERY stupid. I mean, retarded kids would seem smarter than your player base. That’s the level of IQ you must deal with in a group situation. Don’t you have anyone working there with a degree in psychology?
Here’s the thing. Players become accustomed to their class. That’s why they bind their keys in a certain manner because it’s muscle memory. They know exactly that a key does a certain ability. In leveling to 90, they will at least learn all their primary abilities. When you get a vehicle with more than one button, you’re asking for a huge disaster. It’s simple UI. You’ve changed the game. You don’t give people enough time to learn what exactly they need to do to perform an encounter. This is why encounters like Oculous (which affectionately is prepended with a “C”), Eye of Eternity, and Deadmines prove to be so unpopular. It’s not that they’re undoable; it’s that they’re not what people want to play. People want to play their characters. They understand that aspect. Why suddenly drop a bomb in the middle of a fucking encounter that makes them important to the encounter?
Regardless, the rest of the encounter is easy enough if you don’t get the mutated construct. Sure, the mutated construct is doable too but I just find it an unnecessary mechanic better suited for someone who volunteers to jump in the suit, not just randomly hitting a player with it.
Lastly, we come to Grand Empress Shek’zeer. This probably is the only encounter besides Wind Lord Mel’jarak that I like. It’s a basic tank and spank encounter with some add management thrown in twice. It’s a good way to end Heart of Fear compared to the other demoralizing shit that has been thrown in. I like it because it isn’t special and sticks to simplicity to get the job done. Remember folks: KISS. It’s true. I mean, let’s face it. If you have to do this shit week after week after week, why not make the experience semi-pleasant at the very least?
After that we come to Terrace of Endless Spring. I like most of these encounters. I think Patch 5.0’s raid encounters end on a high note that made me crave more. Probably, the only encounter in Terrace that I have a bone to pick with is Lei Shi. But I think everyone hates that encounter just because of the annoying voice acting. Beyond that, the encounters are pretty well thought out, provide a good challenge but not annoying and frustrating. I actually look forward to doing this raid every week, which isn’t to say how I feel about Heart of Fear nor Mogu’shan Vaults part 2.
I’m going to step back a little to talk about dungeons/instances. I didn’t emphasize them the way I did raids because quite honestly, I haven’t done all of them. I’ve probably done half but I know most of the encounters. My attitude for avoiding them is that I don’t see any point in doing them once you hit ilvl 460 gear. Actually, I try as much as I can for avoiding them by crafting/buying any gear that I can. After that, I selectively run heroics until I hit ilvl 460.
Why do this? Because like the way the direction this game is heading, HEROICS ARE FUCKING ANNOYING. The way this game is designed to me is ass backwards. It feels as though Heroics should be the end game content, not raids and let me explain why. First, the way LFR is structured, you pretty much can slip in and get carried. No one really notices you. You can provide as much or as little contribution, unless you’re a healer or tank. In Heroics, you are noticeable. In fact, if you just get in and lack DPS or whatever, people will complain. Not everyone but it does happen more frequently than it should. But why make such a big fuss over something that is leading towards raiding?
You see, the problem isn’t so much the game mechanics but the psychology of players that revolve around game mechanics. It should be expected that fresh 90s might enter a heroic to grab a few blues because they lack gear to enter raids or LFR even. So they will be doing lame DPS for a while. Yet well geared players are allowed to enter, most likely to help their guildies, friends or just to grab some valor points. Now, this wouldn’t be a problem if everyone had a good attitude. But everyone doesn’t have a good attitude and the game can be quite unforgiving in that regard.
I’ve read complaints where people talk about people “just pushing buttons” or “knowing their class better.” Not all classes are built equally. Some have ridiculous rotations and becoming accustomed to those nonsensical rotations can be a chore. Also, what is expected of someone if they lack gear? There’s almost so much they can do. But Heroics are that barrier to entry for the next level.
In a five man group, all this becomes apparent quickly especially with impatient players. I feel that if you’re going to make a game about maxing out XXX with a small group that forces one person to stand out, why not first get that person up to par then demonstrate what they can do as a class? Why punish someone because of terrible flaws in the game design? DPS meters, etc. are just the new version of gearscore and we all know how that fucked up the game.
But the other thing about the backwardness of Heroics is just that they end up being so meaningless. The only thing worth getting are the tiny valor point rewards per day. But those are so small that it’s questionable waiting in a horrendously long queue with variations of psychopaths potentially waiting at the other day of the tunnel. If you have maxed out gear, why not just go do dailies for your VP? Why bother waiting for a long queue and variance as opposed to a completely controllable environment?
Lastly with regards to Heroics, I just find them to be just more stupid mechanics than anything. It feels like some gobstopper tried putting on a thinking cap, when it turned out to be the same device they use to electrocute criminals because clearly the fights are about as fun as having your brain connected to a light socket. Originally, Blizzard proudly proclaimed that the new Heroics were going to be set to the difficulty level of Wrath Heroics. Did they mean Forge of Souls difficulty level? Or perhaps that stupid Disney encounter with Ick and Krick? I’m sorry but I missed the days of mindless AoE. Hey, when you have to do the same shit over and over, you might as well make the rest mindless.
