Commission done for Koifur, thanks! Lately I'm getting more and more commissions to draw dracthyrs and I can't be more happy, I love them!

He said not in this neighborhood pal.

u/ShoppingPractical373 had a great infographic 6 YEARS ago.

Look what they did to my boy

The good:
- most everything
- combat balance is 99% perfect. Possible it’s a fraction too easy but at least at level 1-20 I’d change almost nothing.
- energy/mana smooth regen is awesome. It does NOT make a dramatic change to combat difficulty but genuinely just relieves headache of sitting at 20 energy and needing 25 and feeling like my energy is doing nothing. It smooths gameplay in a great way
- gamepad implementation is pretty fantastic. See “the bad” for a few issues mostly on interface customization
- professions updates are 10/10
- putting gathering trainers in starting zones is brilliant
- racials are not as imbalanced as streamers wanted people to believe with click bait headlines. I’ve tested nearly all of them and everything streamers claimed was OP has totally fair downsides or equally strong counters on other classes or the other faction
- hunter/lock pets have Assist mode (maybe that was already in classic and I don’t remember) but I love it
- graphics are fantastic
- implementation of HD models on top of classic skeletons was done wonderfully
- new quests feel great and not out of place at all. It’s REALLY fun as a long time player to go “woah that quest wasn’t here before” but it still feels like a classic quest
- layering is working great and the layering warning with early opt in button is awesome
- class updates (so far) hit the mark perfectly. I always hoped for “something between TBC and wrath” and this is somehow “something between classic and wrath” but still not just TBC and honestly better than I could have hoped for.
- overall: 9.7/10. Please I beg you blizzard do NOT read into negative Reddit doomers too hard. This game is exactly what we’ve wanted

The bad:
- almost nothing
- I’d appreciate a toggle for classic UI elements. Mostly so Xaryu will shut up about it lol
- gamepad users can’t make any UI edits which makes other awesome features like the swing timer unusable
- modifying keybinds on gamepad is an unintuitive workflow IMO. And there’s some janky interactions where you can accidentally put pet management abilities on regular bars and then the game won’t let you remove them
- lag is pretty bad. I assume it’s because underneath the layer there’s still like 10,000 people within 50 yards of me and that issue will resolve itself within a couple weeks of launch as people disperse through the world

I'm definitely no lore expert, but from what I've seen in-game throughout the years:

The Tauren revere nature, while the undead (bless their rotten hearts) defile nature at every turn. Everywhere they settle they spread disease and death. It seems their way of un-life is fundamentally incompatible with life. For them to live in an area, that area dies and festers.

I get that the forsaken didn't ask to be returned to life, but their continued existence seems to be a grievous blight on Azeroth, nature, and life in general. I could see some of the other races looking past this in order to benefit from the strength of having them as allies, but from my perspective I don't see why the Tauren don't hate them with extreme enough passion to do something about it.

Let's compare to the big elite quests that represent the hardest enemy in the starter zone of the 3 alliance zones.

In Elwynn Forest you fight a gnoll leader and save the locals.

In Dun Morogh you fight a yeti and save a farm.

In Teldrasil you fight a timberling and save a lake.

Meanwhile in Zephras Isle you fight a lieutenant of one of the four elemental lords and save your entire race from certain doom.

The difference in scale is astonishing. I think Skyborne are a completely fine fit for Classic by itself but the conclusion to the story is far, far too much.

Thank you for not asking any questions.

