Welcome to the weekly Guild Recruitment, LFG & Discord Megathread!

When I read "increased to 20%" in the patch notes, I thought SURELY they only meant they were increasing the bonus base regen and not the in-combat regen... IMO it was already the most overpowered warrior racial ability in the game!

Hey All,

Just bumping this post below, since I was thinking about it recently and still have small granular hope that some on the dev team see this. The new visual toggles are already absolutely gorgeous and breathe new life into zones I've wandered since 2004, and I'm sure many others feel the same.

A toggle to use new skyboxes in vanilla zones will round out the new visual styles fantastically.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wowforever/s/M76tr20JSb (Pics from u/Magician_Monkey)

cant wait to finally have a reason to be a greedy dwarf ninjaing all the chests so i can collect all the milks and bananas

I get it - they're the bad guys. But they're also cool. And I think a lot of us - going back to 2004 - kind of wished we could join up for a little darker questing while we were rocking the Crusade's tabard.

I don't expect the Scarlet Crusade to be redeemed this time or anything like that. But it would be neat to work for them... at least as the Alliance.

Art by Evanreichel.

I bought the Beta a couple weeks ago, as I've been a busy dad in the heart of kids volleyball season. I played Wow from launch for over a decade before slowly phasing WoW out of my gaming repertoire.

When I heard about Forever, I was intrigued but sceptical. I figured I'd give it a go though, because nobody can tell me what I'll enjoy, I need to experience it for myself.

After putting about 20 hours in (don't tell my boss), grinding out a few characters to around level 10, I genuinely enjoyed my experience. It brought me back to the old days, where everything wasn't as fast and flashy, and it's not all about the instant gratification that all the other games I play seem to focus on.

Then I heard about the WoW forever podcasts, and watched through them as well. Hearing the devs who are working on the game talk about their passion for WoW, all the things they take into consideration and love they've put into the game so far, got me even more hyped!

Then I checked out this subreddit.

Holy crap is this a pit of hype deflation.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that things aren't perfect and there's work to be done, but my goodness, if I'd have come here first, I'd never have tried out the beta and had the positive experience I had!

I genuinely hope people aren't turned away from the game because of this sub, because that would truly be a shame.

So, as you all know, I play a Mage. I’m currently the best geared Mage in the Forever beta and I have multiple world records for getting class changes reverted.

So I go into this Battleground because I feel like gracing my battlegroup with my presence, right? Everyone is cheering as I enter. They don’t bother discussing strategy because they know that they’re not going to need it—I, the Content Creator, have come.

So I cast Arcane Intellect on myself, because that’s what Mages do. They channel the RAW ENERGIES OF CREATION directly into their own brains, granting themselves knowledge beyond mortal comprehension.

I instantly understand why downranking is unhealthy for every class except mine.

The gates open. A Warrior charges towards me. I raise one perfectly manicured hand and unleash

RANK ONE FROSTBOLT.

Not rank two.

Not the highest rank.

ONE.

The Warrior is struck by a projectile I learned while fighting wolves outside Northshire Abbey. His movement slows. His blood freezes. His ancestors unsubscribe.

And the mana cost?

PRACTICALLY NOTHING.

A Priest sees this and starts downranking his own spells.

I report him.

The developers explained that downranking has consequences. He should respect the design philosophy.

The Warrior continues towards me, but I cast another

RANK ONE FROSTBOLT.

He types “I thought they changed that?”

They did.

I changed it back.

A Shaman arrives and asks how I managed this. Did I submit a detailed bug report? Did I gather extensive testing data? Did I provide constructive feedback through the appropriate channels?

I laugh.

I turn on my webcam.

FORTY THOUSAND VIEWERS.

The Shaman falls to his knees. His totems crumble into dust. Somewhere in Irvine, a meeting invitation appears.

I Blink towards Blacksmith. A Rogue attempts to ambush me, but I’ve already anticipated his attack through my superior game knowledge and a chat message that says “ROGUE BEHIND U.”

I Frost Nova him.

He trinkets.

I cast

RANK ONE FROSTBOLT.

He asks why my cheap utility spell gets special treatment when his class has to live with its changes.

I explain that class identity is very important.

He asks about his class identity.

I put him in subscriber-only mode.

Blacksmith caps.

A Druid approaches and begins explaining that low-rank spells were an important part of his gameplay too.

I sympathise. I really do.

I cast Arcane Intellect on him so that he can understand why he’s wrong.

Then I Polymorph him.

He is now a sheep.

Finally, someone capable of appreciating nuanced class design.

Just then, I open the forums. People are complaining! They’re saying that the rules should apply consistently! They’re asking why Mage feedback gets action while everyone else is told to adapt!

I smirk.

“Guys,” I tell my stream, “this isn’t preferential treatment. It’s about preserving the authentic Classic experience.”

A Priest asks whether his authentic Classic experience can be preserved too.

I ban the phrase “what about priests.”

