Grab the limited edtion World of Warcraft 20th anniversary themed Steelseries peripherals before they sell out, and get a 12% discount while using offer code SKILLUP at checkout: steelseries.com/world-of-warcraft-collection?srsltid=AfmBOopXdkhx9sYYTXxHS8WTxU7BaMeXdlMnjlgHYm041fXwXOCvL84J
@@TheCocomungesI don't think he's denying that That's the price. I think he's just saying it's so overly priced it's insane for any of them at that price point
If i have to make a guess he was probably gonna be positive and a recommend (based on what ive heard about it) but then all the crap hit the fan with bungie.
the game's still got some flaws, but compared to shadowlands, it definitely feels like the old dev team who was hellbent on making you as miserable as possible was replaced with someone who's focused on letting people have fun instead
@@fireflyfrv654 I think that War Within might be the best the game has been in the last 10 years baring the large amount of technical bugs that still plauge it after the launch.
I grew up playing WoW in my teens, stopped when they released Cata. It will always be the best gaming period of my life, but ill never be able to go back to it. Its just strayed too far from what it used to be.
I quit cold turkey at the release of cataclyst also. getting my life back was more worth it in the end than the countless fun hours I had playing this game.
I think the difference here is that SkillUp is a great story teller who shapes the narrative from the start of the video, so even when you hear a bunch of negatives, you know his positives that make it a worthwhile recommendation are around the corner. Austin's opener literally doesn't mention his disdain for the campaign or story or any of his other misgivings, just a half second "any grievances I had" so you aren't prepared for the rest of the review.
This is the first expansion that I haven't played on release (I started playing WoW in 2005). As much as I would love to dive back in, I know that regardless of how much casual content there is, I wouldn't be able to help myself when faced with the challenge of competing at the high end... I played Dragonflight for the first three patches, initially intending to be a casual player. Within a month or so, I was already in a heroic/mythic raiding guild whilst pumping +20-27 mythic+ keys. WoW is definitely more accessible than it has ever been, but it is also just as capable of consuming every moment of your free time. There are just too many other awesome games that I miss out on every time I start playing again. I'm glad to see that the launch has been a success though, and I hope it continues for many years to come.
Never went as hardcore as you.... But I understand where you're coming from. WoW can be extremely time consuming... Especially with all the games that exist nowadays. Honestly, I now play relatively casual so I can spread my time out between multiple games. I truly love WoW, but don't want to be pigeonholed into just playing it only.
@@deadwejght5357 The thing is, after playing all of the hard content the first time, I start playing more for the challenge, and because I feel like I need to progress my gear/rating rather than just feeling joy about playing the game. It keeps me occupied, but there are so many varied gaming experiences across so many genres, that it's a shame to only play one game. There could be multiple others that only take 30-50 hours to finish and could become some of the best experiences I've had in gaming. For example, if I hadn't taken a break off of WoW in 2018 because I was getting too sweaty, I would have never discovered how much I love souls-like games. The From Software titles are now my favourite experiences in all of gaming, and I definitely wouldn't have have time to play the 6 games I missed in the series if I was still pushing high Mythic+ keys and raiding in wow.
@@yapp2yapp2 I'm sure some people can, but I'm not one of them. Wow is the only game that I would say I was somewhat addicted to. I hated when my ilvl was falling behind because I didn't get enough Mythic raid bosses or 20+ M+ keys done in a week, or that my M+ logs were outside the 95-99 bracket. Curve was really just the first goal I had of each patch, and from then it was when the real sweat started. It just isn't a game that is good for me on a personal level, and I'm finally at a place where I can recognise that.
I wonder if the open world feeling empty might be an Australian server issue? On NA it’s pretty much always the opposite, there are times where the mobs simply don’t spawn fast enough because so many people are all doing the same open world content
its the most fun ive had in years playing wow, i don't feel any need to log in when i don't want to, and when i do i always have something to do that is satisfying and can get done in 30mins or less. the story is actually the bigger part that fills in a lot of gaps that linger from the past, but also teases us with questions about the future of azeroth. also a lot of the side quests had their own fantastic little storylines about them too, i felt invested into the dementia riddled earthen who we help shut down. i just hope they can keep up with the unquenchable thirst for new content and types of things to do.
By what you said of Anduin "suddenly finding a civilization underground" i can see you skip the "stay a while and listen dialogues" and don't often click to read characters text dialogue. He hints at this very early on when he said the earthen called him "an Arathi" and he starts to investigate why
WoW's open world isn't empty because of their world or questing design. It's empty because of "sharding". Creating dynamic instances of the same zone that split up the playerbase. This is done for performance reasons and so that you're not competing with as many other players for questing (would suck to compete with 20 other players to kill the same 5 boars), but it does also result in a world that feels less populated.
And yest this is still what happens. A million players descend on an area for mobs. Wow is garbage. A cash grab, nothing else. Everything in wow revolves around wasting your time and getting you to spend money. Fun or efficiency comes last. Now stfu and pay your sub after we wipe 10.000 guild banks. Fack that. I quit. I am now playing FF14. You do nto get to delete all in my guild bank and then still expect me to pay you. Are you for real? I get slapped in the face and you want me to pay fo rthat?
Yeah this was a weird one. The first, like, 2/3 of the video were complaints. After that segment Austin said the game is good because you can play solo and the side content is fun solo. Almost every good part had a caveat, then the game got an overall recommend? Super strange review for something that's "recommended".
He criticizes the story/open world for its issues, praises delves, the gearing curve/options, and hero talents, while pointing out where there are issues with each. Its a nuanced review that supports the recommendation.
@@cluin1470 given his closing line about expecting to be here for "a good time, not a long time (based off of previous experience)" i think it's safe to say that a big part of that recommendation comes from WoW's fundamentals - the core moment-to-moment gameplay has never really been beaten within the standard MMO genre. buttons feel good to press, boss encounters are almost always fun, and classes almost all play in a fun, mostly-distinct way. some games have definitely innovated in ways that make them stand out, but WoW CRUSHES everything else in the tab-target mmo genre gameplay-wise. I think this should have been elaborated on in the video, as this is the first time the channel has talked about the game but i believe the implication is there
@@belowbronze8588 You're correct. Also I wish people would drop the desire to see a rating or recommendation / no recommendation. When it comes to reviews the only thing that SHOULD matter is their content.
Nice to see a well balanced take on TWW. Though from the prospective of a long time player WoW has never been as much fun. Been amazing to see old mates appear on the friends list. I would highly recommend giving it a chance.
The first 3 minutes of this video perfectly sum up my experience as well. TWW made the game approachable for someone with a life, with a family, with a social circle and limited time to play. I get the feeling I'm still making progress, not missing anything the game has to offer, and getting ready to push the harder content when I feel like it
I understand the complaints many have about catering to solo play being antithetical to an MMO, but it's kind of a lost argument at this point. Solo "casual" players have made up a *significant* part of the audience for over 15 years, Blizzard knows this. Of course they want to serve that audience.
Thank you for this! I've always been interested in WoW and similar games, but also am sorta of a loner and don't like much playing with other people. Having a look at all the features and the mechanics from a casual PoV (like myself) has been interesting.
I wonder if the play population thing is an issue with oceania? I am on a extremely well populated wow server and I group up with random people constantly to do world quests. So much so, I don't even need to find a group to do the weekly World boss - just jump in with a large group already doing it.
I guess so, because in my experience this "the open world is empty" claim is just wild: there's always plenty of people around in all open world areas and events...
