I clarified what I was trying to say a couple posts up. I think you missed it.
Originally Posted by Ukerric
Why? In that scheme, BT & Illidan's loot will still be desirable. It will be a bit easier to kill at the same gear level, because of the added levels, but in the same manner, if the expansion came and added no new progression path except for the handful of guilds killing Illidan... nobody would buy it.
The expansion has to offer something for most of everybody. If I'm in dungeon blues, I will get something better at my play level. If I'm heroic geared, I get something better as well, without requiring a change in my gameplay style. If I've finished BT, I get new targets.
What do you offer without a level up? Zero gear upgrades for the level 70 in dungeons? An endless rerolling? I doubt Blizzard is going to risk their next expansion on such a losing strategy.
I was only talking about the timeframe. Your ideas seem perfectly valid as long as it happens sometime (in my opinion) in the spring of '08.
Originally Posted by Ukerric
Why? If, unlike TBC, there's only a moderate gear raise, then every single piece of loot you get is one better than what you'll find levelling. So why should you stop if it's loot that motivates you. The loot would be better than anything short of the 2nd or 3rd tier of raiding there.
I think you're mistaken if you think that the release of the expansion is motivated by the very high end finishing it. If anything, the expansion will be released because the non-raiding guilds have run out of options. More than half of the levels 70 have NOT raided. If they've not raided, they won't magically all start joining raiding guilds. Some might, but most won't - they would have done so if they could.
Those people are running out of content. They no longer have reasonable progression avenues. The next expansion will open progression avenues.
To me, it's not the loot. I'd just like to see it before moving onto another expansion. I want to finish this beer while it's still cold, then get a fresh one. Not have one and a half on the table and have to chug the first one so I can drink the next one before it gets warm. Nihilum funnels beers. Casuals order one, drink half, and just have fun hanging out. It's all good.
And no, I don't think expansions should be motivated by the high end. Like I said, I think I misunderstood what you were trying to say. I think we'll see a couple 10 mans, and another 25, maybe 2, before the next expansion, which will provide avenues for both crowds.
Originally Posted by Ukerric
Ok, you don't want a level raise. What do you want then in the expansion - which satisfies the compulsive alt levellers, the guys who do pickups dungeons, the 10-man friend and family guild who will never kill Gruul, and you. What is the formula where everyone gains in the expansion?
It's not that I don't want the cap raised, just not now. Your ideas implemented next summer seem perfectly reasonable.
Well kara loot came out 10 ilvl above kel'thuzad, and got buffed to 20 ilvl above kel. I am kind of hoping that the next introductory 10-15 man will start off around ilvl 138-142ish max and let illidian loot be down right superior until the next 25 man or maybe even until the next 25 man's final boss. This is ofcourse assuming there is no new 25 man after BT, if there is than that 25 man's ilvl would be the one that should be better than the introductory 10-15man.
It's not that I don't want the cap raised, just not now. Your ideas implemented next summer seem perfectly reasonable.
Next summer? Top guilds have already beat Hyjal and Black Temple, heroics have been done for months, and we're getting a 10-man below the difficulty of BT. Basically all the content is already done, and Arenas alone can't fill the time. I'm really hoping for a Jan - Feb launch for the next X-pac, soon would be ideal but this is Blizzard.
A new class that could fill in some deficiencies in current PVP would be fun. Whatever class it is it might be cool if it had a way to remove fear, or give a short term fear ward negating the unsavory unbalance of priest racials.
Well kara loot came out 10 ilvl above kel'thuzad, and got buffed to 20 ilvl above kel. I am kind of hoping that the next introductory 10-15 man will start off around ilvl 138-142ish max and let illidian loot be down right superior until the next 25 man or maybe even until the next 25 man's final boss. This is ofcourse assuming there is no new 25 man after BT, if there is than that 25 man's ilvl would be the one that should be better than the introductory 10-15man.
There will be at least one more raid with Kil'jaeden as the main boss released as a content patch. If you had read the entire thread, you would know this.
Next summer? Top guilds have already beat Hyjal and Black Temple, heroics have been done for months, and we're getting a 10-man below the difficulty of BT. Basically all the content is already done, and Arenas alone can't fill the time. I'm really hoping for a Jan - Feb launch for the next X-pac, soon would be ideal but this is Blizzard.
