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Title: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: luckton on July 29, 2015, 12:39:33 PM
Quote
Join us Thursday, August 6 at 9 a.m. PDT for a special World of Warcraft event streamed live from gamescom 2015 in Cologne, Germany—where we’ll be unveiling the next chapter of the World of Warcraft saga. . . .

Tune in again Sunday, August 9 at 8:00 a.m. PDT for a World of Warcraft developer chat before the show ends, and find out more about what’s in store.

Stay tuned to our dedicated gamescom page for further details on the live stream. Those who are able to join us in person at gamescom can visit us at the Blizzard booth in hall 7.1. We hope to see you there!

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/19841681

So...where are we off to now?


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Paelos on July 29, 2015, 12:46:13 PM
The best of the comments:

Quote
Get those wallets out, guys! It's time to shell out $70 for another expansion that will only have 5 dungeons, 2 raids, and 1 content patch!

Quote
I think the important question is are we going to be paying another $50 for 2 patches worth of content?

Quote
*Patch and a glorified hotfix of content. Fixed that for ya, buddy.

Quote
Let's hope that the next expansion is about 30 dollars cheaper than WoD was considering the amount of content we can expect from it.

Quote
No more orcs, please no more orcs!

Quote
Hey guys we heard you like announcements so we are announcing we will be announcing stuff at a place where stuff gets announced.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Paelos on July 29, 2015, 12:47:32 PM
In all seriousness, unless they are unveiling how they will have an expansion ready by Christmas? They are so fucked in the sub department by year end it's going to be hilarious.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Zetor on July 29, 2015, 12:48:10 PM
I have it on good authority that the next expansion's content wil lconsist of one extra-huge troll dungeon.

shut up and gimme my $15 a month, little mon!


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: luckton on July 29, 2015, 12:56:01 PM
Quote
No more orcs, please no more orcs!

"Announcing World of Warcraft: Orcs of the Orcs Orcs. Where adventurers will help Thrall do his daily chores while building up rep with Aggra. 5 2 Thrilling new raids which will be locked behind fishing dailies. Hope your Archaeology is maxed out because the new legendary will be found by collecting 5000 of every racial artifact fragment. Uldaman has been revamped and made a level 110 dungeon, also it has trolls in it now for some reason. Finally to extend game life make the experience feel more real ground mounts will now no longer be usable."


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Paelos on July 29, 2015, 01:02:50 PM
Yes, everywhere running now. And the artwork is only the clownshoes vanilla armor from Dire Maul


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on July 29, 2015, 01:29:47 PM
Now now. I'm sure it will totally justify the $100 (due to inflation) price and have all kinds of content you'll love to grind before riding for the last 2 1/2 months of the expansion. Flying will be patched in at 8.0.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: luckton on July 29, 2015, 01:31:33 PM
I don't think they'll have something out by Christmas. Probably going to be a spring release, maybe February. But no, not this year.

As far as features go, I don't know what they have in mind. They took so much out in the last couple of expansions; maybe an AA system at long last?


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Fabricated on July 30, 2015, 04:21:45 AM
I guess they're at the "fuck it, we've made enough money" period now. I think basically they're going to the update/content schedule of WoW's F2P also-rans and seeing how long they can trick people into buying a box and paying $15 a month for it.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Draegan on July 30, 2015, 09:01:38 PM
The only way people come back is if there is a class overhaul or 2-3 new classes. Otherwise it's just going to be more boring leveling content no one gives any fucks over or more shitty raid content no one really enjoys.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: angry.bob on July 30, 2015, 09:48:09 PM
So...where are we off to now?

I hope it's an alternate version of Draenor, set in a different timeline. One that's completely different in that the orcs there will be blue or something. Also trolls. There's never enough content that involves foiling troll plans or something.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Hutch on July 31, 2015, 01:18:54 AM
"Because Warlords of Draenor never got its 3rd raid tier, the Iron Horde reaches the Dark Portal and changes the past and the future of Azeroth!"

"Travel forward in time, to the mysterious continent of Zandaria, where the Iron Zandalari have overthrown the Mogu, and now rule over the peaceful Pandaren folk with cruelty and terror."

"Explore an Azeroth where no one can fly, and only the Iron Horde may ride! Walk, don't run, through the deserted capitals of Kalimdor and the Ruins of Stormwind, and wonder what fate befell the millions who once dwelt there."

"Welcome to World of Warcraft: The Eternal Blizzard!"


(* green text alert: these are not actual quotes)


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Sir T on July 31, 2015, 07:29:27 AM
Who could tell the difference between snark and reality at this point...


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Montague on July 31, 2015, 08:23:09 AM
I for one am hoping for an underwater vehicle raid where when the boss goes to 5%, Ronin and Thrall enter and kill it with a 15 minute unskippable cutscene.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Tannhauser on August 02, 2015, 04:32:30 AM
Is this xpac coming faster than normal?  Seems so to me.  WoD wasn't a bad xpac to me, I got my fill of it.  I do hate that they hate flying, I'm sure we'll be 'walking to Mordor' in the next xpac.  Off the top of my head I'd like to see this xpac explore the Dranei homeword (Argos?), or maybe a huge underground system with dwarf/earthen/titan things going on.  Please no more orcs/draenor/time travel!