God, so many toxic idiots posing as "hardcore gamers" commenting under your reviews lately. Anyway, never played WoW and this expansion didn't entice me enough to try it but a couple of friends of mine who had abandoned the game for years all came back with War Within and they all enjoy it, so your review seems to support their stance on the current state of WoW. Cheers for your effort!
This is a fine reivew, a fair review, plenty of players see the game this way. But 10+ minutes on the campaign when you're not into the story of WoW feels immense, its okay not to like the story, its okay to only know the characters as anything other than 'dwarf guy' and 'no idea what xalatath is doing' is fine but at some point if you're reviewing a story its all right there On top of the campaign as he said, being like 5-8 hours of the first days of the expansion, you do it once every 2 years if you don't enjoy it. It was 5-8 hours in the last week of August, we're now in the start of October ;_; Anduin has been struggling/without the light for like 5 years now, Xalatath has been with us since 2015 only becoming more and more of an issue every single expansion, 'dwarf guy' is Brann Bronzebeard, he's played a major part of pretty much every expansion since Wrath of the Lich King Strongly advise doing the sidequests/sojourner in Isle of Dawn if you feel nothing for the Earthen, I felt the same way my first weekend with the game, the main campaign didn't do much for them outside of cool guy riding a gryphon, the side quests there contain one of WoW's best questlines which is a very short list of like 15 quests in 20 years
Played the game since Vanilla Naxx and honestly I will still stand by WoW's worse expansion is still just meh, is it terrible compared to the rest of them... yes. But was it a bad game, no, but it wasn't good... Shadowlands and WoD were truly meh, confusing and odd, but i didn't hate them and still stand by Wrath and Legion were the best... Coming back to War Within... I played till max level then I really haven't been back since, I have had as much fun with War Within as i did Battle for Azeroth and that took me a moment to remember it's name. It's flashy and the cutscenes are great, but once I was done with the campaign, I didn't seem to have the care, passion or anything to keep going... I went and played WoW: Project Ascension instead... Great video Austin!
This expac has been good and definitely builds on the good that dragonflight brought to the game. Story is alright, feel like it has potential but we’ll see where they go from here. In regards to content, this has been the most fun I’ve had playing WoW since Legion tbh
Could anybody explain to me who exactly Villainess Toerings is? I'm considering jumping back for the xpac but literally all I know about the big bad is that she's some evil void thing that jumped out of a weapon and possessed a dead elf. Like, what is she all about and why I should I care?
I got into both Retail and Cata Classic a month ago and its been an absolute blast. I didn't expect the WW "story" would be very brief cut scenes with characters talking about their feelings for the most part. The new zones are cool and gorgeous though.
I'm sure the comments are very balanced and civil on this one lol. TWW was made better for me because I played FF14: Dawntrail first. While the story in Wow still isn't amazing, it moved at a reasonable pace, made me care about a new culture (of dwarves even), and included a lot of gameplay. Whereas Dawntrail's writing managed to be boring, too long, and resolved too quickly all at the same.
Walking the exact same route as you are, Dawntrail even being my first FF14 xpac that I experienced on release. The writing being 'too long and resolved too quickly all at the same' was terrifyingly accurate xD after Vanilla and 2 randoms months of WoD, I really came back to WoW in late BFA and I gotta say TWW really is hitting a good mark on alot of fronts imo. What I keep noticing on a regular basis is especially how good the music is almost everywhere.
Great video as usual. I'm liking TWW so far, and I think your recap of the story helped me reflect on my own feelings about it. For example the Earthen story...Despite doing every quest in the first zone, it never really felt like they did a good job making the whole "unbound vs oathsworn" thing compelling because they didn't really show big differences between the two or why they split in the first place. The unbound seem to either be unhappy with their assigned roles, or feel abandoned by their absent creators (especially when it comes to the memory bank no longer functioning), but while we see personal stories about both it never feels like either is really affecting their society as a whole. I will say for Anduin, I think his arc was less about "not needing the light" and more about how he felt disconnected and unworthy of it, with interactions showing how he was still capable of feeling it and eventually using it again on his own. Which was nice enough with a good enough payoff but much more of a common story for a troubled paladin. For the gameplay, I think you touched on it a lot with how solo friendly and season focused it is now, not to mention the outdoors feeling more vestigial than ever. I really do like the new content but over time WoW has felt more like an ARPG that has a heavy multiplayer leaning than an MMO. But it's not just WoW, that's a complaint I could level at the whole genre nowadays. I still see plenty of people around myself, but does it matter? MMOs feel less like living worlds full of people so much as virtual lobbies for an internet game.
@SkillUp Not seeing other players during the campaign is because the zones change during the campaign. When you first get to Hallowfall the zone is permanently day until you get to the story beat where it turns night, then youre in the normal zone. You couldn't see anyone because no one on your server was still doing the starting quests.
That's why the game sucks now. When I played Cataclysm you would find players doing starting quests 3 weeks after launch. But the new expansion no one is doing starter quest after 2 days. The game feels a lot smaller than I remember it almost feels like a single player game now, the mighty have fallen, even trying to find dungeons and raids, the queues are long because not many players online
@@ms3862 Why are you lying? What's with you goobers wanting games you don't play to fail? What is the point of lying about it? Just mind your own biz, this is degenerate behavior.
It’s strange that there’s no mention of how toxic WoW’s community is. I thought FFXIV players were just being self-congratulatory when they bragged about their community norms, but no, when WoW is your point of comparison every community looks like a paradise. And it does substantially diminish the experience. If you don’t know the content yet, good luck finding a queue with people who won’t melt down when your noobishness adds a few seconds to the clear time. I guess it’s possible to get around this if you can summon 4 friends at will to do instances, but why bother when games with non-shitty communities exist?
I agree, but ultimately WoW's toxicity stems from its systems and gameplay (timed runs, long runs back to the boss to have another go, VERY, VERY grindy crafting system). Even if Blizzard softens these things, it will take literal years for the playerbase to calm down.
Would you say that this a good entry point? And if so have you had to boost to a level or something? Can you follow the story without knowing anything? Sorry really want to get in this but Im afraid it's like destiny 2
@@potatoeOnRooftopI think so! Having played WoW for a good chunk of my life I can confidently say that Blizzard has put in in-game features for new players to catch up on the story. There’s an npc who can trigger a cutscene that can update people on the broadstrokes. As far as I know you should be able to get a character boost to jump right in to the expansion as part of the base edition of the expansion. Even if you don’t boost the default levelling up experience for new players is really good; been introducing the game to my partner and they’ve been enjoying the experience. Worth a shot!
@@potatoeOnRooftopthe only content WoW has sunsetted would be from cataclysm, it got rid of a bunch of the old vanilla quests and reworked those zones. In terms of story that stuff is so old now it genuinely doesn't matter to the plot but if you wanted to experience it all you can go play WoW classic. Hell you can play WoW classic, Cataclysm Classic and the War Within using the same monthly sub so go ham on whichever you like!(You still gotta buy war within of course) WoW isn't like Destiny where you gotta play every single season or else you miss story, in WoW 99% of old content is readily available.
@@potatoeOnRooftopalso DON'T boost your first character, if you do the game is gonna be ridiculously overwhelming for you and you'll likely quit. Lol Level up a character and get used to their spells and playstyle, it takes next to no time to reach max level anyway so that extra playtime will help you a lot.