At this point last year, the BE zone was a playable demo, and various other details on the expansion were released. I think a Jan/Feb release for the next expansion, given that we don't even know the name of it, is completely out of the question.
The "best" we could hope for is the fabled T7 zone to drop before January. If it's going to, we better see some details start to leak soon. Given that some small fraction of 1% of raiding guilds has defeated Illidan, Blizzard is right to wait many months to release said zone (maybe in 2.4?) They will no doubt eventually implement a "TBC Naxx"; but if anything, that zone will be released in the winter, and the next expansion is more likely to hit a year from now, given the pattern of development we saw with TBC. I think if Blizz manages to crank out another expansion in under 2yrs from TBC release, that's a pretty reasonable development cycle given what we usually expect from them.
that's a pretty reasonable development cycle given what we usually expect from them.
Agreed, but I had expected when they said ideally one year instead of two per expansion, that we'd see smaller expansions then a normal Blizzard expansion. All I know is that content is drying up for anyone who only plays one character, and a year with none to minimal progress options would hurt interest in the game for many.
Dev cycles are long and I'd wager dollars to donuts that the next expansion is well underway. Probably not for a January release but for early Spring? Absolutely. I think the main reason why nothing's been said yet is to not take the spotlight from SC2. Marketing hates splitting time between products in this industry and while it's nice to think of all of the devs being the driving force marketing has substantial pull.
Mages have a set time that they want you to ask for food, and that time is pull #4 of the night. You may notice them putting a little snack table down before the raid, that's them cooking the food for you to demand on pull 4. --Nork
A little birdie told me that the next expansion will be Northrend, which is particularly interesting in light of the dev comments (from long ago, someone dig them up?) that the battle with the Lich King would be the "end" of the World of Warcraft story arc. I suppose a smaller dev team could continue on with an "odds and ends" expansion; it's not entirely surprising that Blizzard may want to change their direction after nearly a decade of focus on WoW.
Don't nessecarily have to fight or kill Arthas if it is a Northrend expansion. Could still say that despite conquering his outer defences (raid instances) we aren't yet powerful enough to venture into his inner realm.
or running TK & SSC at 25 to get flagged for Hyjal & Black Temple and get similar level gear.
More likely, in another ~4 months they'll simply remove a great big hunk of the attunement... if not all of it. Just like they just did for TK and SSC. It's a reasonable assumption, methinks.
For everyone going nuts with a possible gear reset if the level cap were raised to 80, there won't necessarily be one if the cap were raised. TBC needed one. PvP, poor itemization before Naxx, lots of new stats, the rating system, etc... it all amounted to the necessity of a gear reset. All those compelling reasons are gone now and itemization generally isn't a problem we have these days.
Level 80 blues could be capped at ilvl 140, giving you gear equilavent to Kara/Gruul/Mag, but the next 25-man zone could start with ilvl 152+ and the mobs and bosses could require MH/BT epics and levlel 80 to be able to do. It would require people to go through SSC, TK:TE, MH and BT to be able to start on the 25-man raids in the expansion, but now that you're level 80? Much easier to do. Instead of nerfing currently difficult content for the casual to get by, the alternative is to buff the casual player. This is what I'm really hoping will happen, because I still want to see all those bosses and at least experience the technical parts to them and get the people I lead used to those facets of raiding.
Agreed, but I had expected when they said ideally one year instead of two per expansion, that we'd see smaller expansions then a normal Blizzard expansion. All I know is that content is drying up for anyone who only plays one character, and a year with none to minimal progress options would hurt interest in the game for many.
By many you mean the people that have finished everything, which is a tiny tiny fraction of the community.
More content needs to come out, but it doesn't need to come out to suit the top raiding guilds. I doubt most of them would really want another big 25 man to come out right away, some time to rest and farm some content might be nice.
If there is to be another 25 man coming out pre-expansion, it would probably mean the expansion isn't for a while, while they say Naxx was a success, i doubt they'll repeat the situation of releasing a dungeon so close to an expansion, unless the expansion has no level increase.