Or what if that is their plan?  Use the time travel ascpect to revisit Azeroth and make changes there? 

What would make me excited (like the above poster said) would be to have 2-3 more classes.  The monk is a fun class, though I didn't get her past level 30 I think before I /quit.



Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on August 02, 2015, 06:59:41 AM
It is faster than "normal," yes. WOD released last November, so it's only been 8 months. This may be Acti-Blizzard trying to actually fulfill that "One a year" promise from a few years back.

However, given the rushed feel of WOD, the countless bugs and errors that still remain and the half-baked ideas that have obvious solutions, the Blizzard culture is a far cry from being able to deliver QUALITY content on that timeframe.

As to the rest:

I expect a continuation of the last two x-pac themes - the bad guy who shows up/ is hinted at the end of the last X-pac is the main boss of the next.  That'd make Sargeras and the Burning Legion the focus., either in the Iron Horde timeline or the real one. Probably that one so they can either sell WC4 in the future or swing back to the real one and say, "hah, no that was nothing but a setback."  :awesome_for_real:

This is sort of backed by Khadgar's statements in the Archimonde defeat cinematic.  Gul'Dan isn't dead, he's thrown through the portal, and we know Sargeras is out there in our timeline and still within Mediv in the IH timeline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lieulbyk9I

The persistent rumors that we'll see Karazan 2.0 remain nothing but rumors, but that'd be a good way to introduce Mediv. He sneaks through the timeline and occupies Kara in our world or some such BS.

Lots of rumors around classes. Not worth discussing since the announcement is only a few days away and there's zero info to back any of them.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: angry.bob on August 02, 2015, 09:56:07 AM
I do hate that they hate flying, I'm sure we'll be 'walking to Mordor' in the next xpac. 

You do have to admit though that if Gandalf and Frodo had just hopped onto Giant Eagles and flown them to the Fires of Doom, the entire story of Lord of the Rings would have fit onto four sheets of paper.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Sir T on August 06, 2015, 06:30:03 AM
They would have just padded it out with long speeches, product placement, Dwarf Jokes and tits.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Kail on August 06, 2015, 09:19:10 AM
I expect a continuation of the last two x-pac themes - the bad guy who shows up/ is hinted at the end of the last X-pac is the main boss of the next.  That'd make Sargeras and the Burning Legion the focus., either in the Iron Horde timeline or the real one. Probably that one so they can either sell WC4 in the future or swing back to the real one and say, "hah, no that was nothing but a setback."  :awesome_for_real:

Yep, looks like.  Versus the Burning Legion at the Tomb of Sargeras.

New Demon Hunter class is probably the only thing that really stands out.

edit:
linky for the lazy (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/legion/)


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Tannhauser on August 06, 2015, 09:59:40 AM
At least there's a new class.  The rest looks like standard Blizz boilerplate.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Ironwood on August 06, 2015, 10:07:03 AM
Fuck.  That.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Malakili on August 06, 2015, 10:16:32 AM
There's still something deep down inside me that perks up when I see new Warcraft stuff. It's like a conditioned response. Then I realize it's WoW expansion number six and go about my business.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Father mike on August 06, 2015, 10:24:57 AM
Yeah, me too.  Ulduar was pretty good, and the pillars of creation stuff seems to be an extension of that - so that's sort.of exciting.  But then I remember that it's WoW ...

And demon hunters aren't doing it for me at all


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Fabricated on August 06, 2015, 10:25:15 AM
Awful, just awful.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Mithas on August 06, 2015, 10:25:54 AM
Rehashed rehash.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on August 06, 2015, 11:20:41 AM
I expect a continuation of the last two x-pac themes - the bad guy who shows up/ is hinted at the end of the last X-pac is the main boss of the next.  That'd make Sargeras and the Burning Legion the focus., either in the Iron Horde timeline or the real one. Probably that one so they can either sell WC4 in the future or swing back to the real one and say, "hah, no that was nothing but a setback."  :awesome_for_real:

Yep, looks like.  Versus the Burning Legion at the Tomb of Sargeras.

New Demon Hunter class is probably the only thing that really stands out.

edit:
linky for the lazy (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/legion/)

Woo, I was right. Rehashed Illidan AND another Gul'Dan appearance. Bets that Gul'san dies in the last leveling zone just like Garrosh did?  :awesome_for_real:

Demonhunter looks very uninspiring. Another Tank/ DPS melee class. They needed another ranged, not yet another Melee class. Raids suck enough for melee right now with 7 classes vying for those spots, now it's 8 and only 6 classes for ranged. Good thinkin.  :awesome_for_real:



Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Hutch on August 06, 2015, 11:31:35 AM
The Artifact weapons are way cooler in my imagination than they could possibly be in reality.