I can’t find a single good review about this expansion that looks legit, they all say the same thing and outright bash people for saying it’s garbage, I’m so lost
it is interesting seeing a different perspective on the story, I played through all the zones and did all side quests as i did the main quests and think the storyline is pretty strong. I do agree Alleria was a pretty generic progression that only got decent towards the end. But i dont think the lesson from the whole Anduin arc was that he didnt need the light etc but rather that even with what had happened during Shadowlands he was still worthy of wielding the light. Same thing happens with Xal'atath, her actions are far more developed as you play through side quests and see how she has her hands in everything and is pushing everyone towards conflict and chaos. The big downside for lore is WoW needs to thread the needle between the people that want to have fun learning the lore and the people that are not interested in lore or characters and just want to get to end content as soon as possible. That is why the story of the game is not really developed through the main story and why so much of the character development occurs through the "stay and listen" mechanics, theater trope reinactments and books and other things to read in the world. The main story is simply designed to give you very little context with everything else around the world giving much of the context but still being optional.
I feel like Xal'Atath is more interesting than most of Wow's usual villains.She has a fun personality, she's aware of the accomplishments of the players in all of the previous expansions and how this kinda stuff tends to go for expansion villains and she's more likely than not gonna stick around for the next couple of expansions, so I don't need her schemes to pay off right away.
I have no intent on playing WoW. I didn't before, I don't now. My live service game of choice is Warframe (which also had an expansion called "The War Within"). If I were to pick up an MMORPG, it'd probably be FFXIV (sorry Austin). But it's nice to see the old titan that is WoW still has some fight in it.
i stopped playing in Legion because of story being locked in mythic only dungeons and being barely allowed to joint a party. returned in shadowlands because they were offering the expansion at one point, played drangonflight and now im enjoying this.
that is why Legion was the best expansion. Islese we small enough to meet a ton of ppl. Sometimes we had to w8 in line to kill the boss mog for advancing quest and we all know how long it took to collect all thse flowers for money
All that jacked-up stuff that happened at Blizz over the years plus how much the game dropped in quality chased me off after a decade of play. It gave me so much more time to try other stuff, without it dominating my time I am enjoying gaming so much more. Never going back.
I'm just curious. Why do these videos always have people like you feeling the need to tell everyone you quit and why. I just don't understand why ex wow players feel the need to comment it.
@@nineonewona good portion of people who invest thousands of hours into something let alone thousands of dollars will always feel the need to talk about it, there's nothing wrong with that.
@@nineonewon You realize everyone does this right? Anyone who has spent even a couple hundred hours on a hobby does this. Destiny players do this, League of Legends players do this, CSGO players do this, Valorant players do this and it is normal. Telling new people about their experience gives newbies a better view and helps them make a more informed decision on whether it is something to spend their time and money on.
I like a lot of what I see in War Within. But what keeps me from comitting is the community. Since ive been away, its gone from mid, to outright deranged. I dont feel like its appropriate to recommend it to people i care about.
I’m sorry WOW fans (please destroy my will to live in the comments), but this will always look like a 2000’s computer game at the public library to me.
gonna be honest, the game needs every bit of scuffed 2000s graphics it can get, because once you start raiding your fps will grind to a total halt unless you're on a state of the art machine. my 5800x3d + 3080 gets absolutely clobbered by modern wow. part of it is definitely an optimization issue but the rest is because the game can be quite demanding, especially on the cpu
I think it's just the "Blizz" style. I quite like it to be honest and miss it from time to time. I can totally understand why some people would be turned off by it though. Everyone has their preferences.
WoW looks pretty god awful, but even as an FF14 fan who's used to pretty good graphics l really like them. Its got a charm to it that's deliberate and a good reminder of just how old the game itself is, along with the Warcraft franchise as a whole. I think the game would be all the worse if it tried to pretty itself up, because we all know that art direction is rarely worth compromising for the sake of graphical fidelity.
I think my only gripe with the war within is that major cities still run like shit. Everything about this expansion is just pure fun. The new mythic+ system is not my favorite, but it's still fun to play.
Hi Austin. There is a difference between your voice's sound mixing on the starting sponsor, on this video, and the sound of your voice on the review. It's like the high frequencies have been reduced. I think your voice mixing used to sound more like the way it does on the sponsor section, which I think is a lot clearer. I was wondering the reason behind this, and if you had had any feedback on this element of your content? Hope it's ok to say. I'm just curious to understand, and wonder if this is a design choice, or if you prefer it mixed like this for a reason. Thanks for your content.
I'm one of those people whose friends try to get them to play the game then they tell me to "Oh dude install this addon and this addon and this addon and this addon x500 and then spend 10 hours setting them up. You need these addons!" And then I never install the game and move on with my life.
I'm playing Wayfinder Early Access solo and loving it. Hope to play co-op once I reach endgame. The full 1.0 version comes out Oct 21st and I hope you guys cover it as well. 😉
Systems wise the game is better than ever, the current problem is gameplay. The game is designed to be fun for dps players, if you play healer or tank you are a second class citizen and are only there to enable DPS players to have fun, which translates on a SEVERE lack of people wanting to play those roles so you have to choose between playing a fun class (dps) which means you'll be sitting in looking for group for an hour before you can find a tank and healer to go with you OR playing tank/heal which will get you instant groups but not only requires 10 times the skill of dpsing but is also stressing, unrewarding and everyone will blame you when the party dies.
Well ill be. Never thought id see the day where people actually recommend WoW. After the mass exodus and completely negative reception that Blizzard and WoW had for the past couple of years i never thought this would happen. Im still not going to play it, never cared much for WoW, but good on them.
My brother picked it up again recently but was disappointed. It's all about the endgame, the leveling experience was barely there, we both loved the massive feeling of the world back in the day and that is gone.
what are you smoking bro? There's literally miles and miles on end to explore, the world IT IS massive. And the leveling experience is as it's always been, do quest, do the campaign and at the end rainds, endgame, etc.
The 1-70 experience can be done with whatever expansion you'd like to check out through "Chromie Time" then the 70-80 leveling experience was actually good, in my opinion. I did 95% of it from the campaign. Once I was capped, all the things you didn't do during leveling are now the endgame. And there's so much. And that's okay.
Anduin had struggled for years, his war within doesn't get fixed "a few hours in". His conflict gets slightly fixed as the final part of the max level campaign after a ton of character moments, him throwing against the odds of winning and more events and story happen. It's actually a good thing he gained something from it cuz a sad Anduin is not what we want to see 😣
As a horde I can't stand emo Anduin. Alliance is supposed to represent hope and light. Glad he's having his character arc furthered and redeeming him a little
I divorced with wow for over 5 years now. Although I dont think I'll ever get back in but I'd still like it to do good. Im glad to hear that they are heading to a good direction at least for the early launch.
After finishing the entire expansion i'm a hard disagree on some of your takes around not being able to relate too well to the story. The amount of script, dialogue and exposition is the best they've ever offered. I agree there are some open ends, but it's part of a written trilogy. And where there are unclosed threads when the expansion closes, there are far more tied off and satisfyingly complete.
Not knowing "what her deal is" is kinda a hallmark of the WoW stories. It's not a good hallmark, mind you, but this seems to be how they tell stories now. Would be much better if we had Lich King style villains again whose motivations we understand, and present a great target for our campaign.
I'm only 9 minutes in but I have yet to hear anything that sounds positive. I'm a bit unsure why this is a 'recommends' rating. Edit: Okey around 11:00 he starts taking about some positives.
Austin should choose mining and herbalism as professions and fly around the Ringing Depths. He'll see other players (and a myriad of bots) swarm each and every node he lands on.