More likely, in another ~4 months they'll simply remove a great big hunk of the attunement... if not all of it. Just like they just did for TK and SSC. It's a reasonable assumption, methinks.
Unlike the quests for TK the Black Temple quest really isn't that much of a hassle. It just requires you to basically have beat the previous tier as well as having done the first boss in the other instance on the same tier.
The only annoying part is the fact that you need to have done the "Akama questline", but that's nothing compared to what the TK attunement involved.
By many you mean the people that have finished everything, which is a tiny tiny fraction of the community.
No, by many I mean those who have finished everything thing they can do. Black Temple and Hyjal are unrealistic for many people to ever see. Right now you have the most hardcore who are out of content and the casual non-raiders. No new 5-mans, no new heroics (could just be of old instances), no new BG's, no new Arenas. Talking to the guild members who are about to finish Hyjal and BT on my server they're looking forward to Zul'Aman as a chance to gear up alts. For all but the raiding crowd that is still in Tempest Keep and SSC, progression is finished.
There's a huge raiding crowd still in Kara/Mag/Gruul/SSC/TK. Blizzard has always said that people underestimate the number of raiders in WoW. While I think that Naxx was well designed, it was released too close to the release of TBC that a lot of servers didn't even have a guild that finished it. I hope that this time around, Blizz could give more guilds ample time to finish TBC raiding before releasing a new expansion.
Instead of releasing another new 25-man before the next expansion, I hope they use the time to prevent another repeat of pre-2.1 raiding.
I wouldn't be surprised to see another 25 man instance on the same tier as Black Temple, say another CoT instance. Adding more progression instances now while the vast majority of guilds around the world are still in SSC would be reminiscent of Naxx.
Then again, Naxx was always advertised as an instance specifically designed for the hardest of the hardcore. So you never know if they'll release another instance created specifically for those already bored with the current end-game content.
There will be at least one more raid with Kil'jaeden as the main boss released as a content patch. If you had read the entire thread, you would know this.
That's not at all what that magazine clip tells us. All he claims there is that there are other characters related to Illidan that haven't shown up in the game yet. He offers Kil'jaeden as an example of stuff they haven't done anything with. An example, not a promise.
Even if he did say something much more concrete like "Kil'jaeden will be a Burning Crusade boss", a single PR-related statement like that wouldn't definitively mean that it would actually happen.
Blizz could give more guilds ample time to finish TBC raiding before releasing a new expansion.
Instead of releasing another new 25-man before the next expansion, I hope they use the time to prevent another repeat of pre-2.1 raiding.
Yes Please.
I bet lots of guilds currently in SSC/TK would LOVE to be able to see all the current content, or at least a lot of it before the new expansion hits.
At the very least give us a reason to finish it and not just stop in our tracks and start killing green mobs for upgrades!
My guild is loving our mid paced SSC/TK raiding right now, and looking forward to the challenges of the next zones, please somone think of the little people!
That's not at all what that magazine clip tells us. All he claims there is that there are other characters related to Illidan that haven't shown up in the game yet. He offers Kil'jaeden as an example of stuff they haven't done anything with. An example, not a promise.
Even if he did say something much more concrete like "Kil'jaeden will be a Burning Crusade boss", a single Page Ranking-related statement like that wouldn't definitively mean that it would actually happen.
You must have skimmed it pretty lightly:
"We're going to have patches between now and the future that have more bosses," Chilton says.
They will release some kind of new content before another expansion rolls around. The sheer volume of raiding that was available when TBC released was fantastic, but Blizzard's notion of pacing seems to be very polar - we either get MC -> BWL gaps, or we get 7 raid instances all at once.
I'd love to see a new 20-60 game. The itemization of vanilla WOW is awful and an alternative to that would be nice for those who enjoy rolling alts. I ran the 1-20 Draenei section and had a good time, and the TBC leveling experience was great as well.
I'd also love to see a new class. A Debuff/CC caster class that wears leather and wields 2h'rs? Maybe something based off of auras. They could do a few things. Didn't the origonal design docs for Warlocks call for leather?
Do you think you'll ever get to use your flying mounts in 1.0? I'm curious to know what kind of revamp that would take.
Overall, the game needs some alternative form of advancement for the level cap outside of gear. AA's or something similar that's not rep related.