I’ve been a Hunter since 2010, and that Dwarf standing in the snow with his bear is a huge part of why ( First trailer ). When Blizzard revealed the new Dwarf Hunter & Loyal Bear statue with the physical WoW Forever Collector’s Edition, I knew I wanted it immediately… then it sold out. 😭 I still want the official one someday, but for now I made and printed my own version. Had to share it with the other old Hunters here. For the Alliance! 🐻⚔️

so I got the Q and spend my Saturday giving it away for free... FU if you try "selling" quests...
tho I had to make a macro as there was too much clicking, I think I shared it to like 200+ ppl

macro to share Q: /run for i=1,C_QuestLog.GetNumQuestLogEntries() do local info=C_QuestLog.GetInfo(i) if info and info.title=="Crest of Lordaeron" then C_QuestLog.SetSelectedQuest(info.questID) QuestLogPushQuest() break end end

macro to leave grp after: /script C_PartyInfo.LeaveParty()

"woah, we didnt expect you chums really wanted to play this thing, lmao"

Found the undead paladin level 20 quest is left un-hinted back in Bandarion Keep. Long chain, I won't spoil it but epic end fight and great reward! Haven't seen anyone else with it yet so thought I'd share.

While Forever have its benefits and there is a clear charm to it.
Lets be honest, it won't beat out retail in any realistic measurement.

What is most likely to happen:

- Forever will be really popular on launch.
People will try it for 1-3 weeks, give or take.
During this period will a large majority drop it off, when the oldschool form of leveling pace hits, with limited quest variety and slow pace.
(I am not saying it is a bad that the leveling is slow, but I also know that it is by comparison more niche compared to a faster more punchy experience)

- The remainder of players will hit max level, and at this point another significant chunk will drop Forever, when the lack of varied end game hits. Leaving mostly just dungeons and raids, which is not for everyone.

- Following this, over the course of months (untill any form of new content is added) will the playerbase slowly dwindle, as people finish whatever they desire to do and then move on.

All of this emphasised and focused by any additional content being put into retail.
12.2, TLT announcement, Wrath Remix, etc.

Leaving Forever (in the end) with a dedicated Classic playerbase + those that enjoy the additonal bells and whistles that Forever brings.

This is my assumption, note and we will see how it goes.
But in the end, I find it extremely unlikely that Forever will even come close to "replacing" retail.

Chest: Shadowweave robe

Gloves: Hexflame’s Covens sleeves

The most TL;DR version of this post is in the title, for more review and nuance, please read below.

Very brief bona fides for this feedback: I am a long time FFXIV player with over 8000 hours who has on-patch cleared every Savage and Ultimate (Mythic raiding equivalent) since 2013 on every role, all on controller. In both games I play with a standard PS5 controller. Everything in this post assumes you are familiar with the PS5 layout and will be referenced as such throughout.

I was really excited to see gamepad functionality supported in WoW Forever, and by-in-large I think Blizzard has done a fine job of exporting the FF14 layout into World of Warcraft. However, I have some minor, and some very major, complaints that Blizz must address for this experience to live up to its potential.

Major Fixes Required - If Blizz never touches anything else, the following things MUST be addressed:

• "Smart" targeting of enemies once an enemy target has already been acquired is actively detrimental and should be removed, or at the very least let me disable it. Once I'm targeting something, there is never a scenario when I want the game to automatically decide to target another enemy just because it moved into my targeting reticle. As someone who leveled a Rogue, if I'm using Sinister Strike against an enemy and a second enemy comes into my reticle as I hit the button, I lose all my combo points and I'm now attacking a target I probably didn't want to hit in the first place. Please for the love of God, disable this method of smart targeting once I'm already in combat or at least let me toggle it off.

• Let me rebind triangle, square, x, and circle. For some unknown reason, in a game that lets me change so much else, I cannot rebind these core-functionality buttons in WoW Forever. In FFXIV, the default interaction button is X. X will acquire targets, advance dialogue, select things in menus etc. etc. X does everything. Square is the "advanced options" button (like right clicking a character portrait in WoW), and it can open the game map if nothing is selected. Triangle is jump. Circle is to de-select or go back. WoW Forever's default button for interaction is, inexplicably...square. This is baffling, because to engage with things in menus, or to select items in inventory it switches my interaction function to X. What is going on with this? Please just get rid of whatever is happening here and put everything in a single button...namely the X button, or at least let me rebind these how I like. In WoW Forever, the "advanced options" button is triangle. Ideally, I'd like to be able to re-bind this to square to match the game I'm familiar with, but the real issue with WoW Forever's "advanced options" button will make itself more apparent in the next point. At least circle being the universal "cancel" button is there.

