The next expansion can only be awesome. Agree?

[Deleted]

Cataclysm was bad, MoP is decent, the next expansion better be 'awesome'. Also, they never had a bigger team for the development of WoW, so my guess is that it's gonna be good, at least I hope. But 12m subs again? I don't think we are ever going to see anything close to that number again.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Hey man, MoP was awesome. The endgame was a massive failure, though.

Which means if next expansion doesn't fix the gearing process, next expansion will also suck.

[Immitis]

wow from best to worst

mists
vanilla
wrath
cata
tbc

[Deleted]

Other side of Azeroth + Azshara

[Deleted]

IWrath lacked features? Wrath brought the following:
First time we had mounted combat (love it or hate it)
First time we have vehicles
First time we had destructible environments (underutilized)
First time we saw phasing
First time they added cut scenes into the game
First time we had 10 and 25 man raids PLUS hard modes activated in the fight
First new class added with a twist of having their own starting area and starting at a higher level
Introduced achievements
Introduced LFD
Introduced badge gear not just filling in gaps, but giving you full raid tier gear for running heroics
Weekly raid quests were introduced

You put down the other posters by saying those features don't count as just "fresh paint on existing feature" but then try to include stuff like.

Extended badge gear and weekly raid quests?

Also mounted combat was in BC but refined more in WotLK for example (we had some mounted dailies).

I am afraid you can't have it both ways.

[La]

If the next expansion isn't about Sargeras and the Burning Legion I will be VERY surprised.

We all want it.

[Glorious Leader]

"Light a fire under their asses" and do what perchance? Because they haven't been trying to change the direction of the game for the last 2 expacs at all? People wanted harder content, they got it in Cata, and they whined so it had to be changed. They went for a more casual route and got moaned at. They have now gone for middle ground in MoP, and guess what? Being whined at.
They cannot win no matter what people say, but this "Light a fire" comment has me chuckling. You think Blizzard have done nothing or added little to the game? There is more in the game now than ever before, so please explain what you mean by this statement, beyond hyperbole and random statements?

NO their was no middle ground in mists. Mists is not really aimed at casuals. At all. Man I'm getting tired arguing this. So many of you to educate so little time.

[Deleted]

Hey man, MoP was awesome. The endgame was a massive failure, though.

Which means if next expansion doesn't fix the gearing process, next expansion will also suck.

Massive failure?

The raiding in MoP is the best it has ever been imo.

I also think Isle is the best daily hub in WoW history as well.

I am waiting with baited breath to see what SoO is like but time will tell!

There really is no need to hyperbole everything you know, I guess I should expect nothing less from an internet forum though.

[Lord Pebbleton]

I expect it to have an awesome plot, but if Blizzard handles it like it did with Deathwing/Illidan, it's not going to be good.

[dacoolist]

I don't think WoW will reach it's glory days again, no matter how good the future content will be. Also, the new expansions are not about game mechanics any more because Blizzard already did everything they could on that part and will not change it any time soon. I think that from now on, the story and new zones / monsters will be the only thing dictating the sub numbers.

Glory Days are all relative.

-> I started for shits and gigles in Vanilla and hated it. Lvling to level 10 took forever, and felt terrible. I re-sub'ed in the MIDDLE of TBC and it was Amazing. Wrath was Amazing, Cata was OKish, Mop is Wonderful.

Glory Days are all relative.

[killidan]

A summary of MY experience with WoW and my guess whether I will like the next expansion.
On a scale of 0 (hated it) to 10 (loved it).

World of Warcraft-up to level 55 only........8
lack of balance-1
falling apart dungeons groups while traveling across huge world-1
huge world, awesome dungeons, exploration, music.
I played the whole old world on multiple toons before Cata. I did not raid at all in vanilla.


The Burning Crusade...............................9
attuning individual raiders one by one blocked progression too much-1
awesome dungeons, rads, theme, zones.
I played the whole expansion. Raided hardcore.

The Wrath of the Lich King.......................6
rehash tier Naxx-1
ToC suckage-1
LFD-1
faceroll dungeons-1
awesome continent, quests, theme, OK zones
I played most of the expansion, but I quit during ToC. Raided hardcore.

Cataclysm-first tier only..........................4
lack of a coherent continent-1
LFD-1
shorter dungeons-1
fewer dungeons-1
my realm pop plummetted-1
collapse of 25-man raids due to 10-man-1
Zones were OK, I liked hard dungeons, but not doing them on LFD.
I played leveling, dungeons and the first raid tier only, then I quit.

Mists of Pandaria-first tier only.................1
pandas, rats, rabbits-1
Asian theme too dominant-1
LFD-1
shorter dungeons-1
even fewer dungeons-1
faceroll dungeons-1
my realm pop got even lower-1
still no 25-man raid guilds, few 10-man raid guilds-1
LFR and easy modes-1
Zones were good. Login music sucked, but I skip it fast or mute it anyways.
I played leveling, dungeons, and tried LFR and ran for the exit.