In reality they're going to be uninspired, un-transmoggable, grindy, not really as customizable as you're thinking, and ultimately there will be only one version of each that is optimal for raiding.

Next.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Fordel on August 06, 2015, 11:49:50 AM
So we're prepared this go around.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on August 06, 2015, 11:51:35 AM
The Artifact weapons are way cooler in my imagination than they could possibly be in reality.

In reality they're going to be uninspired, un-transmoggable, grindy, not really as customizable as you're thinking, and ultimately there will be only one version of each that is optimal for raiding.

Next.


You missed the part that you won't get the Legendary/ Artifact status until the final raid tier, just in time to be replaced 2 1/2 months later by a green weapon from the 4th zone of the x-pac.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Fordel on August 06, 2015, 11:55:54 AM
pfft, we all know there's way more time between the final raid of a expansion and the release of the next one!  :why_so_serious:


I fully expect the inclusion of Demon Hunters to give this expansion an enormous initial flood. People have been pining for those fuckers for like over a decade now. They won't stick around, but it will make for a nice news blurb.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: angry.bob on August 06, 2015, 12:26:15 PM
Well, the harpies look a lot better at least.

Demon Hunters look like 4edgy4me rogues. I don't know why, but I was really expecting and hoping for something more like the Diablo Demon Hunter / WH Witch Hunter.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Paelos on August 06, 2015, 01:10:44 PM
<insert oh wait you're serious Bender gif>


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Paelos on August 06, 2015, 01:12:50 PM
So after this we do the Lich King 2.0 right? Because that's the pattern now?


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Zetor on August 06, 2015, 01:19:32 PM
I dunno, what comes after the kitchen sink?

e: as for the demon hunter thing, I bet they think this will help solve the "tank shortage". Which would mean that they don't understand the problem in the first place.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Rokal on August 06, 2015, 01:29:08 PM
I'm not really seeing what is going to make Demon Hunter tanking different from the agi avoidance tank they just added.

On the one hand, it's really one of the last (if not the last) class archetype people were really waiting for to be added to the game. On the other hand, it's really bringing nothing new to the table, just remixing Monk Tank and Melee Demonology Warlock.

Oh well, onward to re-killing villains that we killed in previous expansions. With any luck we'll have something as awful/grindy as LOTRO Legendary Weapons to bring along for the ride.

Edit: With historical beta/release time lines as a guide, if they don't have the beta out until this Winter they'll have another year-long content drought between the last content patch and the expansion.

This is after having the most anemic patch content out of any expansion so far.  :thumbs_up:


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on August 06, 2015, 02:05:30 PM
I'm not really seeing what is going to make Demon Hunter tanking different from the agi avoidance tank they just added.

Demon hunter will be an Int-based self-heal tank! All the difference!

I was going to say they won't be dumb enough to make this a leather class, too but hey who am I kidding. Rather than make a 3rd class mail they'll make a 4th class leather.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Kail on August 06, 2015, 03:11:34 PM
This is after having the most anemic patch content out of any expansion so far.  :thumbs_up:

"We're pretty happy with how the overall structure in Warlords of Draenor played out... We think that's a good amount of raid content, and that's kind of what we're aiming for."
https://youtu.be/e1WIEl4hRvA?t=1h25m21s


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Paelos on August 06, 2015, 03:15:15 PM
I dunno, what comes after the kitchen sink?

e: as for the demon hunter thing, I bet they think this will help solve the "tank shortage". Which would mean that they don't understand the problem in the first place.  :awesome_for_real:

You mean the tank shortage that existed day one and was only solved by Lich King until they fucked it up again? That tank shortage?


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on August 06, 2015, 04:31:38 PM
Yes, but it's worse now because tanks have to actively mitigate or they go splat. So they took threat gen away as a problem and added "try not to die"

Managing threat was a pain in the ass, but easy after a point. Having to actively manage "don't die" buttons on top of positioning, effects and (usually) leadership of the raid/ group means there's even fewer tanks than there were in vanilla/ bc. 

You regularly see the "hey extra rewards" button for Tanks but never for heals anymore. Queues for heroics were 10-20 mins for heals because of this, I don't want to know what they were for DPS.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: craan on August 06, 2015, 05:58:54 PM
I dunno, what comes after the kitchen sink?

e: as for the demon hunter thing, I bet they think this will help solve the "tank shortage". Which would mean that they don't understand the problem in the first place.  :awesome_for_real:

You mean the tank shortage that existed day one and was only solved by Lich King until they fucked it up again? That tank shortage?


What did Lich King do that solved the tank problem?  I'm a Cata baby and only have experience from then on.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: angry.bob on August 06, 2015, 06:36:00 PM
What did Lich King do that solved the tank problem?  I'm a Cata baby and only have experience from then on.

Be more fun.

