I have a love/hate relationship with all the new quests that have you ride something, or turn you into something else, or give you something as a pet.  You know, the ones that modify your bar and give you a lasso around your picture.

On the one hand, they are fun! And they are different!  On the other hand, I have to resummon my warlock pet after every single one of them I do, which drives me crazy.  They finally fixed warlock pets with mounts and then they broke them again with these quests. /sigh

If you do not believe Blizzard includes content intended to harass, or at least inconvenience players, take another look at Stormwind Harbor.

What about NPC chat bubbles that can not be turned off, or quest givers and vendors that move away when you are trying to get quests or turn in quests or purchase or sell items?

The vehicular pet quests mentioned by Lacerta are great. In general if you claim to be remotely able to play your class then you should understand what their 4 skills do in a matter of seconds; the skills are designed to be easy to understand.

Lacerta’s claimed problem comes from pet resummons and this is tragic, but its not exactly a huge trouble or flaw; hopefully it can be fixed, but in a few months will it matter? Sure, dailies perhaps. Mounting and losing your pet is a far more occuring thing than these vehicular pets.

Now as much sympathy as I have for Lacerta, I cannot do the same for you Elsu. Never been to stormwind harbour being alliance, but the “problems” you claim to be feeling seem petty.

As a lore fan, NPC chat bubbles are what makes a lot of the story story, I don’t know what exactly you want done? You want an option to turn off all NPC chat? No way. Some of it adds real atmosphere when it isn’t expected. And turning off individual NPC chat is a ridiculous idea, with so many NPCs existing.

And NPC’s walking while you’re reading/vending? Movement is an important thing in any world. It has to be taken into account that some players inevitably will open a dialogue with an NPC and go AFK. You want the NPC to stand still until they are auto logged out? And then resume its script?

The same would go for Vendors, but I have NEVER experienced this, only quest givers moving. Which for all purposes you can either press / and autowalk with them, or accept and read at leisure. . .

I take anger at a phrase “If you do not beleive Blizzard includes content intended to harass”. They are just trying to achieve something, a game atmosphere, without gimping anyone in a difficult game to do so.

Please defend yourself. I can’t wait.

If you were wearing full purple at lvl 40, you wouldn’t get much upgrades at all until level 60, much less lvl 47.

But then if you outgear everything so much, why not skip ahead and tackle the level 80 contents early and get the upgrades you so desire, but actually earn it.

The same people complaining about upgrades coming slow in Northrend are the same, I bet, as the ones that complained about their hard earned gear being made too-quickly obsolete in Outlands. =P

Can’t please everyone!

I think the frustration was that people were replacing their stuff right off the bat in Hellfire (although those who had Tier 3 from Naxx were 70 before it became obsolete). 

I have been 80 for over a week and I still have some BT gear and not found a replacement for it quite yet so the gear curve is there but it is not the same as it was in TBC…I think that was the point.

I agree with MrDoDo I don’t think Blizzard sits there and thinks of ways to annoy its player base, it is self-defeating.  There is an option in your interface tab (display I think, if not then chat) that you can turn those off.

Honestly I do not have much of anything to complain about in Wrath.  A lot of the issues that were problems in TBC were addressed and I think the game has been majorly improved.

I do like the “vehicle” quests because each of those chains that has you fighting the “big bad boss” used to be a group quest, now you don’t need to bother your guildies every 5 minutes with “can you help me with ‘x quest’”.  Yes as a warlock or hunter it can suck but at least in terms of the warlock you get the shard back now…you used to not back in the day.

I am thinking that perhaps “harass” is too strong a word to have used - things to inconvenience and slow down players, however, is something that is obviously built into certain aspects of the game.

To a point, I am sure they do some things along those lines to ensure that players experience the content, rather than rush through to 80. At the same time, once you’ve done some of those things multiple times, it becomes rather tedious. Stormwind harbour actually is a rather innocuous example of this - the organization of the ramps leading to the harbour itself slow you down, and then the trip by boat to Northrend is the longest I’ve seen yet… I haven’t experienced WotLK Horde-side yet, so I wonder if the same is true for the zeppelin trip from Orgimmar.

You complain about not seeing “upgrades” until 77-78. What was the point of raiding for months and months?

Why take your guild into Tempest Keep or Black Temple if all the gear will be replaced at level 71 in Northrend?

One of the biggest complaints coming out of BC was that all those nice purples didn’t last 5 minutes in Outlands. After months of raiding MC, AQ, and Naxx people replaced all those hard earned purples with easy to acquire greens. I’m happy that my T4 gear lasted me to 75-76. All those runs through Kara, Mags, and Gruuls paid off in that I could cherish my hard work and gear most of the way through Northrend.

A change that I like that no one has mentioned yet? Blizzard’s sense of geography and the environment.  Northrend just seems to make sense.  I know it’s fairly artificial when every zone is separated by mountain ranges, but you go into borean tundra and the flora and fauna look like they should.  A few trees, mostly a few small shrubby things.  That’s it.  You’ll also notice that it gets icier faster on the western end of the continent (where there’s winterspring to the south) than in Howling Fjord (where there’s tirisfal glades to the south).  I think this kind of consistency is nice, and was really missing in the previous expansions (Zangramarsh to Blade’s Edge? WTF? Silithus—Ungoro—Feralas—1k—Tanaris? Lush tropical forest or arid desert freaking figure it out!—though at least Ungoro is explained a bit in Scholazar basin).

I’m impressed by blizzard’s layout and use of the continent.  In video games I hate snow/ice levels (thanks Mario Bros 3!) about as much as I hate water levels (thanks TMNT NES game! and yes, if the next xpac is in the Maelstrom and is naga based I may have to hold my breath).  I have yet to get tired of, or really worry about, the fact that most of what I’m walking in is the powdery white stuff.