Most players are in guild chat in mmos these days unless you're in a major faction city. The best gear is still in mythic+ raids. I think delve maxes out just over 610ish.
I did a lot of side quests in each zone as i played through the campaign. Honestly I had quite a different experience to the 'rushed campaign'. Rushing the main story by only playing the campaign quests is a player choice.
So far for me it's been a decent xpac and a good new start to trying to reset the main casts stories as the story of the last 20 years has been lacking to say the least, I'm interested tos ee what influance Chris Metzen will have towardsthe later part of this xpac and onto the next 2 as he joined while the war within was mostly done from waht i've heard. The warband is honestly the best feature wow has brought into the game being able to share rep and currencies between alts helps with keeping up alts along with your main. Some of the side stories in the xpac so far have been great some of the quests get real dark real quick and it sucks that if you're not going out of your way to do the side stuff you'll miss these amazinng stories.
I feel compelled to point out a few of your criticisms regarding the narrative and character arcs are likely born from you unfamiliarity with the last 4-6 years of major story beats. TWW is simply the next step for these guys, assuming you already know what you need to know coming in. Totally valid criticism, but more attributable to a lack of broader immersion as opposed to simply poor writing.
That was a really well done but strange review. As a fellow WoW tourist, I got excited by the first few minutes. And then every point listed in the review made me more convinced that I'm right to stay away 😅
Thank you for the review, great job. Sadly BfA and Shadowlands killed any enthusiasm i had for WoW. As much good stuff i heard about Dragonflight from friends, i didnt care enough to try it and i doubt i will try The War Within. I really wished Blizz just did the Titan/Overwatch-MMO as they planned years ago... im so rdy to immerse myself into a new universe...
Wait is it actually fun? As a long time wow player i quit halfway through dragonflight, my love hate relationship with the game leaned more toward a hate and frustration with the way it constantly leaves pvp in the dust, failing at easy balancing, repetitive pve content with no passion in it. I said I wouldn't come back to wow. Maybe I'll do a little more research on the state of things currently. It's similar with cod, I wanted to love it like I used to but I just can't anymore due to compounding failures and frustrations I have no control over or say in
The Endgame is the actual Campaign. Where the actual story unfolds... Why would you delete my comment? So yes, WoW is still a time sink and it's certainly not a solo adventure game. Leveling up isn't the game... It's a side quest... I've played through the original and multiple expansions after that and leveling up was the starting point... They *finally* made leveling up more streamlined anyway with the war band system, so now you don't have to level up all your characters and build their respective reputations. That's really cool. How does each class/build play in the end game? Collecting end game gear while unlocking the end game story is WoW...
Lots of online game servers are almost empty on GMT timezone servers basically. If people are able to play in a UTH timezone theres loads of people online as usual.
There's a lot to be said for the zones, class systems. But the casual friendliness, which doesn't exist, was duct-taped on at best. The power is way off going in. Thrown in the deep end sans life preserver. Used to isn't like.
Campaign doesn't give enough fn weapons. They could give you five times more. They give you five pairs of pants before you get a new weapon. And you're dropped in a new zone, old weapon, suddenly surrounded, and I do mean surrounded, by bullet sponges. The only thing they forgot was to insult my mother.
Solo the last raidboss? A couple of weeks to get raid equal gear? ~6 skills used? Feels like they went balls deep on trying to please the crowd that just doesnt want to play/be social alot. Whole other game than what made it great back in the day.
I really dig the story in this expansion. Once I hit the endgame dailies/weekly quests and raids I'm out. I'm sure they're fun but I don't have the time or willpower to commit to wow
Grab the limited edtion World of Warcraft 20th anniversary themed Steelseries peripherals before they sell out, and get a 12% discount while using offer code SKILLUP at checkout: steelseries.com/world-of-warcraft-collection?srsltid=AfmBOopXdkhx9sYYTXxHS8WTxU7BaMeXdlMnjlgHYm041fXwXOCvL84J
$80 USD for that Steel Series key cap???!! Not a whole set of key caps. Just a single key cap for the escape key. That is INSANE.
But it is nice.
@@kerch6071 you are joking right?
Artisan keycaps are around that price, from 30-100$
@@TheCocomungesI don't think he's denying that That's the price. I think he's just saying it's so overly priced it's insane for any of them at that price point
@@KamilNesaHey some of us are not broke. Forgive them
Well. Skill ups channel releasing a war within review before a final shape review wasn't in my bingo card.
War Withing review will probably end up like the Baldurs Gate 3's review
I think shillup said the opportunity for the final shape review came and went already.
Who cares about final shits
Should tell you exactly how Final Shape has gone. Lol
I don't think anyone wants to talk about Bungie in a positive light right now.
If i have to make a guess he was probably gonna be positive and a recommend (based on what ive heard about it) but then all the crap hit the fan with bungie.
I got burnt so many times from WoW that I'm probably never going back, but I hope WoW players get a W for once
the game's still got some flaws, but compared to shadowlands, it definitely feels like the old dev team who was hellbent on making you as miserable as possible was replaced with someone who's focused on letting people have fun instead
@@fireflyfrv654 I think that War Within might be the best the game has been in the last 10 years baring the large amount of technical bugs that still plauge it after the launch.
I was the same, but War Within is great so far.
the W is already here. people are loving the game right now
im loving it! i just started this week as i was awaiting reviews. it is soo much fun, the best ive had in a long while for WoW....i hated shadowlands
Is it just me or does Austin sound more and more like Skillup every video?
They are speaking with the same structure now.
Corporate homogenization is what we call this.
@@Senumunu Or…
Austin has kidnapped Skillup and is slowly taking over his life like a doppelgänger!
You heard it here first.
he does sound like him almost exactly
I think it was like that in the beginning and it's one of the reasons I'm not the biggest fan of Austin's reviews. No offense to him.
Yep same cadence, same tone, same syllabus stresses. It’s like he’s a vocal clone
I grew up playing WoW in my teens, stopped when they released Cata. It will always be the best gaming period of my life, but ill never be able to go back to it. Its just strayed too far from what it used to be.
Great comment. Although i returned to Classic, right through to Cata it never captured the feeling i had back in the day.
I quit cold turkey at the release of cataclyst also. getting my life back was more worth it in the end than the countless fun hours I had playing this game.
This was the most back and forth review on this channel wtf lol
I think the difference here is that SkillUp is a great story teller who shapes the narrative from the start of the video, so even when you hear a bunch of negatives, you know his positives that make it a worthwhile recommendation are around the corner. Austin's opener literally doesn't mention his disdain for the campaign or story or any of his other misgivings, just a half second "any grievances I had" so you aren't prepared for the rest of the review.
I feel like "back and forth" about summarizes one's experience with WoW
This is the first expansion that I haven't played on release (I started playing WoW in 2005). As much as I would love to dive back in, I know that regardless of how much casual content there is, I wouldn't be able to help myself when faced with the challenge of competing at the high end... I played Dragonflight for the first three patches, initially intending to be a casual player. Within a month or so, I was already in a heroic/mythic raiding guild whilst pumping +20-27 mythic+ keys. WoW is definitely more accessible than it has ever been, but it is also just as capable of consuming every moment of your free time.
There are just too many other awesome games that I miss out on every time I start playing again. I'm glad to see that the launch has been a success though, and I hope it continues for many years to come.
Never went as hardcore as you.... But I understand where you're coming from.
WoW can be extremely time consuming... Especially with all the games that exist nowadays.