Also, shit level unattractive armor on Sylvanas. I won't buy it just for that reason alone.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 06, 2015, 07:00:32 PM
Same armor she had before except they covered her midriff.   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Paelos on August 06, 2015, 07:31:31 PM
Yes, but it's worse now because tanks have to actively mitigate or they go splat. So they took threat gen away as a problem and added "try not to die"

Oh I know what they did, I played a tank in Panda-land. It was shit in Cata and it was shit in Panda. And I argued with people on this very board about it.

Threat was fun, because damage was fun. When they tied them together, it was double fun. Yes, you had mitigation and you made gear do the work for you. But nooooooooooooo they wanted tanks to be less gear dependent. I wanted the reverse. I think as a tank you should be defined by your gear. You're walking fucking armor. You serve no other purpose.

But yeah that's when the game died for me. When they changed tanking to the shitshow it is now in the name of whatever-the-fuck-they-thought


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: luckton on August 06, 2015, 07:37:32 PM
Checking in on things after closing on my old house and moving the family into a vacation home for the next few weeks. Let's see what we got here...

Lorelol-wise, it seems they're trying to take a little bit of everything from every expansion so far and piece-meal something together. We've got vanilla stuff! BC demons and Illidan! Wrath vikings and Dalaran! Cata worgen! MoP ah...yeah...monks? WoD Gul'dan and Khadgar! Way to try and cram everything you can and end up having to cut some stuff at the end anyways.

Gameplay-wise, looks like I was right on an AA system, though artifact weaponry is an interesting, although revamped (Trials of Atlantis anyone?) way to do it. Guess it makes loot tables easier to handle now that you have one less equipment slot to worry about.

I guess I'm just being optimistic. It may not be the thing that brings back the millions lost, but this should keep the game going on a subscription-based level for at least another year.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Kail on August 06, 2015, 09:11:58 PM
Lorelol-wise, it seems they're trying to take a little bit of everything from every expansion so far and piece-meal something together. We've got vanilla stuff! BC demons and Illidan! Wrath vikings and Dalaran! Cata worgen! MoP ah...yeah...monks? WoD Gul'dan and Khadgar! Way to try and cram everything you can and end up having to cut some stuff at the end anyways.

I think if I still gave a damn about Blizzard's lore I'd be kind of annoyed at this expansion, it looks like the story is imploding or something.  This shit is already goofy enough with one universe, now we've got alternate universe time displaced Gul'dan thrown through the portal to modern times to revive main timeline Sargeras who wasn't really defeated and fight Illidan who it turns out was also only sleeping the whole time.  I mean, holy hell, this stuff makes X-Men's continuity look elegant.

Time travel always makes a mess of everything and on top of that whole "nothing anyone does matters because the writers can just pull another time travel fork out of their ass at any moment and invalidate everything" this storyline is starting to read like it was run through a blender.  It's about Demons, and it's mostly about Gul'dan, I mean, no, it's actually about the Naga, or the old war of eternity with the Night Elves and also the Emerald Dream remember that, oh and Dragons are back, like Neltharion again, so cool and also Dalaran is back and you hang out there plus demon hunters and Illidan is back and you can go to Argus and kill Sargeras also Khadgar is here and so is Turalyon and Valeria for some reason that makes total sense, also everyone gets Ashbringer and you're a politician leading a guild and everyone loves you and you're awesome.  

I'm half expecting to see Illidan get his ass kicked by the final boss just so that as the killing blow falls, we can see it be blocked by a sword, and future hologram cyborg Arthas steps out and goes "don't worry, I got this" and the theme song to Dragonball Z starts playing.  


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: angry.bob on August 06, 2015, 10:09:01 PM
Same armor she had before except they covered her midriff.   :awesome_for_real:

What? No, they changed the color palette and it looks like shit, plus the brown leather midriff cover looks terrible and out of place. It would have been fine if they had added it and made the color match the rest of her armor.  There are also other, minor cosmetic differences but the colors being terrible is the problem. It's just fucking terrible.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Rasix on August 06, 2015, 11:06:23 PM
It just looks so old.   :sad:


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: kaid on August 07, 2015, 08:37:11 AM
I dunno, what comes after the kitchen sink?

e: as for the demon hunter thing, I bet they think this will help solve the "tank shortage". Which would mean that they don't understand the problem in the first place.  :awesome_for_real:

You mean the tank shortage that existed day one and was only solved by Lich King until they fucked it up again? That tank shortage?


What did Lich King do that solved the tank problem?  I'm a Cata baby and only have experience from then on.

Basically threat became much less of an issue to get and keep and you had really solid durability with good tanking cool downs. Normal stuff was not that much of a threat and you could pretty much concentrate on positioning and watching out for stuff to not stand in.

I get where they were going with active mitigation but tanks already shouldered a lot of the responsibility in raids/dungeons and now you gave them more shit to worry about to keep themselves up and less reason to trust pug healers.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: kaid on August 07, 2015, 08:41:09 AM
The Artifact weapons are way cooler in my imagination than they could possibly be in reality.

