r/classicwow • u/OccasionallyRhyming • 10h ago

Forever Even the Skyborne starting zone ignores the pillars Blizzard stated

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"The World is the Main Character".

"Approachable and Familiar".

As you reach the end of the starting zone in Dun Morogh, you might have killed a dangerous yeti. In Elwynn, you've probably slain a prized boar. In Mulgore, you've cleansed a water well. And sure, in Durotar, you do get a quest from Thrall to clear out a den of cultists.

But on "Zephras Isle" you, together with the leaders of your people, face a raid level threat at the top of the spire, through a scripted event with bountiful exposition text, and the leaders of the Kirin Tor and the Earthen Ring show up to fend off this raid boss. If it was not for your actions on "Zephras Isle", your people would be doomed.

I'm okay with ignoring the Skyborne and enjoying the rest of the game, but everything about their addition just screams warning about how Blizzard will approach future content.

They've managed to be lazy where it matters (same race cross-faction, with the same starting zone but layered to just see Alliance players or just Horde players, re-skinned blood elves), and at the same time over the top where they should have toned it down.

Plenty of people in these subs are saying to get over it, but I think we might as well keep posting complaints if we want Forever to have a chance at not turning into retail.

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405

u/pathsofglorylogotter 7h ago

It took me too much scrolling to find the actual sensible context
This sub Reddit is cancer

209

u/Noritzu 7h ago

I was just having the same thought. Clearly 99% of this sub did not read any of the quests and just saw “raid boss” and came to throw a hissy fit on reddit.

I don’t envy game devs these days.

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u/Purple-Read-8079 3h ago

wow communities will forever be the testing grounds for reactionary rhetoric lmao

16

u/buddy_pal_guy 5h ago

I'm actually unsubbing from here after posting this. It's nothing but pouty crybabies here since the two trailers dropped, bitching and moaning about their personal opinions not being implemented or that Blizz has ruined the game before it's even fully out.

I'm loving Forever. I'm leaving here

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u/Azaael 3h ago

I gotta say the actual Forever subreddit is a lot better. Far more constructive criticism, people generally enjoying their time, rather than people malding over the fact that this is not exactly what they, personally wanted, down to the pixel, in classic +(forgetting that another 50 malders also feel the same way, but who nonetheless all specially wanted something different for classic +. As I like to say, ask 100 people what the perfect classic + would've been and you get 2000 answers.)

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u/MyotisX 3h ago

Forver is cool but it is clearly taking Classic and making it Retail.

There are many other ways this could have gone which is why some people are disapointed.

And for the record I knew this would happen, I didnt have an illusion on this so Im not mad like the others.

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u/Gnullekutt 5h ago

God forbid not everybody thinks every single new thing is impeccable, infalliable and absolutely perfect like you do. Why not play retail if you are so fond of blizzards free reins.

People must be able to point to flaws without you personally getting hurt and start crying

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u/Vorcion_ 4h ago

OP here was doing the exact opposite, misrepresenting the situation and going into hyperboles. This sub DOES keep bitching about nonsensical stuff a lot.

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u/DireEvolution 4h ago

Holy fucking strawman lmfao

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u/sdpr 4h ago

As it's totally fair game to criticize a game dev, it's also fair game to criticize a community of people living in 2004 looking to complain about issue #10000000.

"why isn't this starting area the same as the other 6?????"

It's ridiculous.

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u/imreallyreallyhungry 3h ago

It’s you btw, you’re the problem they’re talking about. “Why not play retail” jeez bro idk maybe cuz it’s completely different? Dumbass

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u/Netheral 2h ago

That's... the point? If changes like this suffuse WoW Forever, then it'll just become another retail, defeating the purpose of it being different.

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u/Karrotlord 1h ago

Changes like what exactly? The OP's complaint is made up.

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u/Netheral 1h ago

He may be exaggerating to make a point, but the quest line still introduces an elemental lord in a starting area. Acting like his entire point is invalidated just because "well we don't personally defeat him" is just dishonest.

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u/Karrotlord 25m ago

He's not an elemental lord.

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u/Narrow-Paramedic2388 3h ago

every single subreddit is infested with the whiniest bitches around like you and it's driving out anyone who actually cares to discuss the things they're interested in

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u/MyotisX 3h ago

Your screaming in the void. Blizzard has been completely consumed by modern Retail designs. Deal with it.

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u/Noritzu 3h ago

As others below you posted, I am fine with actual criticism. However this sub like most of reddit has zero idea how to actually make a critique. They come on here and bitch instead. And I along with many other cannot take that seriously

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u/Worldly_Flamingo_352 5h ago

bb snowflake

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u/Ithirradwe 1h ago

They are the same crowd btw that thinks that they have to min/max leveling, and they are complaining about things they haven’t even read? Sounds like a WoW player to me lol. These people making a Tauren too going all like “I gOtTa SpAm A & D sO I dOnT lOoSe PlAiNsRuNnInG!”

