Maybe I am just a spoiled elf but I was sort of expecting a shiny new toy with the last major content patch of an expansion. Ever since wrath we have seen a new part of the game added with the last major content patch that ended up being a huge part of the game as we know it.
Wrath's last major content patch saw the addition of the dungeon finder tool. Cataclysm's last major content patch saw the addition of the raid finder tool. Mists' last major content patch saw the addition of flexible raiding. We can debate the merits of such additions in another post but the fact does remain they were all added with the last major content patch and they all changed the way we play the game since they were added.
Love them or hate them the dungeon finder, raid finder, and flexible raiding all molded the way we play the game now. Many of us, even those that remember hanging out in trade to assemble groups, can not even imagine what the game was like before the finders were added, be it dungeon or raid, and years from now we will probably have a hard time remembering what life was like without flexible raiding.
This is why I call myself a spoiled elf. I've been spoiled by blizzard doing such a good job with adding things that really impact the game in the last major content patch of this expansion and I am having a hard time seeing anything of any consequence being added in 6.2.
Some might argue, and perhaps rightfully so to an extent, that the timewalker dungeons are the new "impact" feature in line with the finders and such in the previous end expansion content patches. To them I would counter that 6.2 is not adding them. If anything 5.0 added them. The tech used for the timewalker dungeons is the same scaling tech used for the proving grounds and challenge modes. As both of those things were added in mists, if you are going to call timewalkers a new feature than you would have to respect the fact that said new feature was added in mists and is not being added in 6.2.
They are indeed expanding on the timewalkers feature and giving it a new focus moving just from a singular use of them scaling for current level and gear conditions by expanding on it to scale us downward.
Perhaps if timewalkers worked for all dungeons and if timewalkers was more than just an "available on select weekends" feature it might be easier to consider it an impact feature in line with the other ones even if the tech was already in game because something like that would indeed have a huge impact on the game.
What this all means is one of two things...
1) We will be getting no shiny new toys to play with in the last major content patch this expansion.
or
2) This is not the last major content patch of this expansion.
Which do you think it is? If you think it is number 2, or even if you don't, what would you like to see as our shiny new toy?
I would like to see timewalkers for all dungeons and for it to be available all the time and not just on select weekends. I would like for timewalkers to be a full new integration throughout the game not only for every dungeon but for every dungeon on all difficulties.
This means even timewalkers would really be a game changing addition to the game. Challenge modes at level for every dungeon in the game could be fun for some. You could even add random timerwalkers dungeons with special rewards, or even the same as current dungeon ones. Maybe even scale all the gear that drops to be equal to dungeon gear at your current level of dungeons. Would be awesome for twinks as it would make many more gearing options available.
I would not leave it at that, I would push it even further however, by adding an outdoor timerwalkers function. You could choose to experience all the zones on a sliding scale when you have timerwalkers enabled. If a zone is intended for 15-20 as soon a you enter it you can choose which level to be scaled to while you are in it. This way you could quest with friends, experience zones as they were intended to be experienced instead of just blowing through a zone, or just have fun with it if you wish.
There are so many options that timewalkers could be used to have an impact on the game, much greater than a limited time weekend thing for a limited amount of dungeons, the proving grounds or challenge modes. If they fully integrated timewalkers into every part of the game, now that could reach the same level of other end of expansion additions that ended up having a huge impact on the game.
Sadly I know that is way to much to ask for from a patch at the end of the expansion, but I do hope that is something we see coming with the next expansion. In my opinion, after seeing what 6.2 has to offer, about the only thing to get excited about now is the next expansion.
What would you like to see as our shiny new toy?
Christmas Is Coming!
17 minutes ago
I think timewalker is event so they don't 'dilute' the queues too much.
ReplyDeleteI believe you are correct in that.
DeleteDoesn't mean it would not have its place. In other games, like FF 14, I can queue up for a dungeon and be placed in a level 21 dungeon no matter my level. I will just be scaled to level 21. Sometimes along those lines is what I was thinking.
Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:
ReplyDeleteUnless Blizzard pulls off a miracle, I don't see the 6.2 patch as being the last patch or alternatively we are in for a very long wait for the next expansion. I cannot think of a single instance where Blizzard has ever managed to deliver a game rapidly, without a long period of anticipation. Maybe they are going to do it this time, and soon after the 6.2 patch goes live, we will start seeing announcements, leaks, and rumors about the next expansion, with the actual expansion coming out in the first of next year. But I do not believe it will occur.
As far as time walking for outdoor zones, no. Simply no. Think about what you are asking, every time you cross a zone boundary, such a mechanic would have you answering "do you wish to time walk in this zone?" How often would that take until it was so annoying that no one wanted to even venture beyond a city? Alternately perhaps they will have you set a general condition that all zones you enter are time walking zones and that will lead to a widely varied experience that will eat up Blizzard resources fixing all the zones so they work well with time walking.
And for dungeons, the answer is still no. Not as a general rule of thumb, no. Limited time walking dungeons are going to be bad enough, but I have no faith in Blizzard being able to pull it off so that it works well and is enjoyable enough that I want it as a full time tool. Instead I fear the usual excess of Blizzard optimism about how well it will work and suddenly running older dungeons solo will become a thing of the past.
That would be the point I leave over. So no, my belief Blizzard will do this well is not there and no, I don't want another tool in the game that limits things I can do solo or in groups. The two "looking for" , while providing much easier access to dungeons and raids, also provided much "needed" access to Looking for Tools to annoy the hell out of me. They surely did not provide any compensatory ways of adding any socialization to the game.
Now let me tell you what I do want. I want the next expansion to use the same rule set for classes as the current expansion. I want to not have to learn the class all over again. That would be a very unique and valued addition to the game, but I sure do not expect such a widely radical idea to ever cross anyone's mind that works for Blizzard. Instead I expect to get another 10 levels, another talent choice at 110, and a whole bunch of modifications to existing talents, skills, and spells. The extra 10 levels and a new talent at 110, that would be acceptable but the way Blizzard tinkers with things for lower level talents, skills, and spells will continue and no class will be able to carry over pre-existing rotations and choices.
How about a setting you choose. Just like there is one for dungeons, when you walk into one, it will use your default setting normal, heroic or challenge (soon mythic too). For timewalking you would set it as normal, scaled low, scaled mid, scaled top. Then no pop ups. When you enter it, it auto scales you just like when you enter a dungeon it automatically puts you in the right dungeon difficulty.
DeleteOh my god I agree 100% with you. I am sick and tired of them completely changing classes every expansion. Change things that need to be changed, but don't completely change things just for the sake of change. Hunters went from having 3 specs I could enjoy to none I am fond of. They destroyed the class for me and in the process really took away a lot of what I loved about the game in the process. They changed things for the sake of change and that should never be done.
I agree with you, I don't think this is the last major content patch of the xpac - we still haven't dealt with Grommash and/or Gul'dan in 6.2 tells me this is not the last raid of the xpac. So, I hope there is more time left. Not sure what I would really like to see added, but I would rather have no change than a change that takes away from the game like we saw with ability "pruning".
DeleteBlizzard really does like their new habit of removing things however, so beware, the next big addition could be another subtraction.
DeleteI too am thinking, or should I say hoping, that the lack of any new toy means this is not the last major patch of the expansion.
@Anon
DeleteTry to be a little more open minded to proposed changes, find ways it could be implemented to be enjoyable instead of finding the one scenario where you would hate it.
Rift has a mentoring system where you can choose to de-level yourself if you wish. You right-click your portait and a little slider appears where you choose the level you want to scale down to. That way, you can still gain xp from some of the event.