Honestly, I now play relatively casual so I can spread my time out between multiple games. I truly love WoW, but don't want to be pigeonholed into just playing it only.
Your not missing out if your enjoying the game your playing
@@deadwejght5357 The thing is, after playing all of the hard content the first time, I start playing more for the challenge, and because I feel like I need to progress my gear/rating rather than just feeling joy about playing the game. It keeps me occupied, but there are so many varied gaming experiences across so many genres, that it's a shame to only play one game. There could be multiple others that only take 30-50 hours to finish and could become some of the best experiences I've had in gaming.
For example, if I hadn't taken a break off of WoW in 2018 because I was getting too sweaty, I would have never discovered how much I love souls-like games. The From Software titles are now my favourite experiences in all of gaming, and I definitely wouldn't have have time to play the 6 games I missed in the series if I was still pushing high Mythic+ keys and raiding in wow.
You can just not do that lol. I'm a former mythic raider, havent done any keys, after curve i've been chilling till the next tier.
@@yapp2yapp2 I'm sure some people can, but I'm not one of them. Wow is the only game that I would say I was somewhat addicted to.
I hated when my ilvl was falling behind because I didn't get enough Mythic raid bosses or 20+ M+ keys done in a week, or that my M+ logs were outside the 95-99 bracket.
Curve was really just the first goal I had of each patch, and from then it was when the real sweat started. It just isn't a game that is good for me on a personal level, and I'm finally at a place where I can recognise that.
I wonder if the open world feeling empty might be an Australian server issue? On NA it’s pretty much always the opposite, there are times where the mobs simply don’t spawn fast enough because so many people are all doing the same open world content
Or maybe that he has Warmode off. I turn on Warmode and I’m constantly doing stuff and fighting people in the open world.
I thought the same. HE might be on a low pop server. I'm on a high pop and see people everywhere.
I think it's absolutely server based. I play on proudmoore and tichondrius, the areas were so full of players my frames kept dropping
@@warlock3691I thought all zones were cross realm now so server pop shouldn't matter?
@@Giliver they are, but it only slightly fills from other servers. The difference between high pop and low pop servers is immediately noticable.
its the most fun ive had in years playing wow, i don't feel any need to log in when i don't want to, and when i do i always have something to do that is satisfying and can get done in 30mins or less. the story is actually the bigger part that fills in a lot of gaps that linger from the past, but also teases us with questions about the future of azeroth. also a lot of the side quests had their own fantastic little storylines about them too, i felt invested into the dementia riddled earthen who we help shut down. i just hope they can keep up with the unquenchable thirst for new content and types of things to do.
talking about wow without really mentioning the raids or dungeons is like talking about destiny without mentioning the shooting
He did say he never cared much about endgame. So this review is great for people like me, who care about more than just running raids
By what you said of Anduin "suddenly finding a civilization underground" i can see you skip the "stay a while and listen dialogues" and don't often click to read characters text dialogue. He hints at this very early on when he said the earthen called him "an Arathi" and he starts to investigate why
its stuff like this that makes me reconsider tuning in to austin reviews at all
@@_holy__ghostbro no way an actual person reads that stuff lol
Yeah but don't make side-dialogues out of cut scene content y'know? Feels like that's pretty obvious
WoW's open world isn't empty because of their world or questing design.
It's empty because of "sharding". Creating dynamic instances of the same zone that split up the playerbase. This is done for performance reasons and so that you're not competing with as many other players for questing (would suck to compete with 20 other players to kill the same 5 boars), but it does also result in a world that feels less populated.
And yest this is still what happens. A million players descend on an area for mobs. Wow is garbage. A cash grab, nothing else. Everything in wow revolves around wasting your time and getting you to spend money. Fun or efficiency comes last. Now stfu and pay your sub after we wipe 10.000 guild banks. Fack that. I quit. I am now playing FF14. You do nto get to delete all in my guild bank and then still expect me to pay you. Are you for real? I get slapped in the face and you want me to pay fo rthat?
Damn, I didn’t even notice the transition from Ralph to Austin
They’ve been in each other’s mouth for a while.
Hardly heard anything that sounded like a recommendation.
Yeah this was a weird one. The first, like, 2/3 of the video were complaints. After that segment Austin said the game is good because you can play solo and the side content is fun solo. Almost every good part had a caveat, then the game got an overall recommend? Super strange review for something that's "recommended".
He criticizes the story/open world for its issues, praises delves, the gearing curve/options, and hero talents, while pointing out where there are issues with each.
Its a nuanced review that supports the recommendation.
@@cluin1470 given his closing line about expecting to be here for "a good time, not a long time (based off of previous experience)" i think it's safe to say that a big part of that recommendation comes from WoW's fundamentals - the core moment-to-moment gameplay has never really been beaten within the standard MMO genre. buttons feel good to press, boss encounters are almost always fun, and classes almost all play in a fun, mostly-distinct way. some games have definitely innovated in ways that make them stand out, but WoW CRUSHES everything else in the tab-target mmo genre gameplay-wise. I think this should have been elaborated on in the video, as this is the first time the channel has talked about the game but i believe the implication is there
If they say ‘not recommended’ people don’t watch. Who wants to watch a review that is telling them a game sucks? Less people for sure.
@@belowbronze8588 You're correct. Also I wish people would drop the desire to see a rating or recommendation / no recommendation. When it comes to reviews the only thing that SHOULD matter is their content.
I'm sure the game is good but... Blizzard, eew
Clear your mind of what you know as "Activision Blizzard", this is now "Microsoft's Blizzard" and it's darn good.
It's not good lol. The only people who enjoy it are people that have a long history with WoW.
Everyone seems to forget that all of the bad things exposed about blizzard were happening during the "golden years" it was just exposed recently.
Your comment smells of trying to be a part of the cool kids.
@@truedps8So, you don't know.
Nice to see a well balanced take on TWW. Though from the prospective of a long time player WoW has never been as much fun. Been amazing to see old mates appear on the friends list. I would highly recommend giving it a chance.
The first 3 minutes of this video perfectly sum up my experience as well. TWW made the game approachable for someone with a life, with a family, with a social circle and limited time to play. I get the feeling I'm still making progress, not missing anything the game has to offer, and getting ready to push the harder content when I feel like it
I understand the complaints many have about catering to solo play being antithetical to an MMO, but it's kind of a lost argument at this point.
Solo "casual" players have made up a *significant* part of the audience for over 15 years, Blizzard knows this. Of course they want to serve that audience.
I remember that this game held me hostage for quite a few years where I played it obsessivly.
We're now into year 3 of "They are heading in the right direction". Maybe by 2067, WoW will indeed be worth our time again. Huzzah.
Thank you for this! I've always been interested in WoW and similar games, but also am sorta of a loner and don't like much playing with other people. Having a look at all the features and the mechanics from a casual PoV (like myself) has been interesting.
I wonder if the play population thing is an issue with oceania? I am on a extremely well populated wow server and I group up with random people constantly to do world quests. So much so, I don't even need to find a group to do the weekly World boss - just jump in with a large group already doing it.
I guess so, because in my experience this "the open world is empty" claim is just wild: there's always plenty of people around in all open world areas and events...
Damn it Austin, don't tempt me!
Genuinely the most fun I've ever had with wow. Definitely worth checking out
God, so many toxic idiots posing as "hardcore gamers" commenting under your reviews lately. Anyway, never played WoW and this expansion didn't entice me enough to try it but a couple of friends of mine who had abandoned the game for years all came back with War Within and they all enjoy it, so your review seems to support their stance on the current state of WoW. Cheers for your effort!