In reality they're going to be uninspired, un-transmoggable, grindy, not really as customizable as you're thinking, and ultimately there will be only one version of each that is optimal for raiding.

Next.


They have stated you can transmog your artifact into something else. But not transmog another weapon into your artifact look.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Hawkbit on August 07, 2015, 10:10:41 PM
I'm so glad there are no major hunter changes.

Quote
Survival Hunters are now melee with a pet, so this explains the spear.

http://www.wowhead.com/news=248628/legion-artifacts-what-we-know

wat.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: ezrast on August 07, 2015, 10:38:51 PM
Wing Clip neva 4get


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on August 08, 2015, 04:50:58 AM
Honestly, hunter specs needed some kind of diversity and hunters did used to have melee abilities.  So less homogenizing is always good.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: SurfD on August 08, 2015, 05:20:55 AM
True, but survival just seems like a bit of an odd choice.   Beast Mastery would have been a better fit with Mele Hunter in my mind.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on August 08, 2015, 05:56:00 AM
Yeah especially since the model for beast Mastery -Rexxar- is a melee guy.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Zetor on August 08, 2015, 06:07:40 AM
The WOW B-team (C-team? D-team?) was probably going down the list of things that Vanilla did differently, and were inspired by... the original survival talent tree. I fully expect Lacerate and Improved Wing Clip to make a comeback.

OTOH this means that every weapon is a hunter weapon once again! :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Lantyssa on August 08, 2015, 06:33:36 AM
I'ma roll Need on it.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: luckton on August 08, 2015, 06:52:47 AM
OTOH this means that every weapon is a hunter weapon once again! :awesome_for_real:

At least until they get to WoD content and beyond. Some other dev interviews post-announce have confirmed what I mentioned above: weapon-slot loot drops are out for Legion. Artifact weapons are the new hotness, and personal loot means never having to worry about ninja-looters ever again.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: luckton on August 09, 2015, 03:36:50 PM
The relic weapon system is interesting, as it feels like a return to pre-Cata talent trees and such.

http://www.wowhead.com/news=248628/legion-artifacts-what-we-know


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Threash on August 09, 2015, 04:25:32 PM

You regularly see the "hey extra rewards" button for Tanks but never for heals anymore. Queues for heroics were 10-20 mins for heals because of this, I don't want to know what they were for DPS.

If groups are one tank one heal three dps the dps queues had to be triple that of healers right? so like an hour.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Threash on August 09, 2015, 04:35:51 PM
True, but survival just seems like a bit of an odd choice.   Beast Mastery would have been a better fit with Mele Hunter in my mind.

Isn't survival the trap spec? it actually never made much sense for a ranged class to run into melee range to drop traps.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: luckton on August 09, 2015, 05:01:34 PM

You regularly see the "hey extra rewards" button for Tanks but never for heals anymore. Queues for heroics were 10-20 mins for heals because of this, I don't want to know what they were for DPS.

If groups are one tank one heal three dps the dps queues had to be triple that of healers right? so like an hour.

Pretty much. They tried to add some incentive for people to roll tanks by adding BoA loot drops to the reward bag you get for fulfilling the "Call to Arms/We Need a Tank/Healer" bonus once a day. You could at least pass on the bag to your DPS alt and keep them somewhat up to speed.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: SurfD on August 09, 2015, 09:11:54 PM
True, but survival just seems like a bit of an odd choice.   Beast Mastery would have been a better fit with Mele Hunter in my mind.

Isn't survival the trap spec? it actually never made much sense for a ranged class to run into melee range to drop traps.
That hasnt been relivant since they added the Trap Launcher effect allowing you to place traps at range at will.  I also dont think the current iteration of Survival needs them either, as ticks from traps  / an ice trap going off longer proc Lock and Load in WoD if i remember right (could be wrong, my hunter has been BM pretty much the whole expantion, I dont think I have even selected talents for my Survival Spec since they reset them at the start of the Expac).

The wierd part is that i think Survival is the preferred PvP spec atm, due to the amount of controll / cc it provides over BM's pure damage output, and Mele PVP hunters jsut seem like a completely wrong thing to me.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: kaid on August 10, 2015, 01:09:15 PM
Honestly, hunter specs needed some kind of diversity and hunters did used to have melee abilities.  So less homogenizing is always good.

I can see hunters/mages/warlocks/rogues could really use more differences. Sounds like demo warlock is likely going to get the whole meta thing stripped from then and refocus them more on their pets.

For rogues really one spec that specializes in stabbing people in the front and two stabbing them from behind is really primed for one of those to get a big change such as some are talking about maybe one ranged rogue build.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on November 05, 2015, 06:14:05 PM
This isn't happening until September 2016.

They've already done the "last" content patch of WoD and subs have fallen to the point they're not announcing numbers anymore.