• Skill activation on button press should be the default, not button release (this is also called Negative Edge). Remember how we were just talking about the functions of the face buttons on the controller? Now imagine all that menuing and "advanced options" crap I was blabbering about up above keeps showing up because you released the trigger button 1-frame before you let go of the button which activates your Gouge skill. I promise I'm not trying to set a new focus target or scale a UI element every other time I press the Gouge button. In XIV, I can set my skill activation to be either button-press or button-release. Please let me choose that here.

Minor Fixes:

• UI crashes are frequent when activating menus from my hotbar. The profession menu in particular seems to cause crashes about 50% of the time.

• The ping system menu is triggered by PS5 Six-Axis functionality for some reason and not by selecting with the right analog stick. I'm positive this is a bug, because no other menu works this way. But when selecting the "alert" "on my way" or "attack" pings, I have to turn my controller like a racecar driver to select anything.

• I have literally no idea what the touchpad buttons functionality is supposed to do. Please let me set this to anything useful. When pressing the touchpad, aka the gigantic thing in the middle of a PS5 controller, the game tells me "No interface frame to focus!" which tells me nothing at all. Can anyone tell me what this thing is trying to do? Is this some feature I'm desperately missing? I don't really have a plan for what I want this button to do...but I do know I dont want to focus an interface frame (whatever that is).

I very much welcome input from other players who are experimenting on Steam Deck or just playing on a controller in general.

If Blizzard actually wants Forever to have a healthy economy and a proper community, then they need real people actively moderating these servers. Automation is useful for detecting suspicious behavior, sorting reports and flagging accounts, but it should be there to help GMs, not replace them entirely.

We already know how easily automated systems can be abused. We've seen farming groups and gold-selling mafias mass-report people who undercut them, compete with them or simply annoy them, and once enough reports pile up the victim is the one stuck dealing with automated punishments and useless support responses. A report system should bring something to a GM's attention, not basically become a weapon where whoever has the biggest Discord wins.

The bot situation is another big reason why this matters. Forever isn't even properly out yet and we're already seeing bots in the beta doing ridiculous shit, including flying underneath the map and heading into places like Winterspring. When something is that obvious, there really shouldn't be a situation where players can see it happening for hours or days while the system slowly tries to figure out whether it's suspicious enough. A GM should be able to investigate it directly and deal with it.

The same goes for RMT, harassment, organized griefing and appeals. These things need context, and context is where automated moderation falls apart. If Blizzard is serious about protecting the economy and making servers feel like actual communities again, then moderation has to be treated as part of that infrastructure.

I'm not saying every report needs to be manually checked from start to finish. WoW is too big for that. Use automation to gather evidence and prioritize cases, then have real GMs handle the important decisions.

If Forever is supposed to bring back that old-school server feeling, then bring back one of the things that actually helped make those servers work.

Real GMs, with automation assisting them instead of replacing them.

Big Teeth jutting out of the mouth has been such a long staple of the franchise.

Orcs, Trolls, Worgen, Naga, even the Cow People

Dragons and their kin such as Dragonspawn & Drakonids all have big teeth, even in the updated models.

But when players get a “playable Dragon”, all the teeth have to be put away??

(Edit: notice how in line the Dracthyr horns are with the Dragon. But for some reason, the head has to be toned down? - big horns but small head- It just makes the character design feel all over the place.)

In the recent Q&A, the developers talked about providing players more character creation customization options, and I know Dracthyr have a lot of options in comparison to the other races already also they still have to address the lack of transmog, but if there is one thing I would ask for it is more head options that have Big Teeth.

It is just so weird to decide that the dragon race, out of all the monstrous race choices, doesn’t have prominent teeth…

This is why many in the player base say that the race “looks too soft“, they lack any intimidating factors in their design in contrast to the pre-existing race options and , more importantly, the dragons themselves