It would be nice if they had a team that went back to 1.0 and revamped all of it expressly for flying mounts, adding in new areas only reachable by flyers, and revamped all of the loot + some of the old dungeons. (Fly to Nefarion's Roost without entering BWL, and encounter a new level 70 outdoor boss "Guardian" Drake with doomlord level purples)
That, on top of Heroic modes for some of the older instances... and a MUCH larger/expanded heroic loot table could be alot of fun, and wouldn't require a whole lot of man power - on top of opening up a ton of new content to level 70's. Adding in more really good blues + epics that cover more offset along with traditional roles to help with the gaps in Karazhan/SSC/TK drops. (Hi a cloak with heal and mp5 or crit outside of Prince Cloak plz.)
You could even add-in new quest lines to tie into these Heroics (seriously - there are what? 5 Heroic quests?) along with making a few possibly "epic" in that the quest boss you summon is VERY difficult (think Atiesh in Strat) and very hard for 5 people - but the rewards are top-notch (Magtheridon level?).
Small nitpick : Why isn't Southshore a pvp zone? :P Just make the tower cappable. Give tokens, just like Halaa with the vendors in the town. Do the same for EPL and whatever else - then figure out a way to make people WANT to world pvp 24/7. Maybe a large number of *very* lucrative dailies that are only accesible while your faction controls the PVP objective. Or maybe an "Herb Farm" that your faction can only pick once the PVP zone is on your faction. Something stupidly lucrative - that even the raiders would want to do it.
Anything to see my Prot War Guild Leader say "zomg PVP time2farm."
They will release some kind of new content before another expansion rolls around.
The article strongly suggests that. It does not strongly suggest that we'll be killing Kil'Jaeden.
The sheer volume of raiding that was available when TBC released was fantastic, but Blizzard's notion of pacing seems to be very polar - we either get MC -> BWL gaps, or we get 7 raid instances all at once.
There was a backlog of raid instances that they filled out as they got more comfortable with designing raid content. Two of these instances were also preceded by complex world events. Not the case in TBC. Moreover, Hyjal and Black Temple might as well not have been accessible on release, so that really leaves only Karazhan for 10-man content and SSC/TK for 25-man content, with Magtheridon and Gruul as mini-raids of sorts.
It was acceptable for WoW to be lacking raid content on release. There were no company precedents, there were no existing raiding guilds, and it was going to take the average player a long time to reach 60 and figure out how to do 5-mans. It would have been foolish to expect players to tolerate that kind of buffer in an expansion pack of a game with a mature raiding base and a much shorter leveling curve.
I'd love to see a new 20-60 game. The itemization of vanilla WOW is awful and an alternative to that would be nice for those who enjoy rolling alts. I ran the 1-20 Draenei section and had a good time, and the TBC leveling experience was great as well.
You beat me to this. I'd love for them to revamp the itemization and maybe tweak some of the quest lines from 20-60.
I can't see them adding a new class. No idea where it would go in the raid group at the current group size.
If they cleaned up the map in Azeroth to allow for flying mounts, that would be great, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it. I'd much rather see a graphics update or even DX10-engine option that could be ready in two years or so. Not that I mind how WoW looks, but a refreshening wouldn't hurt.
I'd also love to see a new class. A Debuff/CC caster class that wears leather and wields 2h'rs? Maybe something based off of auras. They could do a few things. Didn't the origonal design docs for Warlocks call for leather?
I'm the opposite. Alliance got shaman in TBC and Horde got paladin. Hybrids now also bring a lot more viable specs to the raid as a whole (all three shaman specs bring something to the raid, for example). Also, even the role of druid and warrior tanks are getting more specialized. There are just some scenarios where druids are much more advantageous tanks and scenarios where warriors are much more advantageous tanks. The changes to shadow priests late in vanilla might as well have made them a separate class from healing priests.
All these specs means that guilds, at least my guild, need a much bigger bench than pre-BC. In vanilla WoW, we basically carried around 50-55 people, aimed for around 80% attendance and around 5 people on the bench. Right now, we're routinely having over 10 people on the bench, just so we have the right specs available every raid time.
07/22/07, 5:28 PM
Similar Threads