Never change, Blizzard.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/5239-Legion-Releasing-by-September-2016-Level-100-Boost-Early-Demon-Hunter-Access-Legion-Releasing-by-September-2016-Level-100-Boost-Early-Demon-Hunter-Access


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Rendakor on November 05, 2015, 06:18:24 PM
Hahahaha oh wow. :awesome_for_real: :ye_gods:


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Tannhauser on November 05, 2015, 07:22:05 PM
Wow, almost a year with no new content.  I wonder why subs keep dropping?


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Paelos on November 05, 2015, 07:42:02 PM
Wow, almost a year with no new content.  I wonder why subs keep dropping?

I know you're kidding, but finally people aren't falling for it anymore. This is them getting caught in about the most blatant lie they've ever told. http://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-sees-annual-expansions-as-key-to-bringing-back-players/

Expansions once a year probably would have kept more players. But this? This is a joke, and a completely about-face from 2 years ago when people were already upset over the glacial pace.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Rendakor on November 05, 2015, 08:06:37 PM
If they were able to put out expansions once a year, I'm sure they would be doing so. But the reality has always been that content takes much, much longer to create than to consume and the devs at Blizzard are no exception.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Malakili on November 05, 2015, 08:07:55 PM
The amount of people clammoring for new content is just less either way too.  WoW could flood the game with content once a month and I have a feeling a lot of people would just say "meh, been there done that."


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Rendakor on November 05, 2015, 08:19:00 PM
I'd resub for the new expansion if you could fly day 1, provided they also let me fly in WoD without grinding out Loremaster. I liked the game well enough that I'd pop in for a month or so every expac until they started removing features.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Rokal on November 06, 2015, 10:51:56 AM
The difference between this expansion taking a long time to come out, and the last expansion taking a long time to come out, is that they actually cut things out of this expansion with the express purpose of getting the next expansion out sooner.

From the last Blizzcon Q&A
Quote
"Ultimately our focus is on reducing the gap in content, in terms of time between our final raid tier our our final patch, and the next expansion. Because we know that the time elapsed between Siege of Orgrimmar and Warlords of Draenor was unacceptably long. That was way, way too long - and we are all committed to reducing that gap. So whatever the right number of raid tiers is, to avoid having a huge gap like that, is what I think we're going to settle on. In my mind 6-7 months is a good amount of time for a large hefty raid tier, with 13 bosses [...]. 13 months - that's way too long."

They went down to 2 raid tiers in this expansion, instead of the traditional 3, with the justification being getting the next expansion out faster. They never patched in Faralohn (NetherStorm). They released 2 "content patches" in WoD, 6.1 and 6.2, where the largest piece of content in 6.1 was a Selfie camera mode.

A September 2016 release means another 14 month gap between the last content patch and the next expansion. They keep cutting and cutting (zones, raids, features) but never actually succeed in doing things faster, so it's a net loss for players. From what we know about Legion, they'll be cutting the inclusion of a new capitol City by re-using Dalaran, are potentially cutting a few features like challenge modes, and are giving us what in exchange for all the shortcuts? "A faster expansion next time, we realize the year-long gap between the last content patch of WoD and Legion was too long and we are taking steps to make sure we can deliver the next expansion faster".

What is even going to be the excuse this time? They aren't rebuilding the old world (Cata). They aren't introducing a new starter zone or playing catch-up from Cata's massive content schedule issues (MoP). They aren't introducing new character models for all the old races, or trying to "train up lots of new hires" (WoD). By all accounts they should have actually had everything in place to deliver Legion in a shorter time-frame, but instead it's the same year + drought it always is.

I'm pretty burnt out on the game at this point so I'm fine with the huge gap, but it's embarrassing how bad they are at delivering content in a reasonable timeframe.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Hutch on November 06, 2015, 12:07:21 PM
What is even going to be the excuse this time?

They aren't going to make excuses, just like they aren't going to report on the sub numbers anymore.

They're done trying. They've given up. WoW is in maintenance mode.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Zetor on November 06, 2015, 01:12:43 PM
Removing challenge modes makes me extra salty. CMs were some of the last remaining bits of non-raid pve content that were interesting and fun. Unless I'm missing something, it was not particularly high-maintenance either -- just tweak the numbers from the heroic mode of the dungeon, make sure the scaling / timer tech works well... and then you don't have to touch them for the rest of the expansion, obvious sploits excepted.

They should've removed archeology instead. /sadf


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Fabricated on November 06, 2015, 06:56:57 PM
Wait so what all has changed again?


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Goldenmean on November 06, 2015, 07:26:40 PM
Removing challenge modes makes me extra salty. CMs were some of the last remaining bits of non-raid pve content that were interesting and fun. Unless I'm missing something, it was not particularly high-maintenance either -- just tweak the numbers from the heroic mode of the dungeon, make sure the scaling / timer tech works well... and then you don't have to touch them for the rest of the expansion, obvious sploits excepted.