And dungeons - who says they have to take your ability to solo. Think Molten Core event - but reversed. You could still walk into level 60 MC, remember? But if you wanted to queue on the 'at level' version, you did so. Well surely they could do the same for low level dungeons - de-level you if you queue for them and stay the same if you walk in . At this point you can't queue for them anyway and have to walk in, so no content actually removed. This change would only add to things, no matter how you look at it.
Change is not a bad thing, even if it's human nature to fear the worst. It's a game, stop fearing, let the game evolve.
Wow has survived this long because it became accessible. You can't go back. What do you think removing LF* would do to the game?
Going back can't be done. You can move with the game, understand changes or try to resist them till there's no longer anything you enjoy and have to move on. Cataclysm dungeons came to mind, where people, because of their difficulty of the start of the expansion and long queues (no tanks willing to do them) had to seek out tanks and healers and groups like 'in the good old days'. I loved the dungeons, but almost all of the social players in my then guild quit. Some tried for hours and hours to finish the dungeon for the day and failed. I tried helping as much as I could but we sort of had to take maximum one or two players per run or dungeon would become impossible to finish. And even so, some took so long to finish.
And I'm alos looking at CMs. The hardest part is getting a group together willing to do things. You seem to think people are looking for reasons to socialize but Blizzard doesn't offer reasons. There are reasons, but people don't like effort of any kind. And people playing games actually like solo stuff more than any interaction. I'm reading your post and see contradiction - you want solo stuff, but you want social stuff.
What if leveling was hard and you had to make groups to level. Would you love that or hate that?
That is sort of how I was thinking about it. I too would never want to lose my ability to solo. I want to walk in and do my soloing for mounts, but I would not mind doing a weekend throwback raid of Ulduar at level, that could be fun.
DeleteI have absolutely zero luck getting CM groups together. People are not willing to do progression on a dungeon the way I am. Finding the people that do is harder than actually doing it. I think I am just going to buy a carry this time around. Took me forever to assemble my own groups last time and then I just barely made it in time. I'd rather just pay someone else to assemble the group for me. Even if I can carry my own weight it is worth paying to not have to go through the hell I did trying to find groups last expansion.
Leveling was never hard, even in vanilla, but it was time consuming and the end quest mobs did need groups. It was not a bad experience at all, but that was in the different time. That game play would never fly with the xbox generation of gamers.
Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:
DeleteJames, first off, sorry for the delay in replying but my internet connection disappeared when a thunderstorm rolled through yesterday.
Now as for removing the Looking For tools, that is a thing that can not be undone. I know that, and I accept it. I don't use the tool but I accept most folks find the ease factor well worth the loss of socialization. And no, back before the advent of such, as shy and socially inept as I am, I still found myself making groups and aiding folks far more then than I would or do now.
Now part of that is simply burnout on raiding. By the time I finished Dragonsoul, I was pretty much done as a raider, and without being a raider, any real incentive I had to run other group activity diminished greatly. Still I think the original implementation of the LF tools was a bad idea and the method of doing so was worse. If the LF tools had been set to a single server and sever merges/consolidations had occurred then, the loss of socialization would have been far more minimal. Being thrown into a random group with people of your server would have still given people a chance to remember who they played with. As is, no, no one ever cares to socialize, i.e. do such strenuous things as say "hi" and "bye" and "good run" nor any of the other small things that go into socializing in a video game. Without that, four other NPCs show up and say nothing, action starts and god help you if you don't know what you are doing because it is the first time you ever ran the place.
As far as change goes, I surely agree that it can be a very good thing. The introduction of flight was a positive thing. The land mount at lower levels was a tremendously good thing, made possible (really made necessary) by flight. The removal of flight was not a good thing, no matter what all the world PvP types claim. Change is always a two edged sword, cutting both for good and ill.
I honestly think the habit Blizzard has of adjusting things that work perfectly fine as is IS the problem. They waste far to much time redesigning things that work fine already and then not making adjustments that have good sense to them such as a different spell/skill results for PvP as opposed to PvE. Instead they attempt the nearly impossible task of making everything work the same for both and then nerf either PvP or PvE (usually it seems the PvE) effects to make it balance in the other realm of play.
