The WoW pre-patch event, Radiant Echos, is currently active. I caved during the free weekend and downloaded WoW again. I haven't played since launch.
First thing I noticed is that the UI feels slightly off. They didn't do a full overall, but Blizzard changed enough icons such that it's a bit unfamiliar. I still haven't figured out what the hourglass next to people's names in guild chat means.
The event itself is pretty fun. You go to three zones, do events based on quests and bosses from previous expansions, and then kill the memory of a major boss like Arthas. Then the cycle repeats, though the bulk of the reward comes from killing the boss once. It's a pretty good rhythm, and the quests are fun callbacks. There's also a nice variety of quest types. Sometimes it's killing a named character, sometimes it's collecting pages from Stranglethorn, and sometimes it's trying to get the perfect boar liver to drop.
I gather the original incarnation was much stricter. The event didn't repeat and only did one cycle, so it was easy to miss the boss kill. Also, I think the time between events was longer. Blizzard has tweaked it so that you can keep going consistently, and also have several chances to get the boss kill.
There's also a quest line, though I don't think it is complete. I imagine the second half will activate closer to the expansion launch.
The hourglass indicates that the character is a Pandaria Remix character. All of those characters are locked in that event for a couple of more weeks before they'll get moved to Retail.
ReplyDeleteThe original event was on an hour and a half timer. If you didn't join the event in the first five minutes or so you would likely miss the boss and have to wait until the next event. You also didn't dare do the small quests a long way from the boss as you might not make it back in time to kill the boss.
Originally there were six or seven quests to clear, not a progress bar. By the time one cleared there were usually three others getting cleared at the same time as well. The whole thing was super fast. If you were using the event to level, you could just grind mobs, but if you wanted the collectibles or gear for an alt it was hit or miss, usually miss, to get the currency. The current system is so much better (and fun).
Yeah, that does sound rough. I think the repeating cycle, but with a good chunk of the rewards locked up in the daily quest, is a good balance.
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