The next expansion-my guess..............3-7
LFD-1 ----> not going away for sure
shorter dungeons-1 ----> they could make longer dungeons as in vanilla/TBC/WotLK
even fewer dungeons-1 ----> they could make more dungeons, less rehash
faceroll dungeons-1 ----> will always be faceroll
my realm is almost dead-1 ----> merge realms or free transfers
still no 25-man raid guilds, only 10-man raid guilds-1 ----> may find some 25-man raiding scene on a high pop realm
LFR and easy modes-1 ----> not going away

[OmegaSkittle]

There is a good chance for this next expansion to be one of the better ones. I don't think anyone should expect the subscription amounts to jump back up above the 10m mark. The only way I believe that would happen is with their release of their new unannounced MMO project they have been working on. Face it; WoW is old and even though it has a LARGE following and player base still, people need some fresh socks, no matter how comfortable the old ones are.

[Crashdummy]

Still a little confused how MoP is so hardcore. It's extremely casual friendly, but casuals seemed to have gotten overwhelmed by the quantity of things and claimed they were ALL mandatory when they weren't. :/

And I've never considered myself hardcore. Maybe I am and never knew it?

The only casual friendly thing in MoP is LFR. Long grinds, lack of catch up dungeons, step up in raid difficulty, valor more difficult to cap, you cant spend valor without rgrinding reputations, etc, everything is very casual unfriendly.

MoP and Cata were both casual unfriendly, and they payed for that.

---------- Post added 2013-05-11 at 01:47 PM ----------

But Cataclysm lost subs and they carried on the "run heroics for raid gear" introduced in Tier 9's patch from Wrath. Logging in for 2 hours a week to get full head to toe raid worthy epics didn't seem to be a home run either.

Honestly, I think making the game designed to be more and more and more casual friendly when it honestly already was in Wrath may have hurt them. Gamers aren't game designers and listening to them too much rather than designing what you feel is healthy for the game may be part of the issue here. At first it seems cool you can finally get epics where you couldn't without raiding before, but continuing that path sort of makes epics undesirable. There's no sense of accomplishment when you can do almost nothing and be rewarded for it.

I kind of think LFR should have been introduced without gear and even a tad easier than it currently is and been included as a way for players to experience the story from the raids, see the general idea of the content, and perhaps get valor points, but not be something that winds up being farm for gear content.

Tune 10 man raids to be a little easier and an option for PUGs while 25 man is harder, both having heroic mode for legendary questchains, etc.

Cata was not casual friendly. Casuals were drove away by cataclysm dungeons. LFR SAVED Cataclysm. Cataclysm lost subs in every single one of its quarters EXCEPT when LFR was introduced.

[Glorious Leader]

The only casual friendly thing in MoP is LFR. Long grinds, lack of catch up dungeons, step up in raid difficulty, valor more difficult to cap, you cant spend valor without rgrinding reputations, etc, everything is very casual unfriendly.

MoP and Cata were both casual unfriendly, and they payed for that.

---------- Post added 2013-05-11 at 01:47 PM ----------



Cata was not casual friendly. Casuals were drove away by cataclysm dungeons.

Thank god somebody get's it. Honest my head was starting to hurt posting the same crap over and over again. It is a mountain of ignorance that must be overcome.

[Crashdummy]

"Light a fire under their asses" and do what perchance? Because they haven't been trying to change the direction of the game for the last 2 expacs at all? People wanted harder content, they got it in Cata, and they whined so it had to be changed. They went for a more casual route and got moaned at. They have now gone for middle ground in MoP, and guess what? Being whined at.
They cannot win no matter what people say, but this "Light a fire" comment has me chuckling. You think Blizzard have done nothing or added little to the game? There is more in the game now than ever before, so please explain what you mean by this statement, beyond hyperbole and random statements?

MoP is not a middle ground. MoP is even less casual friendly than Cata.

[Vankrys]

MoP is not a middle ground. MoP is even less casual friendly than Cata.

was blizzard trying to be casual and fail then or was it their design for mop to be less casual from the beginning?

[therealbowser]

If we focus on Azshara and the oceans, the next expansion could absolutely be 'not awesome'. I don't think I'd even purchase such an expansion, I'd just take a 2 year hiatus from WoW.

[Hubbl3]

It's interesenting that half of the doom prophets want BC/Vanilla back where everything was not casual friendly and the other want something like WotLK where 99% of the content was a joke and then there where brick walls.

[therealbowser]

MoP is not a middle ground. MoP is even less casual friendly than Cata.

In some ways yes, in some ways no.

Really, what MoP is, is not alt-friendly. Being an altoholic this bugs me a lot, but it's definitely casual friendly. You can do virtually anything in the game at a basic level without playing the game hardcore (ex: LFraid vs progression raiding).

[Notos]

Why is everyone so obsessed with going to the other planets? IMHO, they as much fit with the lore, as spacegoats do.

Outland was good, we've been there in WarCraft III, we've been there in WarCraft II.
WotLK has as much to do with WarCraft series as MoP has - the only thing warcraftish in WotLK is Arthas and names (not even looks) of some locations in Northrend.

World of Warcraft is less and less "warcraft" with every expansion, and more and more random MMO with some bizarre lore of non-fitting bits stitched together by duct tape.

The opposite end of the spectrum is people screaming "rehash" if we stay in Azeroth. Don't forget that even in Vanilla a huge amount of lore was created to flesh out the world, so what does or doesn't feel like Warcraft to you is entirely a matter of opinion/perspective.