That’s when I decide to unleash my ultimate ability.

Not Pyroblast.

Not Ice Block.

Not Presence of Mind.

DIRECT ACCESS TO THE PEOPLE MAKING THE GAME.

The sky splits open. Arathi Basin trembles. Every talent calculator on the internet refreshes simultaneously.

A developer descends from the heavens carrying a stone tablet.

Upon it are written the sacred words:

DOWNRANKING SHOULD INVOLVE MEANINGFUL TRADEOFFS.

I look at him.

He looks at me.

I tilt my webcam down slightly so that he can see my viewer count.

He turns the tablet over.

EXCEPT THAT ONE.

The fabric of SPACE itself CRUMBLES beneath my feet. I emerge into the REAL WORLD, a TRUE ARCHMAGE walking through New York.

The cops try to arrest me, but I cast

RANK ONE FROSTBOLT.

They cannot reach me.

They cannot afford the mana efficiency.

The mayor declares a state of emergency. The President mobilises the army. Every other class writes a twelve-page feedback post.

I go live for twenty minutes.

But then, through the gathering crowd, I see someone.

A Priest.

He’s sitting on a bench, drinking.

I thought I had defeated him. I thought the debate was over. But all that time—

—all that time—

…he’d been drafting a calm, thoughtful explanation of why his class deserved the same consideration.

I glare at the Priest.

The Priest looks back at me.

Silence floods the world.

“How many viewers?” I whisper.

“None.”

I smile.

“Then there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Openmap: https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/openmap

Hey everyone - been working on this throughout the Beta and figured I'd finally release it. There have been a lot of map addons posted here as of late, many of which forego blizzards classic maps for a stitched minimap. I've always wanted a massive seamless world map that is fully zoomable/pannable in the original art, so that's what this is. Along with some cool QoL things like resizable map / removing the annoying black bars in full screen etc.

Openmap is an open source, seamless world map addon for Forever that prioritizes the original Vanilla map art style. I've gone through the painstaking process of aligning and blending all of the maps to create as seamless of a map as possible with Blizzards original art files. You can adjust your settings to tastefully bring in minimap data on close zoom levels (or disable it) as well as hide unexplored areas.

As with most coding projects as of late Claude helped me write the code for this and is assisting with open source management since that is a lot of work. The repo is fully open sourced on git so feel free to pull it down and help me develop it if you're interested - would love to see more addons take this approach so things don't die in the hands of a developer that loses interest.

Anywho, I'm here if anyone has any questions/bugs/feature requests. Thanks! -Ji

How does +2% increased crit damage sound? Would a crit go from hitting for 100 damage to 102 damage? Or would the base damage increase prior to the crit calculation? Either way I think I would rather have the +crit chance but I haven’t seen the math.

Human/Undead Pally.

Orc Shammy.

Maybe some Mage here and there.

Let the adventure begin. Oh maaaaan

Thank you for listening to the spriest community, Blizzard! TRULY! I take back *some* of the mean things I say about you. I'm really happy, so many people put in a ton of work to give feedback on spriest and you actually listened and changed it based on all of our collective input. I am so grateful and appreciative. BLIZZARD W!

What shall we call this?

The pictures in the album are food for thought, but what do you consider to be part of WoW's core canon when it comes to potential races, racial variants, or even playable factions?

https://www.techradar.com/gaming/can-fans-expect-goblins-or-vulpera-in-wow-forever-blizzard-says-it-has-no-plans-to-add-modern-wow-races-to-the-game-our-main-focus-for-the-game-is-to-build-off-the-foundational-lore-of-warcraft

then it would seem as if the forever devs want to keep the setting grounded more to traditional races in the future (skyborne elemental plane lore aside) -- inspiration from Warcraft 1/2/3, the older novels, and the lore vanilla WoW established.

Beyond some easy pickings like darkfallen (forsaken kingdom campaign) or high-elves (2nd, 3rd games), or Ogres (Rexxar Campaign), it should also be remembered that the Illidari were a huge part of Warcraft 3. Furthermore, I do think the pirate-aspect of so many horde races who stayed behind in Eastern kingdoms is fertile ground for zone-expansion. (Edit: remember the pirate box-art for: Wc2: Tides of Darkness)

What are your thoughts on what counts as "Foundational Lore"? And is there some pocket-pick that most commenters would overlook? Genuine curiosity.

Example: This is a 10-part questchain that starts with "Test of Faith" and ends with the quest "Final Passage". Keep in mind that for this whole questline you get not a single piece of copper or any items until the very last quest.

Here's the effort you have to go through for the quest:

1. Kill Grenka in the harpy cave in Thousand Needles (this is hard)

2. Kill an Elite (Rok'Alim) in Thousand Needles

3. Travel to the Stonetalon Mountains for the next part

4. Get a book from the druid den in Ashenvale

5. Back to Stonetalon for turn in + answering a quiz

6. Travel to Undercity

7. Get a book from Scarlet Monastery (Library)

8. Back to Undercity and answer a quiz

At the end you get to choose a single green item that is actually worse than the green item we got in original Classic.