As I noted, the constant redesign of things that already work perfectly well is a problem. The recent ability pruning and so called stat squish didn't do anything for making the next expansion easier to get designed. Instead, both the classes and stats are going to get another redesign in the next expansion. I think that is the one results that all can agree will occur. Now if they kept the classes (pruned down as they are) pretty much like they are, adding a tiny bit during the leveling and a final new talent at level cap, then all the designers/developers have to do is work on real content without having to redesign all the classes. To sort of paraphrase Blizzard, that would be worth a raid tier all by itself.
Anon, Grumpy's former Guild Leader:
ReplyDeleteAllowing that Blizzard is really intent on turning out new content, and that 6.2 is rumored to be the last major patch for WoD, just when do you expect to see the new expansion announced and released? Recall the announcement about adding so many people to their development team and how they had to be bought up to speed during the wait for WoD to come. Well those people are surely caught up to speed on Blizzard's way of doing things now, so when do you think we will begin to see the news about the new expansion and once that occurs when do you think it will hit the stores?
My prediction is for Blizzcon to be the announcement and a year later or a minimum of nine months later, the release itself. So I am thinking August or September 2016 at the earliest is the likely release date. Later (or even much later) will not surprise me.
In reality for the next expansion to come out at any reasonable time frame from now it would need to be announced before 6.2 comes out and the beta should be released shortly after 6.2 comes out. Other wise we are in for a LONG 6.2 or the need for a 6.3 that might still include our new toy.
DeleteMy prediction is June 23rd for 6.2. Which means for this to work the expansion has to be announced within the next 2 or 3 weeks at the latest.
This seems to have switched to a "Guess the expac date" post so I'll have a go...
Delete6.2 - June 16th
6.3 - Final Raid - Around Christmas
7.0 - Around film release date
New toy... Timewalking across all dungeons via LFD and bring back Valor as the reward for them.
Timewalker raids for Premade groups.
I would love to see valor return. That is about all I need to say there. :P
DeleteI have to disagree. (hoping I am wrong) This is the last patch to 6.2. I think we'll have another 6.3 patch to get us ready for the next expac, but I envision (especially since this expac seems light) that 7.0 is announced at Blizzcon, along with opening of the beta.
ReplyDeleteGotta remember, flex raiding was 'tried out' in SoO, then rolled out full-steam in WoD. Timewalking is now in a 'test' cycle. It's totally possible that TW dungeons (and raids, right!?) come full cycle by next year.
Also, don't forget the minor changes to the game like the heirloom closet. While this isn't a gameplay mechanic per se, it has opened up an easier way to use the gear.
See my above answer to why I think time wise how this "might" mean there will be a 6.3. Because they have not even hinted at a new expansion yet, it would seem unlikely that they will now. So time wise it would almost seems like it is another 16 months of the same raid with 6.2 or 6.3 needs to come out.
DeleteGiven the choice, I would rather a 6.3.
I wonder if they can do more with the closet idea. Would like to see tabards there and maybe even a transmog skin collection.
xmog closet would be nice. consume all those vanity items in my void storage. Currently, even with 2 tabs, I am full. Of course, this includes all my holiday outfits (in case there's a requirement after a holiday revamp, right?!?), plus so many epic drops coming off of old-vanilla and bc raids. Heck expand that idea and revamp of the 'outfitter' interface, that would allow me to swap between destruction gear set and demonology gear set..
DeleteI started ditching my holiday stuff a long time ago due to lack of space. Would have liked to keep it but it serves no purpose except just for fun and with bag space being limited fun items usually are the first to go. Being they are just fun items I think they would be top of the list to get the closet treatment.