Unearned monologues of introspection does exactly describe how it felt to me.
This is a fine reivew, a fair review, plenty of players see the game this way.
But 10+ minutes on the campaign when you're not into the story of WoW feels immense, its okay not to like the story, its okay to only know the characters as anything other than 'dwarf guy' and 'no idea what xalatath is doing' is fine but at some point if you're reviewing a story its all right there
On top of the campaign as he said, being like 5-8 hours of the first days of the expansion, you do it once every 2 years if you don't enjoy it. It was 5-8 hours in the last week of August, we're now in the start of October ;_;
Anduin has been struggling/without the light for like 5 years now, Xalatath has been with us since 2015 only becoming more and more of an issue every single expansion, 'dwarf guy' is Brann Bronzebeard, he's played a major part of pretty much every expansion since Wrath of the Lich King
Strongly advise doing the sidequests/sojourner in Isle of Dawn if you feel nothing for the Earthen, I felt the same way my first weekend with the game, the main campaign didn't do much for them outside of cool guy riding a gryphon, the side quests there contain one of WoW's best questlines which is a very short list of like 15 quests in 20 years
Played the game since Vanilla Naxx and honestly I will still stand by WoW's worse expansion is still just meh, is it terrible compared to the rest of them... yes. But was it a bad game, no, but it wasn't good... Shadowlands and WoD were truly meh, confusing and odd, but i didn't hate them and still stand by Wrath and Legion were the best...
Coming back to War Within... I played till max level then I really haven't been back since, I have had as much fun with War Within as i did Battle for Azeroth and that took me a moment to remember it's name. It's flashy and the cutscenes are great, but once I was done with the campaign, I didn't seem to have the care, passion or anything to keep going...
I went and played WoW: Project Ascension instead...
Great video Austin!
This expac has been good and definitely builds on the good that dragonflight brought to the game. Story is alright, feel like it has potential but we’ll see where they go from here. In regards to content, this has been the most fun I’ve had playing WoW since Legion tbh
Could anybody explain to me who exactly Villainess Toerings is? I'm considering jumping back for the xpac but literally all I know about the big bad is that she's some evil void thing that jumped out of a weapon and possessed a dead elf. Like, what is she all about and why I should I care?
Uh she’s cryptic. And the void will consume all in time. And uh, ya that’s about it. You pretty much got the gist of it. Real compelling stuff eh? lol
I got into both Retail and Cata Classic a month ago and its been an absolute blast. I didn't expect the WW "story" would be very brief cut scenes with characters talking about their feelings for the most part. The new zones are cool and gorgeous though.
I'm so glad that i'm out.
based
I like that blue transmog with the Brewmaster artifact appearance. The cloak fits awesome with it
I'm sure the comments are very balanced and civil on this one lol. TWW was made better for me because I played FF14: Dawntrail first. While the story in Wow still isn't amazing, it moved at a reasonable pace, made me care about a new culture (of dwarves even), and included a lot of gameplay. Whereas Dawntrail's writing managed to be boring, too long, and resolved too quickly all at the same.
Walking the exact same route as you are, Dawntrail even being my first FF14 xpac that I experienced on release. The writing being 'too long and resolved too quickly all at the same' was terrifyingly accurate xD after Vanilla and 2 randoms months of WoD, I really came back to WoW in late BFA and I gotta say TWW really is hitting a good mark on alot of fronts imo. What I keep noticing on a regular basis is especially how good the music is almost everywhere.
Great video as usual. I'm liking TWW so far, and I think your recap of the story helped me reflect on my own feelings about it. For example the Earthen story...Despite doing every quest in the first zone, it never really felt like they did a good job making the whole "unbound vs oathsworn" thing compelling because they didn't really show big differences between the two or why they split in the first place. The unbound seem to either be unhappy with their assigned roles, or feel abandoned by their absent creators (especially when it comes to the memory bank no longer functioning), but while we see personal stories about both it never feels like either is really affecting their society as a whole. I will say for Anduin, I think his arc was less about "not needing the light" and more about how he felt disconnected and unworthy of it, with interactions showing how he was still capable of feeling it and eventually using it again on his own. Which was nice enough with a good enough payoff but much more of a common story for a troubled paladin.
For the gameplay, I think you touched on it a lot with how solo friendly and season focused it is now, not to mention the outdoors feeling more vestigial than ever. I really do like the new content but over time WoW has felt more like an ARPG that has a heavy multiplayer leaning than an MMO. But it's not just WoW, that's a complaint I could level at the whole genre nowadays. I still see plenty of people around myself, but does it matter? MMOs feel less like living worlds full of people so much as virtual lobbies for an internet game.
@SkillUp Not seeing other players during the campaign is because the zones change during the campaign. When you first get to Hallowfall the zone is permanently day until you get to the story beat where it turns night, then youre in the normal zone. You couldn't see anyone because no one on your server was still doing the starting quests.
That's why the game sucks now. When I played Cataclysm you would find players doing starting quests 3 weeks after launch. But the new expansion no one is doing starter quest after 2 days. The game feels a lot smaller than I remember it almost feels like a single player game now, the mighty have fallen, even trying to find dungeons and raids, the queues are long because not many players online
@@ms3862 This is categorically untrue.
@@ms3862are you brain dead? That's not how queues work. And the game ain't anywhere near dead. Cope more
@@ms3862 Why are you lying? What's with you goobers wanting games you don't play to fail? What is the point of lying about it? Just mind your own biz, this is degenerate behavior.
It’s strange that there’s no mention of how toxic WoW’s community is. I thought FFXIV players were just being self-congratulatory when they bragged about their community norms, but no, when WoW is your point of comparison every community looks like a paradise.
And it does substantially diminish the experience. If you don’t know the content yet, good luck finding a queue with people who won’t melt down when your noobishness adds a few seconds to the clear time.
I guess it’s possible to get around this if you can summon 4 friends at will to do instances, but why bother when games with non-shitty communities exist?
I agree, but ultimately WoW's toxicity stems from its systems and gameplay (timed runs, long runs back to the boss to have another go, VERY, VERY grindy crafting system). Even if Blizzard softens these things, it will take literal years for the playerbase to calm down.
My favs are the little tyrants that kick the 2 lowest dps after each raid boss.
I understand your point, but I haven't run into toxicity all xpac. Make your own groups for m+ and join a guild, you can curate your own experience.
@@lanadelsultana How do you even do that without dragging people into the game?
As someone who is new to WoW, this expansion is really fun! I disagree about the campaign though, it’s better than what it’s made out to be here.
Would you say that this a good entry point? And if so have you had to boost to a level or something? Can you follow the story without knowing anything? Sorry really want to get in this but Im afraid it's like destiny 2
@@potatoeOnRooftopI think so! Having played WoW for a good chunk of my life I can confidently say that Blizzard has put in in-game features for new players to catch up on the story. There’s an npc who can trigger a cutscene that can update people on the broadstrokes.
As far as I know you should be able to get a character boost to jump right in to the expansion as part of the base edition of the expansion.
Even if you don’t boost the default levelling up experience for new players is really good; been introducing the game to my partner and they’ve been enjoying the experience. Worth a shot!
@@noahmellemstrand4756Wow thanks for taking the time to answer in such Detail. Really appreciate it ❤️
@@potatoeOnRooftopthe only content WoW has sunsetted would be from cataclysm, it got rid of a bunch of the old vanilla quests and reworked those zones.