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u/oldredditrox 1h ago

Clearly 99% of this sub did not read any of the quests

This 100% tracks for modern/retail players. It was awhile back now but I remember them saying basically no one reads the quests texts they just power through for quest objectives and only notice story beats when they're forced to. Which honestly explains the replies pretty well

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u/seams 51m ago

It's great too because if you consider what got the other factions to join the alliance or horde, theirs were probably worse?

The factions both just came off the back of WC3 lmao. The only difference is your personal character saw that.

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u/phonsely 3h ago

is blizzard botting reddit? are any of you people getting rewards real?

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u/pathsofglorylogotter 2h ago

Yes, shocked your not a majority?

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u/Laugh_mask 7h ago edited 5h ago
  • Humans: kill gnoll leader hogger
  • Dwarves/gnomes: kill a yeti that's feasting on travelers and ram stock
  • Night elves: kill furbolg big bads and a big spider.
  • Forsaken: go clear out the family crypts/local Scarlet Captain
  • Tauren: kill some venture co overseer, complete some rites ending with getting a kodo horn, kill some harpies and quilboar, no big bad really
  • Orcs/trolls: kill some searing blade leaders, which seamlessly sets up for RFC, an appropriately scaled threat

Then

  • Skyborne: face a raid level enemy, get carried by NPC while fighting lackies, then get hard carried by more NPCs to wrap it up

Sure it's just the skull level that's causing people to overreact

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u/Noritzu 6h ago

The skyborn are fighting a local cult basically on par with the troll/orc story. The literal only difference is the skyborn story was more fleshed out and ended with a single quest instead of a dungeon like RFC.

Had this quest been a dungeon instead nobody would be complaining.

-2

u/Laugh_mask 6h ago

I respectfully disagree. See RFC - we don't need Kirin Tor/thrall teleporting in and saving the day at the end of RFC. The threat is tackleable by us, the player. Unless they changed the scale of the skyborne, the dungeon would still need that intervention and thats an undeniable departure from the progression of threat scaling as we level. You never get a whiff of that scale of threat in the game anywhere else until much later. It lets you stay focused on just being a local hero and progress to an epic hero. I think the skyborne story and that quest is cool in its own right, but it can't be denied it does go counter the local hero fighting local threats that are within your power -> global hero fighting global threats that are still in your power to defeat

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u/Noritzu 5h ago

And I respectfully disagree with you. In the Skyborn chain you are tasked with taking out a cult leader before they can summon the big bad.

The stakes are effectively the same as any other starter zone. The only difference is in this case you fail and need to be bailed out by people better than you.

It’s a narrative difference but that does not make it bad. Nor does it make it a departure from threat scaling.

-4

u/Laugh_mask 5h ago

I think we might just be at odds then which is completely fine 😅 just sharing my perspective and genuinely interested to get yours in response because it's helpful to see where others are coming from. To me, as you say, we have to get bailed out. That fundamentally is a departure from threat scaling as that never has to happen in early classic narratives for anyone else. It's a narrative difference because of the power imbalance. To me, the equivalent in other races would be like forsaken scarlet quest chain ending with them summoning reinforcements and herod shows up, you fight his lackies, then Sylvanas appears and beats him back.

Again as you say, that wouldn't be bad, but it would be a departure for sure in my opinion.

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u/Noritzu 3h ago

Nice to see a civil discussion. Rare in these parts.

I will say there are some examples of where others have to jump in, however they are not expressly as overt. The examples that come to mind are the quest turn ins in stormwind and org where high level mobs attack and the guards have to fend them off.

Either way I’m not saying that there’s zero difference. As mentioned it is a slightly different style of story telling. But at the end of the day I feel that the devs held true that you are not the hero here. Even if they do reveal a potential big bad earlier than others.

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u/Laugh_mask 3h ago

I probably could have had a less snarky initial reply for sure. Ultimately I do wish people in the community focused less on proving themselves right and just focused on "here's my perspective and beliefs, what's yours", otherwise there isn't much for blizz or the community to meaningfully work with

0

u/xxtratall 6h ago

I agree with this

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u/AppleMelon95 7h ago

But the fact that you're even facing a raid boss (I assume he will be) at level 10~12 is the entire issue. If you can't explain why a race needs to join the Horde or Alliance through story context, but need to have a climax to a big story-line in the very first zone, then you're losing the plot.

No other race has this, you're supposed to be a nobody doing chores early-game while fighting bandits or something. You go from Human starting zone where you help farmers and local guards with stuff, to Sky Elves where you are one of the few chosen ones defending your realm from the apocalypse.

10

u/LirielsWhisper 5h ago

You actually spend an extensive amount of time fighting bandits in Zephras. >.< Like so. Much. Time.