Challenge modes aren't gone. They've just changed to become suspiciously similar to Greater Rifts from Diablo 3. Honestly, the new system sounds more interesting to me if they don't manage to flub it somehow.

http://blizzardwatch.com/2015/11/06/blizzcon-2015-legion-challenge-modes/ (http://blizzardwatch.com/2015/11/06/blizzcon-2015-legion-challenge-modes/)


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on November 06, 2015, 08:32:41 PM
Won't be in at launch. Will be deliberately ignored or scaled-back IF it comes out.

Like Garrisons, the Dance Studio, Farahlon, Azshara Crater BG, Azjol-Nerub, "Path of the Titans", Arial Combat (like vehicles) in Wintergrasp, Abyssal Maw, Bladespire Citadel and Karabor cities.



Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Zetor on November 06, 2015, 09:12:56 PM
Removing challenge modes makes me extra salty. CMs were some of the last remaining bits of non-raid pve content that were interesting and fun. Unless I'm missing something, it was not particularly high-maintenance either -- just tweak the numbers from the heroic mode of the dungeon, make sure the scaling / timer tech works well... and then you don't have to touch them for the rest of the expansion, obvious sploits excepted.

Challenge modes aren't gone. They've just changed to become suspiciously similar to Greater Rifts from Diablo 3. Honestly, the new system sounds more interesting to me if they don't manage to flub it somehow.

http://blizzardwatch.com/2015/11/06/blizzcon-2015-legion-challenge-modes/ (http://blizzardwatch.com/2015/11/06/blizzcon-2015-legion-challenge-modes/)
While that system is a good improvement for mythic dungeons that are both faceroll-simple if you outgear them and fairly difficult if you do them at the intended ilevel, I do NOT like the underlying design at all. It's just a worse version of fractals in GW2, since people doing level 1-20 fractals had basically the same level gear (for higher-level fractals you're expected to have infusions etc, but you get those while running fractals themselves).

The gear scaling / cap was a crucial element of CMs, especially as it put mythic-geared raiders on the same level as non-raiders. Without a cap, you'll either be able to outgear these dungeons (thus removing the challenge of 'low-tier' keystones completely) by getting a ton of raid gear, or - and this is the most likely scenario for every character that's not a main in a raiding guild - struggle getting into pugs as nobody will be interested in running a dungeon with what is considered a 'low-level' keystone, plus without high-end gear you'll never be able to actually do the damage/healing/survival necessary to complete the challenge.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Hutch on November 09, 2015, 03:54:01 PM
Official Legion Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds8m4U98ufo)

God dammit. It's not fair that they still put out cinematics like this, after I've lost all faith in Blizzard to do better than a half-assed wet fart of an expansion.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Rendakor on November 09, 2015, 04:22:40 PM
That looked awesome. I would go see that movie. :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on November 09, 2015, 04:28:03 PM
Well, no complaints of Horde bias there. If anything Sylvanas was a minor player. Where's Vol'jin.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Draegan on November 11, 2015, 08:17:23 AM
Cool trailer. Game doesn't have factions anymore?  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on November 11, 2015, 08:28:12 AM
Evidently they're pulling the whole common enemy trope as they did in BC and WOTLK.

Given that playing-up the faction hate in Cata and continuing it in Panda didn't gain them anything but a need to generate 2x the content I'm not surprised. Now you have one or two faction specific quests and the rest are shared.

Half the content generation needed for players who don't give a shit about the faction hate in the first place and centralized gank-spaces for those who still are crazy enough to play on PvP servers.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Draegan on November 11, 2015, 09:38:04 AM
Honestly they should just get rid of factions, let everyone play with everyone else.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Merusk on November 11, 2015, 09:48:13 AM
But but but... muh Metzen lore!


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Ironwood on November 11, 2015, 01:44:38 PM
Cool trailer. Game doesn't have factions anymore?  :awesome_for_real:

Uden Bar ?


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Tannhauser on November 11, 2015, 03:15:58 PM
WHAR NOBLE ORCS WHAR



Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Sir T on November 16, 2015, 03:42:52 AM
Huh? There are humans in this game???


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Fabricated on November 16, 2015, 03:56:19 AM
I'm proud to say I was never able to get a horde character to cap in any expansion, because I hated the shit out of their early questlines and zones even after Cata.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: kaid on November 17, 2015, 07:34:25 AM
Honestly they should just get rid of factions, let everyone play with everyone else.


And given how many times we clearly can/have/ARE working side by side the horde the faction stuff should be handled like eq2 did. You can't go to enemy capitals but can group out in the wild fine and if you really want to switch allegience you can through a long quest line.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Fordel on November 17, 2015, 09:28:19 AM
Honestly they should just get rid of factions, let everyone play with everyone else.


And given how many times we clearly can/have/ARE working side by side the horde the faction stuff should be handled like eq2 did. You can't go to enemy capitals but can group out in the wild fine and if you really want to switch allegience you can through a long quest line.


That was the original intent (way way way way way back when in a early beta), where you could have Orcs aligned with StormWind and Humans hanging out in Ogrimmar if they did the reputation effort. All the earliest screen shots of the game have mixed groups etc.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Fabricated on November 17, 2015, 11:16:49 AM
Cross-faction grouping is gonna show up eventually. Either because userbase decreases or as marquee selling point for an expansion.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: SurfD on November 17, 2015, 11:15:57 PM
Yeah, their faction system is actually kind of etertaining.