DeleteInteresting how this post went from what new "toy" you want, to speculation of when WoD would end. Honestly, I don't think it really matters does it? Think about it for a second, we are all in agreement that this xpac was lackluster after the first month or two and that we wish it had more "substance" but it is what it is for whatever reason(s.) If it goes to 6.5, 6.6 6.8 etc... so be it. We don't have to play, we could just sit it out and wait for 7.x. If all of us who read this blog decided to quit today we would still keep our finger on the pulse of this game either through MMO Champion or Blizzard forums and the first signs of life coming back to this game, BAM!! we would be back at it again. We love this game too much to walk away from it completely. That is unless Blizz does something so heinous to the game that forces us away.
ReplyDeleteSo let's just have fun wishing about new features. For me I would like to see an interactive raid collaboration tool, one that allowed you to pull up maps and markers to draw out strats because there are time when the 3D markers on the ground in the instance just don't always cut it, it also would be nice if Blizz changed proving grounds to evaluate your game play, for hunters making sure your DPS and damage output are adequate for your level and gear. I only really know if I am doing well until someone complains or when I read what hunter bloggers post. Dmg meters work OK but they don't tell you if your DPS sucks.
So since we are speculating, next xpac to be next year around Nov/Dec. Seems there may not be enough time for a Fall 2015 release unless they have a small army working on it in secret. This means a more content in-between and potentially additional tier beyond 18.
The two kind of go hand in hand. The end of the expansion toy is not here, so do you think this is not the last patch. Or are we getting no toy. I see them both as part of the same conversation.
DeleteI don't think blizzard could ever do one single thing that could push a player away, or at least me, but a combination of things along with personal game play preference changes could do it. I think the sooner this lackluster expansion is over the better it will be for the over all health of the game, as it seems they have no interest in adding more to it.
I would LOVE to be able to draw on the screen and others could see it. I hate that blizzard stopped that addon that did that from working. That would be an amazing raid tool. Even more so with a casual guild like mine were some of the players are, to be polite, not that raid aware.
Damage meters can only tell so much. Like on beastlord, I single target because we have solid AoE otherwise. I'll end the fight at 45 or so while the other hunter on AoE duty will end near 60. Did he do better than I did? No way to really tell. Or maidens. The difference between doing the boat and not doing the boat can easily equal 15K or more. Did the hunter on the boat do poorly if he did less than you? Did the hunter on the ground do great if he did more? So many variables to DPS, I am starting less and less to think of it as a straight forward number really. I wish others started looking at it differently too.
Case and point, last night I asked a monk in my guild to sit after a few wipes on heroic maidens. He was doing 74K. Kind of good right? But he was never alive at the 20% phase when we needed him most. So losing his DPS for most of the fight, even if high, was a good thing because of the way scaling works. At least we would not need to carry him at the end.
Bottom line, it is REALLY hard to judge DPS now. Even more so with random gem slots. That makes a huge difference.
I really hope if we delve into the 16 month thing we did last time they are smart enough to at least give us a tiny patch, something 6.1's size, even if almost nothing, but at least something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIo3Hsz8VQk
DeletePreach did a video on exactly this issue with dps meters, worth a watch (as is the rest of the series)
Never saw that, will have to take a peek.
DeleteI would imagine that there is fairly strong corporate pressure to move on from WoD as quickly as possible whatever the corporate line from Blizzard is. That last earnings call wasn't pretty. I'd be shocked if we are not playing a new expansion at this point next year. Honestly, I expect the announcement this summer and then release just before or just after the new year.
ReplyDeleteYes, that is shorter than the norm -- to put it mildly -- for Blizzard. I think they are converting to smaller expansions, less content, and shorter production cycles. And that may mean that we get more new release-but-still-beta expansions going forward.
That is my way of saying that 6.2 is it for WoD.
They would make more money selling a new box ever year instead of every 2 years. That is the bottom line. It also means if they move in that direction we will never again see a "big' feature in a patch. They will save it for the next expansion. Which is sad, I think.
DeleteWould flying count as a new toy?
ReplyDeleteSorry, couldn't resist:)
Sold... I'll take it.
DeleteAdding flying would be the best non raid "content" they have given us all expansion.