According to Blizzard they want people out there, questing and making the world feel alive. Making these long quest lines that take you all over the world feel worth doing would go a long way towards making the world feel more alive instead of everyone just doing the most efficient quests that require no traveling.

Now I understand that there are concerns about having "blue item inflation" so if you don't want to give a blue reward (which I think would be justified for this much effort) you could also do it like the "Missing Diplomat" questchain which gives a green item + 1g30s. Or you could do it like the "Tiara of the Deep" quest which in Classic gave both green items instead of picking one. Or you could just add another green reward at the half-way point of the chain or something. Just anything to make it feel more worthwhile.

Here are some other quest chains that came to my mind that work similarly (long quest chain that gives out a single underwhelming green at the end):
Scythe of Elune, Goblin Sponsorship, Saving Sharpbeak, Saving Yenniku, Linken?, Myzrael?

I'm sure there's more quest chains of the sort that deserve to be looked at but that's all that came to my mind.

Can someone verify, I am at work…

Max nostalgia looking at this fit from classic.

So, as you all know, I play a Shaman. I’m currently the best geared Shaman in the world and I have multiple world DPS records on WowMeterOnline.

So I go into this Battleground because I feel like gracing my battlegroup with my presence, right? Everyone is cheering as I enter. They don’t bother putting down a mage table or healthstone because they know that they’re not going to need it–I, the Darkness, has come.

So I cast Lightning Shield on myself, because that’s what Shamans do. They call down MOTES OF ELECTRICITY FROM THE HEAVENS and they SURROUND THEMSELVES with DEADLY AMOUNTS OF LIGHTNING! All of my teammates are instantly electrocuted to death, but me? I merely bathe in the energy; it is my plaything.

Even though my teammates are now charred corpses, they continue to cheer, because they know that I can solo this. The gates open. I run in. With Ghost Wolf, my movement speed is increased by

40% PERCENT

Horde sees me run by but they can’t do anything about it because I’m a ghost and I’m wolfing at

40 PERCENT

a Blood Elf Paladin with Crusader Aura on bubbles and flees in terror when he sees me traveling at

40 PERCENT

They can hear the howl of my ghost wolf. They are all cowering–no, literally, they type the /cower emote and just stand there–as I cap the Stables.

I cast WATERWALKING on myself–WATERWALKING, like Jesus, and I careen towards the Blacksmith. The Horde there see me coming and they just /afk the [censored] out. I put down my totems before I start capping Blacksmith’s flag. A Rogue tries to sap me–

BAM!

The Rogue is engulfed in flame as my Searing Totem SEARS him from the inside out! His leather clothing EXPLODES in a rain of fire that spirals around my beautiful female Draenei form as I continue to cap the Blacksmith. The fire rips through the Rogue’s bones, but it doesn’t even consider touching me–why? Because I’ve got

FIRE RESIST TOTEM

A Warlock swoops in in Demon Form and tries to Conflag me but his Conflag does 0 damage to me because of

FIRE RESIST TOTEM

A Troll Mage Slowfalls in and he Pyroblasts me but it is ineffective because of

FIRE RESIST TOTEM

Blacksmith caps. I mount up on my KAEL’THAS MOUNT–no, literally, I ride Kael’thas around, the Blood Elf–and head over to Farm, because I feel like eating some potatoes.

POTATOES. BOIL 'EM, MASH 'EM, STICK 'EM IN A STEW. AND HEARTS. SHAMAN DESIRES PALADIN HEARRRRRRRTS.

Just then, I see something through my Sentry Totem. It’s the WoW General Forums! --People are complaining about how overpowered I am! They’re saying that Shamans need to be nerfed. I smirk.

That’s when I decide to take out my HAND OF RAGNAROS.

EIGHTY POINT FOUR DAMAGE PER SECONNNNND

I slam the Hand of Ragnaros down into the ground. Arathi Basin shatters like glass–the ground falls out from under me. The fabric of SPACE itself CRUMBLES beneath my feet. I cackle as I enter the REAL REALM, becoming a TRUE ENTITY existing ON THE PLANET EARTH. I am a Draenei walking around New York–the cops try to stop me, but they forget all about me when they take a gander at my

STONECLAW TOTEM

STONE AND CLAW COMBINED. CAN YOU TAKE IT?

But then, in the spaces between the gathering crowds, I see something. Someone. The smirk on my face deteriorates. … it’s one of the Horde. A Troll.

I thought I had destroyed Arathi Basin. I thought I had won the Battleground. But all that time–

–But all that time–…

… there he was. Just standing there. Regenerating 5, health,

per

second.

I glared at the Troll.

The Troll glared back at me.

Silence flooded the world.

“And there’s nothing you can do about it,” the Troll whispered.