One of my favourite bits about that was that during the Scourge Invasion Event at the beginning of Wrath, when the  whole Zombie plague thing was going down, you actually COULD trade / talk cross faction (sort of) as the "zombies" actually counted as a complete faction by themselves.  There were no "horde" or "alliance" zombies, just Zombies, and all zombies could talk and trade to eachother just like anybody else in their faction.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: luckton on November 20, 2015, 04:12:12 AM
The beta just went live. Given the four month timeline that Warlord had from friends and family alpha to launch, we're looking at a late March to mid-April launch date for Legion.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on November 20, 2015, 04:46:58 AM
I think this is the first expac I'm passing on. Just no interest in logging into an empty world anymore and until they actually merge some servers like they should have a couple years ago that isn't gonna change.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Xanthippe on November 29, 2015, 01:28:20 PM
I think this is the first expac I'm passing on. Just no interest in logging into an empty world anymore and until they actually merge some servers like they should have a couple years ago that isn't gonna change.

Didn't they already do that?


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: luckton on November 29, 2015, 01:37:22 PM
No. And don't expect it anytime soon. New expansions always brings people back; no sense in merging/opening/re-merging etc.

Footage from the beta looks good so far.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Hutch on November 29, 2015, 03:38:01 PM
I think this is the first expac I'm passing on. Just no interest in logging into an empty world anymore and until they actually merge some servers like they should have a couple years ago that isn't gonna change.

Didn't they already do that?

Yes they did. They euphemized it as "Connected Realms". They started doing it in Pandaria, if not before.

You'd still log into your server, but you could see players from the Connected Realm(s) in the world; you could tell which ones, because their server name would be appended to their toon name (iirc).

edit: "connected", not "linked"


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: SurfD on November 29, 2015, 11:47:19 PM
No. And don't expect it anytime soon. New expansions always brings people back; no sense in merging/opening/re-merging etc.

Footage from the beta looks good so far.
Pretty sure they have had "connected" realms for quite a while now.  They dont "merge" servers, but instead allow a sort of quazi phazing / instancing thing to happen with player numbers, so for example, if "Darkshore" the zone is very low pop with players, they start dynamicly shifting players from other realms on the battle group to all share a single "Darkshore" zone.   This does go a decent bit to alleviating the sense of empty world,  but doesn't really address the core problem with "dead" servers, that being that their economies are usually shit, since the connected realm thing does not connect auctionhouses, which are still  realm specific.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Hutch on November 30, 2015, 05:49:44 AM
No. And don't expect it anytime soon. New expansions always brings people back; no sense in merging/opening/re-merging etc.

Footage from the beta looks good so far.
Pretty sure they have had "connected" realms for quite a while now.  They dont "merge" servers, but instead allow a sort of quazi phazing / instancing thing to happen with player numbers, so for example, if "Darkshore" the zone is very low pop with players, they start dynamicly shifting players from other realms on the battle group to all share a single "Darkshore" zone.   This does go a decent bit to alleviating the sense of empty world,  but doesn't really address the core problem with "dead" servers, that being that their economies are usually shit, since the connected realm thing does not connect auctionhouses, which are still  realm specific.

You're describing the Cross Realm Zone "feature", where an empty zone gets filled up with players from multiple realms, which may or may not also be Connected realms.

Connected realms share auction houses and let players from the connected realms form guilds together. More details here. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/10551009)


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on November 30, 2015, 06:21:10 AM
Yes but everything is still instanced and zoned to the point of never seeing the same people twice walking around.  People joke about it when I say that is a big part of ruining the sense of world that the game promoted but the game lost a lot of stickiness for me and many others when it stopped feeling like you knew the people around you even in passing.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Rendakor on November 30, 2015, 06:55:44 AM
That's the worst part of cross realm zones; I would rather see the same 8 people from my server than 100 internet randoms. See also cross realm bgs, dungeons, etc.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Azazel on December 02, 2015, 04:02:27 AM
I'd resub for the new expansion if you could fly day 1, provided they also let me fly in WoD without grinding out Loremaster. I liked the game well enough that I'd pop in for a month or so every expac until they started removing features.

I know I'm late to the party, but pretty much this.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Draegan on December 03, 2015, 03:48:37 PM
Looks like I got into the alpha with this.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Hutch on December 03, 2015, 04:31:49 PM
Did you forget to cancel your subscription?

Make sure the links in the email all have battle.net in the domain.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Draegan on December 03, 2015, 06:28:46 PM
Nah its legit.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: Evildrider on December 03, 2015, 07:23:42 PM
But is it 2 legit.


Title: Re: 7.0 Announcement @Gamescom 2015
Post by: luckton on December 04, 2015, 02:17:10 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/K92F1zg.jpg)