Sorry for the previous post misfire.
DeleteWith the announcement that flying may not be returning at all, I put up a wall of text in the US forum thread discussing this unfortunate change. Thought I'd share here if only to make me feel a little bit better.
I am a player who has been with WoW since the beginning. I played Everquest since its launch prior. I used to raid much more hardcore with a guild that always tried to be server first each tier. (Not elite, but serious.) We have remained together, but our raiding focus has shifted. (We complete tiers in heroic, but mythic is pretty much not on the table... getting exactly twenty is harder than the raid itself.) With this lesser focus on raiding, we gamers fill our play time with other things: collect pets, collect mounts, PvP, fish, hunt nerd points, whatever. This is all background to get to the topic at hand.
I think the best way to evaluate the desirability of flying is to look at the difference between destination and journey or perhaps between fishing and cutting bait. And let's set aside the chestnut that life is a journey, not a destination. I'll stipulate to that. Indeed, our playing WoW is part of that journey that should enrich and add life to our years. Let's focus on WoW itself as part of that journey.
Leveling in WoW can be about the journey. Sure, I'm the type of player that races to max level b/c that is where the game starts for me. I still enjoy a good leveling experience. I enjoy seeing new lands, new mobs, new quests. It is a fun 36 hours.
At max level, WoW is about the destination, not the journey. I -- and I think from observation most others -- set out during a play session with a goal in mind. I am going to hit old dungeons. I am going to battle pet trainers. I am going to fish. I am going to raid. The doing of those things is the fun. The travel to do those things isn't. Fishing is fishing. Traveling to fish is cutting bait.
My wife and I went to Paris last year. We flew business class and it was about as enjoyable an experience as flying today can be. It was still just flying. When we talk about our trip, we talk about Paris -- the destination -- not the travel to Paris. Yes, we want that travel to be as nice and easy as it can be, but it isn't the focus of our desire... of our fun. So, too, is in WoW.
Continued (I hope) below.
Continued...
DeleteWhen I want to battle pet trainers, I want to be battling pet trainers. I don't want to fight mobs to do that. I don't want to extend my travel between trainers. I want to battle trainers. That is true for any WoW activity that isn't killing mobs. There are time I just want to grind mobs. Great, that then is the destination and even then, I want to get to the mobs for my grind as quickly and easily as possible.
Flying is an easy way to minimize the journey (the "have to") to get to the destination (the "want to"). It is several times faster than going by ground and can be done in a straight line, not subject to topography. It bypasses mobs, canyons, rivers, factions, and all other obstacles. It is efficient. Riding a ground mount, at least as it now stands, offers none of that. It is all the drawbacks, none of the advantages.
It seems to me that if you want to make a change to full-time ground travel, you need to eliminate most of drawbacks of current ground travel and incorporate many if not most of the advantages of flight. Let's start with speed. Ground travel should take no more time than air travel. Flying mounts are 310% so at minimum, so too should ground mounts. Yet flying mounts can travel to a destination in a straight line, so ground mounts need to be even faster to overcome this loss. 400%? 500%? Whatever it takes to even it out.
And let's eliminate dazing and dismounting while mounted. If I travel through mobs and they can kill me as I ride through, so be it. But if they can't get the job done that way, I don't want to be forced to stop to deal with the situation. The aggression of lower level mobs should also be eliminated. Mobs ten or more levels under you -- for example -- should never aggro you unless you attack them. (EQ2 did this right with lower mobs cowering in fear.) Minimize the annoyances between the destinations.
And you have to do better with flight paths. I know that you think that you've improved them. Perhaps you have, but you are still thinking small. For a start, make the travel speed faster... much, much faster. I mean 10 or 20 times as fast... at least. I want to fly from the top of a continent to the bottom in less than two minutes, the time it takes to pee or grab a beer. In my perfect WoW world, I could simply teleport where I want to go to start my fun. Absent that, speed counts. Even better than flight speed alone would be the elimination of travel through other flight points. Ironforge to Booty Bay shouldn't go through six flight points on the way. It should B-line between the two. People want to take a nonstop flight between Los Angeles and New York. No one is excited about a layover in Cleveland.