So beyond these horrible, mind numbing elements, we still have a few other things to discuss. First, there’s Pet Battles. Perhaps, of everything that has come out of Mist of Pandaria thus far, Pet Battles are the one few shining point. It is a grind and there’s very little to it. But it’s simple and everyone you talk to will say how much they enjoy it. So let me ask you this Blizzard. Here’s a meta game that is quite simple and gets back to basics. Everyone I know likes this part of the game. Doesn’t this tell you, Blizzard, that perhaps you’re moving in the wrong direction with the rest of the game? Doesn’t the simplicity aspect, the idea of progressing in a meaningful manner, and UI which make Pet Battles fun the element more gamers might enjoy?
After that, I would like to say that professions are better overall. There’s a bit of a grind element left but it’s no where near as bad as previous expansions. The plethora of materials and ability to get materials from other materials (e.g. trillium from ghost iron bars) make professions far more enjoyable and less of a grind. The best designed profession is cooking. Cooking has been thus far something people kicked to the side and forgotten about. The 1-2 people that may do cooking in the past were the ones who probably fed most raids.
These days, everyone can contribute to cooking. The way they made leveling cooking up fast is great. No more, hey I’m max level, I have to go back to old boring questing zones or spending ridiculous sums at the auction house. Now, I can continue progressing at my level in my current zone. On top of that, giving each of the cooking recipes meaningful buffs make cooking a must-do for everyone. I like how they split up the cooking part as well so that you can specialize or become a master (for those who love the grind). I wish more professions were done this way (looks like Blacksmithing will go this route in 5.2). But it’s definitely the right move in the right direction.
Crafting also is good and bad. You have your typical grind for things like motes, but for top end crafters, it’s totally worth maxing out your professions. The crafted gear are really good for those starting up and who are desperate to get into higher instances. Also, you can make quite a bit of money on the AH for each of the professions. Of course, you still have to deal with the Motes of Harmony issue, but that’s where Farmville, I mean WoWVille comes into play.
Now, I didn’t realize this when I first got started on my farm and it’s my fault. But the best thing is the ability to harvest your own Motes of Harmony. Once my GM told me this, I blew a fuse. I was like, “WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?” At that point, it made pushing my reputation with the Tillers and getting as many of my toons qualified as possible to working on their farm worth it. I could see how the plant harvesting would work nicely with the cooking part, but it wasn’t as huge of a motivation as obtaining those pain-in-the-ass Motes of Harmony. Having those Motes of Harmony are what make your high end professions run. Just grinding them out by killing mobs imo is a horrible waste of time when you can guarantee 1 Spirit of Harmony a day for little effort.
The whole Farmville interpretation is something I wish Mist of Pandaria had more of. There’s so much to it that I like. It functions as something useful, allowing you to use it for cooking and other professions. It’s also easy, relaxing and goal oriented. Also, the dailies for the Tillers mostly are fun. Except for the obtain XXX types of quests, the Tillers dailies are in general relaxing and don’t really feel ominous compared to doing the Klaxxi, Shado-Pan nor Golden Lotus. You’re doing it for improving yourself, not some pointless faction that arbitrarily hates someone.
To me, that’s what Mist of Pandaria should’ve been. Little things on the side that you can do that are fun. But again we end up gravitating towards some universal enemy, forcing us into the day one gear grind. And to that the daily grind for reputation and being forced to complete every single quest and you end up feeling your life draining from your body quickly.
I don’t want linear storylines that funnel me to a certain destination. People clamored about recapturing the Vanilla magic where you could progress by moving in different directions. Yet I’m seeing a worse funnel because it’s malicious, long and boring. The few times you get to see something with potential, you realize that there’s no meaning behind it.
Take for instance where you learn martial arts. There’s a few quest hubs like that. In fact, there’s a tremendous cut scene that harkens back to old Shaw Brothers films with the training sequences. Yet the quest has you press a fucking button several times. Sure, you see this again at the end of the quest chain in defeating this huge mantid, but it just feels so anti-climatical. And what becomes of your martial arts training? Shouldn’t my toon be better at fighting over all? Shouldn’t there be some sense of progress and impact that my toon can make? Not even the new special abilities at 90 or talents are related to anything you do within Pandaria. So what’s the whole point of going through some exotic training sequence where all you end up doing it punching some stupid bug’s jaw in?
But that’s just the general feeling of where the game is going. It’s just a pointless grind. Even leveling to 90 is pointless. There’s no points to spend any talents on except for every 15 levels. But the journey doesn’t feel like you progress as a toon and barely as a player. This expansion thus far feels like, as I have mentioned on numerous occasions, just the busy work a detention teacher gives you to punish you.
Why have so many stupid quests where most people won’t even bother reading the dialog? Why not just reduce the number of quests to a few hubs with meaningful consequences at the end? Why continue mostly having boring kill/collect/talk to quests?
At this point, the game feels like it has no clear vision of where it wants to go. Does it want to go and please hard cores? Or is Blizzard afraid of losing their audience and trying to blend difficulty with casuals? And why continue to put such an emphasis on end game elements like raiding? Can’t the game evolve beyond just stupid encounters? It’s a world for god’s sakes. It doesn’t feel like a world at all. There’s no cultural elements in Mist that really make me think, “Oh wow! This really feels Asian and exotic!”
Patch 5.2 looks to be more of the same. Surprisingly, Blizzard is sticking with the daily quest model and the Super Mario Brothers jump up and down bullshit along with Street Fighter combo mentality. And it’s continuing to funnel people through. They’re marketing it as a kick back to BC with that little island. Of course, we’ll have to see how that’s executed, but just the notion of more dailies in a funneled manner is giving me a case of diarrhea.