In terms of story that stuff is so old now it genuinely doesn't matter to the plot but if you wanted to experience it all you can go play WoW classic.
Hell you can play WoW classic, Cataclysm Classic and the War Within using the same monthly sub so go ham on whichever you like!(You still gotta buy war within of course)
WoW isn't like Destiny where you gotta play every single season or else you miss story, in WoW 99% of old content is readily available.
@@potatoeOnRooftopalso DON'T boost your first character, if you do the game is gonna be ridiculously overwhelming for you and you'll likely quit. Lol
Level up a character and get used to their spells and playstyle, it takes next to no time to reach max level anyway so that extra playtime will help you a lot.
I can’t find a single good review about this expansion that looks legit, they all say the same thing and outright bash people for saying it’s garbage, I’m so lost
A lot of the character and world building is in side quests this xpac. So if you just did the main campaign, that would be why you didnt see that.
It's the easiest it's ever been to gear up to get into PvP. definitely recommend. I used to always be behind if I didn't play the whole expac.
Yeah no thanks. I'm not gonna make the same mistake with trusting Blizzard.
It took them 20 years to start improving accessibility.
Thank god you have your HP and Energy under your character and 2 inches to the left of your character.
How kind of you, Austin. No thank you though.
it is interesting seeing a different perspective on the story, I played through all the zones and did all side quests as i did the main quests and think the storyline is pretty strong. I do agree Alleria was a pretty generic progression that only got decent towards the end. But i dont think the lesson from the whole Anduin arc was that he didnt need the light etc but rather that even with what had happened during Shadowlands he was still worthy of wielding the light.
Same thing happens with Xal'atath, her actions are far more developed as you play through side quests and see how she has her hands in everything and is pushing everyone towards conflict and chaos.
The big downside for lore is WoW needs to thread the needle between the people that want to have fun learning the lore and the people that are not interested in lore or characters and just want to get to end content as soon as possible. That is why the story of the game is not really developed through the main story and why so much of the character development occurs through the "stay and listen" mechanics, theater trope reinactments and books and other things to read in the world. The main story is simply designed to give you very little context with everything else around the world giving much of the context but still being optional.
Calling Brann “a little dwarf bro” hurts my soul
I feel like Xal'Atath is more interesting than most of Wow's usual villains.She has a fun personality, she's aware of the accomplishments of the players in all of the previous expansions and how this kinda stuff tends to go for expansion villains and she's more likely than not gonna stick around for the next couple of expansions, so I don't need her schemes to pay off right away.
I have no intent on playing WoW. I didn't before, I don't now. My live service game of choice is Warframe (which also had an expansion called "The War Within"). If I were to pick up an MMORPG, it'd probably be FFXIV (sorry Austin). But it's nice to see the old titan that is WoW still has some fight in it.
Really good review. The best story telling in WoW since Wrath is 'WoW's darkest secret'
Does the current version have all the expansions where we can play it all from the beginning ?
How many different types of dwarves does the Warcraft lore have at this point?! Everything blizzard does with this IP today screams lazy.
i stopped playing in Legion because of story being locked in mythic only dungeons and being barely allowed to joint a party. returned in shadowlands because they were offering the expansion at one point, played drangonflight and now im enjoying this.
that is why Legion was the best expansion. Islese we small enough to meet a ton of ppl. Sometimes we had to w8 in line to kill the boss mog for advancing quest and we all know how long it took to collect all thse flowers for money
All that jacked-up stuff that happened at Blizz over the years plus how much the game dropped in quality chased me off after a decade of play. It gave me so much more time to try other stuff, without it dominating my time I am enjoying gaming so much more. Never going back.
I'm just curious. Why do these videos always have people like you feeling the need to tell everyone you quit and why. I just don't understand why ex wow players feel the need to comment it.
@@nineonewona good portion of people who invest thousands of hours into something let alone thousands of dollars will always feel the need to talk about it, there's nothing wrong with that.
@@nineonewon You realize everyone does this right? Anyone who has spent even a couple hundred hours on a hobby does this. Destiny players do this, League of Legends players do this, CSGO players do this, Valorant players do this and it is normal. Telling new people about their experience gives newbies a better view and helps them make a more informed decision on whether it is something to spend their time and money on.
I like a lot of what I see in War Within. But what keeps me from comitting is the community. Since ive been away, its gone from mid, to outright deranged. I dont feel like its appropriate to recommend it to people i care about.
I’m sorry WOW fans (please destroy my will to live in the comments), but this will always look like a 2000’s computer game at the public library to me.
gonna be honest, the game needs every bit of scuffed 2000s graphics it can get, because once you start raiding your fps will grind to a total halt unless you're on a state of the art machine. my 5800x3d + 3080 gets absolutely clobbered by modern wow. part of it is definitely an optimization issue but the rest is because the game can be quite demanding, especially on the cpu
I think it's just the "Blizz" style. I quite like it to be honest and miss it from time to time. I can totally understand why some people would be turned off by it though. Everyone has their preferences.
Switched to ESO a while back, and then tried to go back to WoW after a while, but it felt and looked so clunky and dated...
WoW looks pretty god awful, but even as an FF14 fan who's used to pretty good graphics l really like them. Its got a charm to it that's deliberate and a good reminder of just how old the game itself is, along with the Warcraft franchise as a whole. I think the game would be all the worse if it tried to pretty itself up, because we all know that art direction is rarely worth compromising for the sake of graphical fidelity.
I think it’s aged fine. It’s good they don’t do photo-realistic graphics because those age everytime.
I think my only gripe with the war within is that major cities still run like shit. Everything about this expansion is just pure fun. The new mythic+ system is not my favorite, but it's still fun to play.
Hi Austin. There is a difference between your voice's sound mixing on the starting sponsor, on this video, and the sound of your voice on the review. It's like the high frequencies have been reduced. I think your voice mixing used to sound more like the way it does on the sponsor section, which I think is a lot clearer. I was wondering the reason behind this, and if you had had any feedback on this element of your content? Hope it's ok to say. I'm just curious to understand, and wonder if this is a design choice, or if you prefer it mixed like this for a reason. Thanks for your content.
It's because the review is by Austin, not Ralph. The title states that, too.
@@DrPlonk my mistake. Ty. Sorry. Corrected.
I'm one of those people whose friends try to get them to play the game then they tell me to "Oh dude install this addon and this addon and this addon and this addon x500 and then spend 10 hours setting them up. You need these addons!"
And then I never install the game and move on with my life.
Hi Austin, since you’re reviewing MMOs and you definitely know a lot about the genre, do you have any plans to review Throne and Liberty?
idk anything about WoW or even Warcraft in general, but I love hearing Austin talk about games, so here I am 🌟
Ayyyyy Brewmaster Monk, my original class!
I'm playing Wayfinder Early Access solo and loving it. Hope to play co-op once I reach endgame. The full 1.0 version comes out Oct 21st and I hope you guys cover it as well. 😉
Systems wise the game is better than ever, the current problem is gameplay. The game is designed to be fun for dps players, if you play healer or tank you are a second class citizen and are only there to enable DPS players to have fun, which translates on a SEVERE lack of people wanting to play those roles so you have to choose between playing a fun class (dps) which means you'll be sitting in looking for group for an hour before you can find a tank and healer to go with you OR playing tank/heal which will get you instant groups but not only requires 10 times the skill of dpsing but is also stressing, unrewarding and everyone will blame you when the party dies.
