tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9015737272343810105.post1451304217029446531..comments2024-03-27T07:57:48.010-04:00Comments on The Grumpy Elf: Expansions on AzerothTheGrumpyElfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07621615711198405365noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9015737272343810105.post-77461838670923317422014-10-07T19:53:19.107-04:002014-10-07T19:53:19.107-04:00It is all good to link yourself. Even more so whe...It is all good to link yourself. Even more so when it fits the conversation.<br /><br />I don't think the writers at blizzard are capable of pulling of anything more than fluff any longer. Ever since LK they have not created one solid piece of good lore and I do not think they ever will. They need to hire better writers.TheGrumpyElfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07621615711198405365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9015737272343810105.post-55601692520912280902014-10-07T17:46:37.016-04:002014-10-07T17:46:37.016-04:00I know linking to myself is probably (definitely )...I know linking to myself is probably (definitely ) bad but I wrote a post last December about where they could go for the next expansion after Warlords.<br /><br />http://still-searching.net/2013/12/15/after-warlords-your-warcraft-expansion/<br /><br />I don't know if you remember but WoWInsider used to do a weekly blog topic and this was one of them. The only reason why I'm linking really is because I had some of the same thoughts as you. Makes me think that expanding Azeroth is the logical thing to do. However, knowing blizz I don't know what they will do. They don't seem to do the logical thing at all.<br /><br />A lot of people seem to love Azshara as an expansion idea, that and the Emerald Dream are two I see often when this topic comes up. Personally to be honest I have to agree with Tiggi's comment. I can't see either idea carrying a whole expansion. A patch, a raid, a quest chain perhaps.<br /><br />However we all like different storylines, different parts of the story are more important to us than others. You like Azshara, I'm a sucker for anything to do with Lordaeron. Blizz will likely never give either of us what we want.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17771213542953346538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9015737272343810105.post-16885355882780086072014-10-07T16:02:14.427-04:002014-10-07T16:02:14.427-04:00For me personally not only was the movement horrib...For me personally not only was the movement horrible and many abilities not working that bothered me but the actual visuals of the underwater look made me ill. I was actually sick after questing there. It was actually beyond horrible, it was worse. That is my reason, not sure about others, but I have heard many stories of others that felt sick after questing there.<br /><br />I was not suggesting a mish mosh mix up like that piece of crap we lovingly refer to as cataclysm. ;)<br /><br />Each idea would be its own expansion. Not one little bit of each thing thrown together with no rhyme or reason like cataclysm was. That was a complete disaster and I would never suggest anything like it to repeat what was probably the worst concept for an expansion leveling zone in history of this or any other game. The person who suggested disconnected zones for leveling in an expansion, all not tied together in any way, should have been fired the moment the suggest came out of their mouth. <br /><br />I like the palace idea, sounds kind of cool.<br /><br />Some of the things you mention as problems I do not really see. Each expansion we only fight against a few different things. So there is really no big deal there being we would only be fighting against a few things. Next expansion it is just orcs, orges and the cat people, that is it. And outside of people being fed up with orcs, no one is complaining about the lack of different mobs. So do not worry about that.<br /><br />Also you need to have a deeper vision, you can have many underwater zones, just like you have many above water zones. They do not all need to be the same. You can have "weather" underwater were one zone is chilled, one lush, you can have brunt zones where something blew up, you could have all types of zones. Do not let it being underwater hinder your imagination there. It could be anything we wanted and remember, put it in a bubble and it could basically be just like any above world zone would be.<br /><br />Now that would be an interesting version of garrisons. It would be like out new mount. We dock it somewhere in each zone when we go there. Sounds pretty awesome.TheGrumpyElfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07621615711198405365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9015737272343810105.post-82958770104770479692014-10-07T14:23:38.449-04:002014-10-07T14:23:38.449-04:00Part 3
Continuing on my island hopper theme. I ha...Part 3<br /><br />Continuing on my island hopper theme. I have an idea how garrisons could translate into this new expansion. It is stealing a page from Assassin’s Creed 4, but what if our new garrison was a ship? We are the captain of the ship. And it travels between the various zones, so we always have our garrison with us in whatever zone we are in. If they want to get really cool, the basic ship could be race specific. So like dwarves, gnomes have a steam ship. Blood elves, night elves have a sleek sailing ship. Humans and Worgen have a sailing ship, but a bit bulkier. Orcs and trolls I guess would have a kinda blocky “troll destroyer” ship a la Warcraft 2. You would recruit followers to be part of your “ship’s crew”. I don’t think it would make sense to have different “buildings” on your ship. Though through questing you could get upgrades for the ship. Like portals, a mailbox, bank, AH whatever they want to do.Troutmonkeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01862533672429720139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9015737272343810105.post-43115778516653039672014-10-07T14:11:51.485-04:002014-10-07T14:11:51.485-04:00Part 2
Problems:
1. My idea is heavily gated an...Part 2<br /><br />Problems: <br /><br />1. My idea is heavily gated and scripted. You cant even get to the Azshara's palace zone until you do a certain amount of questing on the whirlpool's ocean floor.<br /><br />2. Lots of players hated Zelda's water temple because they couldnt figure it out. Many Wow players would have the same problem, and it would require phasing to deal with "flooded" and "unflooded" sections, so it would break up friends trying to lvl together.<br /><br />3. Fighting on the edges of a whirlpool would be weird. If somebody has a quest on the other side of the whirlpool, do you let them fly directly across? or do they have to travel around the circle? If they can fly across that would trivialize the downward progression of the whirlpool<br /><br />4. Not enough variety. Especially in enemies. We would be fighting basically just pirates, naga, water elementals, and other aquatic lifeforms. That could get as repetitious as another troll raid.<br /><br />5. It would introduce a lot of new mechanics to questing, which players would probably hate initially (remember how people hated vehicles at first in Wrath?). So its risky, and might get a bad reception from players.<br /><br />I have more to say, but this post is long enough, so I'll make a part 3.<br />Troutmonkeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01862533672429720139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9015737272343810105.post-34845731231708403782014-10-07T14:11:19.391-04:002014-10-07T14:11:19.391-04:00I don't really understand all the hate for Vas...I don't really understand all the hate for Vashj'ir. It was by far my favorite zone of Cata. I liked it because it was different, and presented new challenges. Also, I am a big fan of anything nautical.<br /><br />It seems to me that most of your ideas are a rehash of Cataclysm. An underwater zone, an underground zone, a Skyzone. These are all ideas they had for Cataclysm, and I think if they were to do an Ashzara expansion with one of each, there would be an outcry of "Rehashed Content!" Thus, I think the island hopper one is the only feasible option. You would have the large island of Kul Tiras as one or two initial zones populated by dense deciduous forest like Elwynn, then several island archipelago zones with lots of little islands, but connected in one zone. So kinda like modern tanaris or thousand needles.<br /><br />Now I am gonna get creative: A Maelstrom zone. It is a giant whirlpool, not necessarily with steep sides, but more bowl shaped than tall glass shaped. and we quest up and down the sides of the whirlpool. There would be all sorts of shipwrecks and rocks spinning around the sides of the whirlpool to create solid ground to fight on. If they wanted to get really crazy, they could have the entire zones spin around in a circle in real time. Everything is spinning at the same speed, so stuff is always in the same relative position geographically, but it would be a cool dynamic if it appeared you were rotating around the ocean floor as you quested, and your map rotated as well. The outcry against this would be tremendous because too much of the player base are babies and would get confused, but I think it would be awesome if they did it.<br /><br />Next zone: the actual ocean floor at the bottom of the maelstrom. This would be a normal 2D zone as we are used to on the ocean floor. While questing here you could look up and see the whirlpool rotating above you.<br /><br />Next zone. Azhsara's palace/fortress. I envision this being like an elf version of icecrown. That is, very dark and forbidding, lots of standing water, puddles and dripping stone, but with elven architectural specifics instead of vykrul/nerubian architecture. It would actually be in an underwater mountain. Like there is a large mountain fortress on the ocean floor set a distance away from the maelstrom's cleared section. The point of questing in the maelstrom is to magically build an air tunnel to create a path from the open air of the whirlpool directly to azshara's underwater mountain. So then you go down this newly created tunnel and get to her fortress and it plays out as if you were questing in a giant blackrock spire, with a lot of levels stacked on top of each other. There could even be a mechanic where parts of the mountain and flooded with water, so they are initially 3D underwater questing like in Vashj'ir, but through your questing you drain the water. Or fill it back up. It would be like Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time's water temple. A large point of questing in this zone would be to magically drain the water from her mountain, to limit the advantage of the naga armies. It would feel like you are progressing through the zone and taking territory away from Azshara like how Icecrown made us feel we were progressing through the zone and taking territory from Arthas.<br /><br />So the whole expansion is a march towards Azshara's palace, and we are taking the fight to her in her stronghold just like we took the fight to Arthas in wrath, which most people agree was a great expansion.<br /><br />Continued in Part 2.<br /><br />Troutmonkeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01862533672429720139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9015737272343810105.post-342649367625158602014-10-07T13:25:13.736-04:002014-10-07T13:25:13.736-04:00I can not say why people get so excited over the t...I can not say why people get so excited over the thought of her but I believe it to be that she is the last big threat on Azeroth outside of the old gods and possibly something the titans have buried that we have not discovered yet.<br /><br />So why not be her? There are no other big bads running about out there unless they make up some new lore and think about who we are talking about here, writing new lore is not actually something any of their current creative staff is capable of doing.TheGrumpyElfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07621615711198405365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9015737272343810105.post-52962521242548630092014-10-07T13:20:13.702-04:002014-10-07T13:20:13.702-04:00Queen AZzzzzzzzshara
I never get why people get s...Queen AZzzzzzzzshara<br /><br />I never get why people get so excited over her. The schadenfreude over the dark below not being the expansion was delicious.<br /> I think with the disastrous response to the underwater zone we really won't be going back there. Could I see her as raid boss? Sure but I don't see her carrying an expansion. Tigginoreply@blogger.com