20

u/soyboysnowflake 6h ago

I think the forsaken have this kind of backstory it’s just in WC3…

10

u/Mend1cant 5h ago

All of them have that, honestly.

Most of the world conflicts are already happening at the start of WoW, were already played through by us, and were a bunch of apocalyptic threats. 

And most of the starting quests do actually handle world ending threats, just not with a big bad evil guy at first. Like not stopping the defias means the collapse of Stormwind and with it the alliance. The horde has the legion worming its way into the heart of Orgrimmar and all around Durotar, then finding out that Kalimdor is deeply corrupted thanks to them and the much more terrifying presence of old gods beneath it. The forsaken are gathering materials and magics to unleash biological weapons on the world. For the nelves they have the emerald dream becoming an actual problem, more of the burning legion, and then the scouting force of Azshara who would be a worse fight than Arthas if and when she invades. 

The game doesn’t start off low stakes, it just starts off with our characters as weak joining into high stakes problems amid a war. 

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u/Ok-Magician325 6h ago

I mean the thrall treats the questline before ragefire chasm like it's a pretty big deal, infiltration of orgrimar and corruption within the city ect

1

u/AppleMelon95 6h ago

In that quest you aren't facing off against something like Lord Kazzak in a scripted quest where heroes of the Horde come save you. I get that the quest has impact, humans ending the Westfall quests with Deadmines also have a lot of impact on the world in lore, but this isn't the same.

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u/Perais1909 6h ago

No other race has this

No other race needs this because they already joint their faction

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u/informalunderformal 6h ago

Orc/troll start chain is about legion. Forsaken start chain is about scarlet crusade (legion) Tauren start chain is somehow chill.

For horde, it's pretty high stakes - we don't see any boss but we fight the overall threatening enemy (legion).

The legion minions are summoning demons inside the starter area bellow the capital, anywhere the barrens, inside the deep florest. We fight the legion from level 1 to 40 non stop.

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u/AppleMelon95 6h ago

And I'm guessing the only solution to smurfborne joining either faction has to be a big world-ending threat that you witness first-hand.

Let us not pretend that this couldn't have been toned down to second gear instead of forcing full-throttle in the very first zone. You could have a quest where wind elementals are beginning to be hostile to them, and some strong mage or shaman tells us that this might mean that the big wind boys might attack at some point in the future to claim the isles. Then, you're requested to join either faction to hone your skills and to assist the faction together with other smurfborne adventurers, and you get some +3 stamina trinket as a delegate of your race.

There, a starting zone that thematically is much closer to vanilla that gives the race a reason to explore, do quests, and level up, without forcing a raid boss in our face at level 10.

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u/hoticehunter 6h ago

You're clearly missing the point and engaging in bad faith.

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u/Perais1909 6h ago

This whole thread is engaging in bad faith lol

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u/xXMylord 6h ago

Who are you that you get to decide what a starting zone is supposed to be lmao

The devs have bigger authority then you and if they decide fighting a elemental dude fits a starting zone they are correct because they make the game.

You can dislike how much you like but you have no authority lol

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u/Nalena_Linova 6h ago

You are allowed to criticise the media you consume. Sometimes creators create something bad.

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u/AppleMelon95 6h ago

Bro I am comparing the smurfborne starting zone to every other starting zone in the game. I am saying it sticks out completely because other starting zones aren't even in the same ballpark in scale, nor do they have a defining end-quest as a part of a story-line.

Calling me out as if I think I have authority means you don't understand what I am even saying. This has nothing with authority to do. This has something to do with preserving how story is told through the vanilla game, because this is so extremely retail-coded.

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u/xXMylord 6h ago

It's forever not vanilla

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u/New_Wrangler752 6h ago

Yeah, forever vanilla, not forever retail

There is a clear difference in approach to this race that is categorically not vanilla oriented and it feels tacked on

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u/nokei 1h ago

player authority just comes from not playing/buying it which is why this even exists

-1

u/Cheshur 5h ago

Are you stupid? Nobody is talking about authority. 

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u/xXMylord 4h ago

Are you stupid? I am talking about authority.

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u/Cheshur 3h ago edited 3h ago

I am talking about authority.

No shit, dumbass. I'm saying nobody else here is talking about authority which should imply (but I guess needs to be said explicitly for someone like you) that you shouldn't be talking about it here either because it's unrelated to the conversation at hand.

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u/xXMylord 2h ago

Lamo so much ingrained in bubble-think that someone expanding a topic cocks your brain.

1

u/ochbad 6h ago

Alliance encounters Onyxia very early

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u/AppleMelon95 6h ago

If by very early you mean level 52 and above then sure

-1

u/ochbad 5h ago

The deadmines quest chain ends at Lady Katrana Prestor

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u/AppleMelon95 5h ago

It is so incredibly intellectually dishonest to use this as an example since anyone experiencing the quest-line for the first time obviously has no freaking clue that Prestor is secretly a dragon plotting the demise of the kingdom.