If we are forced to live in a grounded world, then allow us to have our destination activities in peace after the travel. Battle pet trainers should be in safe areas that are easily accessible and never more than 30 seconds right from a flight point. (I'm a big pet leveler, both to battle and to sell for money. In spite of this, I've killed the WoD trainers each exactly once. They are too much trouble to access. I level in Pandaria where I can fly and complete the full circuit in under an hour.) This should be true for archeology sites as well.
The best way to allow us our fun is to bring back flying. That also honors our history with WoW. So far, you have taken away our carrot -- a carrot that we rightly now see as ours -- and only offered us a stick. So if we are forced to live with the stick, at least make it as soft and shiny a stick as possible.
Very well said, explained thoroughly, and an intelligent argument. The sad part is that it will fall on deaf ears. Because blizzard has decide "they" want you on the ground, they do not care what we think. Because blizzard decided "they" think it makes for better game play despite countless examples that disprove that. Because blizzard decided doing what "they" want is more important that keeping their paying players happy, this is an argument we will all lose. The saddest part is, posts like yours should make any rational person at least reconsider, but they are just irrational.
DeleteI've always said that travel is not "fun" but in the end flying can be. It allows you the chance to change your time. To stop for a mining node or an herb or a fishing pool. It allows you to answer the call when you head "xx is under attack" faster. It allows you to enjoy the sites, to feel the breeze, so to speak.
Travel is never fun, but flying is about as close to fun as travel can be.
And my number one example of many as to why lack of flying hurts my game play is this.
When I log into a character I sign up for a random dungeon. If it pops during me doing my garrison chores I will do it. If it doesn't and I see there is still something like 20 minutes remaining I just log out as I do not want to just stand in my garrison waiting.
If I had flying I would pop outside and do some exploring, some rare killing, some fishing, some gathering, some archeology, what have you. If I had flying I would have waited and did something, played the game, and done the dungeon. Without flying I just log off.
Flying IS content. Blizzard needs to realize that.
The team working on wow now is the largest it has ever been. Yet they are putting out the least amount of content with largest number of people? That makes no sense at all. Those people are working on something. That something is the next expansion/movie tie in.
ReplyDeleteWhether we get a 6.3 or any kind of new toys will all be dependent upon how “on schedule” for a June 2016 release date for the next expansion pack is. They want to release with the movie and capitalize on all the hype, advertising, potential subs, and money that will come along with it. They have already started the hype train by releasing that picture of Orgrim Doomhammer and after 6.2 releases we’ll start getting hyped up over the next expansion too when a picture or two of that gets “leaked”.
As a side note to what I have written above, and this will sound cynical, Blizzard is a corporation through and through now. The company that delayed the BC release for extra polish has been replaced with pushing WOD out for Christmas no matter how many problems it had. Instead of making a great game to get subs for money, it now doesn’t care how many subs it has because value added services and mounts make the stock report look just as good if not better. The kind of company where you get snarky remarks from developers and corporate spin along with cut after cut after cut in content instead of community interaction and things to do in game.
Yes this is a company that will push out a movie tie in expansion no matter what it takes and if 6.2 has to last a year. Then it will last a year. All of this depends on June of 2016.
That actually makes perfect blizzard sense. Blizzard and math have never had a very good relationship it seems. I agree with you. Makes no sense they have more people working and they are putting out less. They really need to get better people if that is the case, not more.
DeleteIf they plan to release the next expansion in line with the movie I can see it being announced at blizzcon. That would make for good timing. However if they want us not to have another year of a raid, which it would be if it were a june 2016 release, we need to see an announcement soon, as in the next few weeks.
They do seem to have went more corporate milk the cow mode instead of lets build on this style. And it is really noticeable with this expansion.