Well ill be. Never thought id see the day where people actually recommend WoW. After the mass exodus and completely negative reception that Blizzard and WoW had for the past couple of years i never thought this would happen.
Im still not going to play it, never cared much for WoW, but good on them.
My brother picked it up again recently but was disappointed. It's all about the endgame, the leveling experience was barely there, we both loved the massive feeling of the world back in the day and that is gone.
I'd argue while flying Mounts are great. They are what ruined that feeling
Yeah, it hasn't been about the leveling experience since wotlk. That's why wotlk pirate servers are so popular lol
I mean that has been gone since TBC, you sadly cant recapture that first feeling but no expansion ever could.
what are you smoking bro? There's literally miles and miles on end to explore, the world IT IS massive.
And the leveling experience is as it's always been, do quest, do the campaign and at the end rainds, endgame, etc.
The 1-70 experience can be done with whatever expansion you'd like to check out through "Chromie Time" then the 70-80 leveling experience was actually good, in my opinion. I did 95% of it from the campaign. Once I was capped, all the things you didn't do during leveling are now the endgame. And there's so much. And that's okay.
What addon is the one changing the UI for quests in 22:00 and 22:08? I like how it looks, specially while showing the rewards
I haven’t been this addicted to WoW since 2004-2005. This is as good as it’s ever been. Like seriously hooked again.
Anduin had struggled for years, his war within doesn't get fixed "a few hours in".
His conflict gets slightly fixed as the final part of the max level campaign after a ton of character moments, him throwing against the odds of winning and more events and story happen.
It's actually a good thing he gained something from it cuz a sad Anduin is not what we want to see 😣
As a horde I can't stand emo Anduin. Alliance is supposed to represent hope and light. Glad he's having his character arc furthered and redeeming him a little
i want to see it. he needs to become an alcoholic
I divorced with wow for over 5 years now. Although I dont think I'll ever get back in but I'd still like it to do good. Im glad to hear that they are heading to a good direction at least for the early launch.
Hanging on to that subscription fee even when live service games are everywhere. Quaint.
Weren't the Earthen's creators like ... the Titans? .. I thought we had learned a lot about them..
The war within is pretty good after dealing with the shitshow Shadowlands was. Never been easier to gear up and PvP.
After finishing the entire expansion i'm a hard disagree on some of your takes around not being able to relate too well to the story. The amount of script, dialogue and exposition is the best they've ever offered. I agree there are some open ends, but it's part of a written trilogy. And where there are unclosed threads when the expansion closes, there are far more tied off and satisfyingly complete.
he gotta be playing with that steelseries mmo mouse with those action bars and keybinds! ALT+1,2,3,4 for your main buttons? insane man!
Not knowing "what her deal is" is kinda a hallmark of the WoW stories. It's not a good hallmark, mind you, but this seems to be how they tell stories now. Would be much better if we had Lich King style villains again whose motivations we understand, and present a great target for our campaign.
I'm only 9 minutes in but I have yet to hear anything that sounds positive. I'm a bit unsure why this is a 'recommends' rating.
Edit: Okey around 11:00 he starts taking about some positives.
Austin should choose mining and herbalism as professions and fly around the Ringing Depths. He'll see other players (and a myriad of bots) swarm each and every node he lands on.
Most players are in guild chat in mmos these days unless you're in a major faction city.
The best gear is still in mythic+ raids. I think delve maxes out just over 610ish.
I did a lot of side quests in each zone as i played through the campaign. Honestly I had quite a different experience to the 'rushed campaign'. Rushing the main story by only playing the campaign quests is a player choice.
So far for me it's been a decent xpac and a good new start to trying to reset the main casts stories as the story of the last 20 years has been lacking to say the least, I'm interested tos ee what influance Chris Metzen will have towardsthe later part of this xpac and onto the next 2 as he joined while the war within was mostly done from waht i've heard. The warband is honestly the best feature wow has brought into the game being able to share rep and currencies between alts helps with keeping up alts along with your main. Some of the side stories in the xpac so far have been great some of the quests get real dark real quick and it sucks that if you're not going out of your way to do the side stuff you'll miss these amazinng stories.
I feel compelled to point out a few of your criticisms regarding the narrative and character arcs are likely born from you unfamiliarity with the last 4-6 years of major story beats. TWW is simply the next step for these guys, assuming you already know what you need to know coming in. Totally valid criticism, but more attributable to a lack of broader immersion as opposed to simply poor writing.
what do you think about Metaphor Refantazio? Played it?
That was a really well done but strange review. As a fellow WoW tourist, I got excited by the first few minutes. And then every point listed in the review made me more convinced that I'm right to stay away 😅
Legit thought there was just a mini Warframe review given 'The War Within.'
Thank you for the review, great job. Sadly BfA and Shadowlands killed any enthusiasm i had for WoW. As much good stuff i heard about Dragonflight from friends, i didnt care enough to try it and i doubt i will try The War Within. I really wished Blizz just did the Titan/Overwatch-MMO as they planned years ago... im so rdy to immerse myself into a new universe...
Wait is it actually fun? As a long time wow player i quit halfway through dragonflight, my love hate relationship with the game leaned more toward a hate and frustration with the way it constantly leaves pvp in the dust, failing at easy balancing, repetitive pve content with no passion in it.
I said I wouldn't come back to wow. Maybe I'll do a little more research on the state of things currently. It's similar with cod, I wanted to love it like I used to but I just can't anymore due to compounding failures and frustrations I have no control over or say in
What is that transmog set on your warrior? @2:03
The Endgame is the actual Campaign. Where the actual story unfolds... Why would you delete my comment?
So yes, WoW is still a time sink and it's certainly not a solo adventure game. Leveling up isn't the game... It's a side quest...
I've played through the original and multiple expansions after that and leveling up was the starting point...
They *finally* made leveling up more streamlined anyway with the war band system, so now you don't have to level up all your characters and build their respective reputations. That's really cool.
How does each class/build play in the end game? Collecting end game gear while unlocking the end game story is WoW...
Lots of online game servers are almost empty on GMT timezone servers basically. If people are able to play in a UTH timezone theres loads of people online as usual.
I NEED BLIZZARD TO BRING BACK HAPPY FARM IN PANDARIA
i mean player housing, i was drunk
There's a lot to be said for the zones, class systems. But the casual friendliness, which doesn't exist, was duct-taped on at best. The power is way off going in. Thrown in the deep end sans life preserver. Used to isn't like.
Campaign doesn't give enough fn weapons. They could give you five times more. They give you five pairs of pants before you get a new weapon. And you're dropped in a new zone, old weapon, suddenly surrounded, and I do mean surrounded, by bullet sponges. The only thing they forgot was to insult my mother.
You could tell me Tories wrote the campaign this time. So gd stingy, and insulting while they're at it. And you pay them.
Solo the last raidboss? A couple of weeks to get raid equal gear? ~6 skills used? Feels like they went balls deep on trying to please the crowd that just doesnt want to play/be social alot. Whole other game than what made it great back in the day.
Ralph and I couldn't be friends because of Destiny, Austin and I can't be friends because of WoW. what a shame. great review though!
The first expansion I didn't sub to after being burnt in the past. I hope fans enjoy it though, I want mmos to continue to succeed.
I really dig the story in this expansion. Once I hit the endgame dailies/weekly quests and raids I'm out.
I'm sure they're fun but I don't have the time or willpower to commit to wow
why does austin just sound like a younger skill up (i forgot what that guys real name is)
I'm still not over them charging for Launch Night for the first time in WoW's history... In a subscription-based game.