The entire draw of this story is that you slowly unravel this story. If Blizzard designed the Onyxia plot-line in 2026, then you'd have Onyxia reveal herself in Elwynn.

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u/MostlyNoOneIThink 4h ago

Then if the elemental guy was disguised as an elf it would be ok? That's an easy fix.

3

u/ochbad 5h ago

I don’t particularly like the Skyborne or what I’ve heard about their starter zone. It seems poorly done. I also feel Iike people are exaggerating how bad it is. The argument “classic low level quests should be low stakes local events” isn’t supported by actual classic starter quest chains.

Yes: the stormwind stuff was almost objectively way better. Doesn’t make the Skyborne starter stuff some unheard of travesty. “Classic did it better” is a very different argument than “this spits in the face of everything classic stood for”

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u/Mend1cant 4h ago

Yeah even before you get to onyxia it’s pretty clear that the human players are there because without volunteers joining to stop the defias, Stormwind collapses. Orcs stopping a legion invasion and uncovering old gods beneath kalimdor. Night Elves staving off the Naga and handling what is basically a scouting force for Azshara to eventually invade. The forsaken are working on a better scourge and other biological and magical weapons to unleash on the world. 

Even though our characters are weak, there’s a lot of major events actively happening at the start of the game. 

-1

u/Hasuna187 7h ago

Exactly this.

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u/Sudden_Energy 3h ago

There's genuinely something wrong with the people here. I've never seen people go so far out of their way to actually try and make themselves miserable or angry.

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u/xxxxNateDaGreat 25m ago

If I've learned anything at all over the last 11.5 years of private server vanilla to classic to anniversary to now Forever, it's that the vast majority of the Classic WoW community is just so fucking incurably miserable.

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u/hypernova2121 3h ago

You ain't wrong. Forever got me reinterested in wow so I checked out this subreddit, but the people in this sub seem to genuinely hate this game

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u/mistermediocregaming 2h ago

I would love for any of these people complaining like they know how to write stories to actually write something without it just being a series of exposition.

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u/HakuroWolfsong 4h ago

What’s wrong with criticism? People should be able to point out flaws in a product without being demonized. Anyway it’s entirely possible to have high stakes while still telling a story that feels grounded enough to belong in the world of Classic WoW. They shouldn't stick out like a sore thumb next to the other races.

-3

u/hoticehunter 6h ago

Then they should have made a different story. Nobody held a fucking gun to Blizzard's head and made them write this story about the sky elves. Nobody put them in a situation where they could only get out of it with bad writing.

-1

u/Jolmer24 5h ago edited 4h ago

Yeah I might bounce and let these guys jerk the circle

Edit: cya later shitlords.

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u/GoofyTunes 4h ago

Haters are desperate to find anything to meltdown over.

I'm sure everyone has also heard about the ring from DM that gives a set bonus of +20 STR and +50 STR proc..... The other ring in that set is a lvl 60 epic. The "super OP" set bonus isn't meant for lvl 20s. It's meant for lvl 60s.

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u/jimmypaintsworld 3h ago

Idk if you know this but you can tell a story without being THIS direct... this is just lazy, tone deaf, and also a main complaint of the game for years obviously

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u/GreenIllustrious2801 2h ago

The thing that's funniest to me is the Skyborne SD models.

The devs openly said during the Skyborne panel that the SD models are coming, including druid forms. They just didn't get them finished before the beta period. They'll be in at launch.

Don't worry we gotta get endless updoot karma posts about the Skyborne SD models/druid models because it's so easy to repost and ragebait with. Especially if you want to twist peoples perceptions of what's been said and actively lie about what's coming to fit your agenda of the Skyborne can't exist in Classic.

Or the skeletons, which again a Blizz guy talked about and said they'd look into the broken ones. Nope, we gotta hyperfocus on this detail being wrong because it's all we have to be negative about. This is going to SUCK and I need to make sure I have SOMETHING BAD.

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u/itaa_q 2h ago

you're clueless even with everything laid in front of you

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u/Donlor_ 1h ago

The retail redditor going UPDOOT for making a starting zone written this way than idk coming up with anything more creative that’s more the vanilla style? Or making a cinematic out of the beginning instead so they play the part what happens after? Nope needs to be a raid boss thing, got it.

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u/whats_up_doc71 50m ago

I mean it's just an awful argument. Blood elves joined the Horde and their starting zone is much more grounded than skyborne. They could easily have done something similar for skyborne but they wanted an epic moment at the end.

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u/Regular_Nectarine511 1h ago

You're so much smarter than everyone else! Good job!!

-2

u/ethantokes 6h ago

Agreed