Consolidating existing content, or keep adding more new content

[Natylyaz]

I have a question for my fellow players.
I feel like Azeroth already has a lot of content available, may it be continents, classes, races... But it doesn't use them enough.

1) World
The world is already huge, but severely underused. Everything is empty, and all the action is always on the new continent, that's a real waste of assets in my opinion.
Do you prefer a brand new continent every time, or consolidating the numerous existing zones?

2) Classes
There are already a lot of different classes. I would love to be able to tank and heal on my warlock for example. Shaman tanking would be great too, So many things can be done with existing classes.
How about you?

3) Races
The main card to play here is subraces. I would much prefer subraces than new races for the coming expansions.
What do you think?

[Cæli]

Both, but have new zones each expansion (or content patch if they switch from expansion to patches at some point in the future)
By consolidate, I think it should mean giving incentive doing the old content, adding things, and in NO WAY changing the look of the old content, that would be the worse mistake to do.

I never understood why they didn't used old content more, old content will always represent the biggest part of the game, it should not be played by collectors only.

Classes are being changed all the time, they talked about subraces.

[Kynario]

It's difficult to say for me.

It's a problem which simply arose because the game is 12 years old. Blizzard probably never expected the game to become so popular. So each year Blizzard created new content (i.e. zones, classes etc.) for players who loved the game dearly and continuously asked for more and more content. So it's a natural accumulative effect.

I don't see how they'd be able to re-use the old world zones besides scattering World Quests/Class Quests around Azeroth. It's a shame something doesn't happen (like an Old Gods Cataclysm-esque expansion which changes world, again?) and we don't just start all over again, but this wouldn't make sense as we, as players, are always becoming stronger through each expansion... People wouldn't want to feel "weak" again.

In terms of the classes, I think for lore-related reasons (although Blizzard have created new lore out of thin air time and time again), something like Warlock healers really wouldn't make sense, plus Warlocks are too power hungry for that matter, haha. Plus, I think hybridisation takes away from the uniqueness of each class. If each class can eventually tank or heal, you feel less proud/unique about your Protection Warrior/Paladin tank, or your Resto Shaman/Druid or Holy Priest. They're my thoughts at least. I think if anything, there's too many hybrids nowadays - and the players aren't evidently happier because of it.

Subraces are cool. Would be interested to see how they execute this. The core of Warcraft for me though will always be Humans vs. Orcs or ultimately Alliance vs. Horde.

[Deleted]

I have a question for my fellow players.
I feel like Azeroth already has a lot of content available, may it be continents, classes, races... But it doesn't use them enough.

1) World
The world is already huge, but severely underused. Everything is empty, and all the action is always on the new continent, that's a real waste of assets in my opinion.
Do you prefer a brand new continent every time, or consolidating the numerous existing zones?

2) Classes
There are already a lot of different classes. I would love to be able to tank and heal on my warlock for example. Shaman tanking would be great too, So many things can be done with existing classes.
How about you?

3) Races
The main card to play here is subraces. I would much prefer subraces than new races for the coming expansions.
What do you think?

Herds of blue-marked NPC grabbing my quest objectives in top level zones are more than enough. I don't mind some fresh air in levelling areas at all. I could still level up when Barrens campaign came in MoP so I guess with proper localization and spawn rhythm, some invasion-like stuff could be added back, but that's it. Leave the sandbox to the kids.

Tanking and healing on warlocks while retaining their primary focus on dps would require return of classic talent trees, so you can actually choose a custom role. You know, like ICC-era death knights, who had 6 viable specs. Affliction could have the main choices for prospective dark healers, demo for tanks, everybody happy except a bunch of particularly stinky snowflakes with anal fixation on optimal builds. Same with shammy tanking and just about any other non-orthodox choice. I'd surely give a go to the new survival if I could viably tank.

Subraces mean just cosmetic stuff. New races tend to come with new zones etc. If Worgen were a human subrace, we'd never get Gilneas. On the other hand, Wandering Isle wasn't nearly as good, so fuck knows really.

[Natylyaz]

It's difficult to say for me.

It's a problem which simply arose because the game is 12 years old. Blizzard probably never expected the game to become so popular. So each year Blizzard created new content (i.e. zones, classes etc.) for players who loved the game dearly and continuously asked for more and more content. So it's a natural accumulative effect.

I don't see how they'd be able to re-use the old world zones besides scattering World Quests/Class Quests around Azeroth. It's a shame something doesn't happen (like an Old Gods Cataclysm-esque expansion which changes world, again?) and we don't just start all over again, but this wouldn't make sense as we, as players, are always becoming stronger through each expansion... People wouldn't want to feel "weak" again.

In terms of the classes, I think for lore-related reasons (although Blizzard have created new lore out of thin air time and time again), something like Warlock healers really wouldn't make sense, plus Warlocks are too power hungry for that matter, haha. Plus, I think hybridisation takes away from the uniqueness of each class. If each class can eventually tank or heal, you feel less proud/unique about your Protection Warrior/Paladin tank, or your Resto Shaman/Druid or Holy Priest. They're my thoughts at least. I think if anything, there's too many hybrids nowadays - and the players aren't evidently happier because of it.

Subraces are cool. Would be interested to see how they execute this. The core of Warcraft for me though will always be Humans vs. Orcs or ultimately Alliance vs. Horde.

A possible way to make existing zones relevant is to scale them to the player. I'd also love a difficulty setting for outdoor content, which would reconcile many angry players about this game.
I understand the point of players willing progression to stay relevant, but I fail to see the appeal of having zones with mobs which have 10HP when you have 10.000.000HP, a bit absurd to me.

Regarding warlocks healing, my idea was to have an affliction-like healing, where you can only heal others by transferring your own life, and you steal the life of monsters with mana to compensate. As for their quest for power, if it allows them to defeat foes too strong for them alone, it can make sense.

- - - Updated - - -

Herds of blue-marked NPC grabbing my quest objectives in top level zones are more than enough. I don't mind some fresh air in levelling areas at all. I could still level up when Barrens campaign came in MoP so I guess with proper localization and spawn rhythm, some invasion-like stuff could be added back, but that's it. Leave the sandbox to the kids.

Tanking and healing on warlocks while retaining their primary focus on dps would require return of classic talent trees, so you can actually choose a custom role. You know, like ICC-era death knights, who had 6 viable specs. Affliction could have the main choices for prospective dark healers, demo for tanks, everybody happy except a bunch of particularly stinky snowflakes with anal fixation on optimal builds. Same with shammy tanking and just about any other non-orthodox choice. I'd surely give a go to the new survival if I could viably tank.

Subraces mean just cosmetic stuff. New races tend to come with new zones etc. If Worgen were a human subrace, we'd never get Gilneas. On the other hand, Wandering Isle wasn't nearly as good, so fuck knows really.

ICC was probably the perfect spot for me as non-hardcore raider, a lot of choices, and somewhat all meaningful as high-end performance did not matter much to me.

Regarding subraces, you can still have zones relevant to each subrace, which is kind of the point. For example, you can be an Orc in Kalimdor, or a brown Orc in Draenor, or a fel Orc in Outland. Which has the advantage of adding fresh content with existing zones and races.

[rda]

New content for everything (but take care of balance, particularly for PVP, before adding new classes).

[Kynario]

Interesting thoughts !