Is Legion the Most Innovative Expanion of All Time?

[Escepticus]

This was the literal bloody opposite of innovation. Every other game with some sort of transmog or wardrobe system lets you do it wherever and whenever you want right from your character panel (GW2 and FFXIV immediately come to mind)

Yeah. Even Lotro (10 years old, and btw the first, as far as I know, to introduce achivements since it started) has a superior transmog model, where you don't really transmog your equipment, but have a separate panel where you put in your desired transmog items, and thats it, you can change your "real" equipment anytime you want, for whatever reason (upgrade, etc.) and always keep your transmog.

[SirCowdog]

Yeah. Even Lotro (10 years old, and btw the first, as far as I know, to introduce achivements since it started) has a superior transmog model, where you don't really transmog your equipment, but have a separate panel where you put in your desired transmog items, and thats it, you can change your "real" equipment anytime you want, for whatever reason (upgrade, etc.) and always keep your transmog.

RIFT also has a very cool transmog-like system. DDO as well.

Many old MMORPGs have this system, and yet WoW struggles with even allowing players to dye their gear. :/ Oh, but wait! That's due to the "prestige" of getting the mythic color and promoting recognition. Pffft..... what a joke!

[Coffeh]

I got as far as the OP saying world quests are innovative. They are leveling quests scaled to max level. It's utterly lazy design. As is Legion in general.

[Deleted]

This was the literal bloody opposite of innovation. Every other game with some sort of transmog or wardrobe system lets you do it wherever and whenever you want right from your character panel (GW2 and FFXIV immediately come to mind). Blizzard still forcing us to go to an NPC, not only for that but also for HIDING OUR HELMETS, CLOAKS, AND SHOULDERS, WHICH USED TO BE PART OF THE FUCKING UI, is just absurd.

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You have got to be kidding me.

Kul Tiras literally pointed out every expansion / game that invented those "innovative" features. God dammit you're dense.

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Oh no, all these people with a different opinion than me, look how butthurt they are





Wanna try that again?

Oh i didnt react to People having different opinions. That's perfectly fine. The posts from Kul Tiras are however loaded with inaccurate statements. It triggers me when people present their own often flawed opinions as facts, which happens very often on this forum, and then go on to insult other people's intelligence.

I am writing this from a tablet with a Danish autocorrect function and that means its pretty fucking annoying to type in English along with correcting almost ever word after autocorrect changes it. And then you single out one word. Like.... come the fuck on man. You do realise this forum is full of people not from the US of England right?

[MrExcelion]

While avoid comparisons, feature-wise I'm happy with what Legion brought to the table (world quests, m+). I wish the raids had about a month extra to breathe though.

[Deleted]

They aren't new features....

I can find several features in the new mythic plus system alone

[SirCowdog]

I can find several features in the new mythic plus system alone

Such as....?

[Deleted]

Such as....?

The way keystones work and influence the whole system

The Way ilvl scales making dungeons finally relevant throughout an entire expansion

[HuxNeva]

M+ isn't innovating anything. It's simply adapting an existing mechanic to WoW.

The OP's question was just asking about differences in innovation between wow expansions, regardless of where the innovations originated externally.

[Deleted]

It's derivative, of itself while taking in inspiration from other games.

[ReleaseDay]

Innovation isn't something that you can define, it's the act of introducing something new and unique.

He said, defining it immediately.

[thilicen]

Dailies without questgiver.

Recolored garrison.

Recolored garrison bodyguards.

Recolored challenge modes.

Been there since MoP.

Icecrown Glacier/Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

You could take virtually any change and boil it down like this. Innovation doesn't have to be something uncomparably new, extended/improved functionality is a much more common form of innovation.

[Deleted]

You could take virtually any change and boil it down like this. Innovation doesn't have to be something uncomparably new, extended/improved functionality is a much more common form of innovation.

Innovation and innovative processes almost NEVER deliver something entirely new!

True innovation is often disruptive and a total gamble wether it will be succesfull or tank. Truely innovative ideas often don't survive in established companies.

Innovation ussually is a recombination of existing elements. Washing powders "innovate" every few years merely by advertising "new formula". ussually it's just one replaced but similar ingredient, it doesn't make the product that much better, often it just makes it easier and cheaper to produce, and it pushes sales nevertheless.

In that light, I see Legions 'innovation' as succesfull, it really didn't bring to many new things, it just recombined certain established game mechanics so that they are "perceived" new and fresh, but under the hood not that much changed. And there is a lot more to do at end-game, it brought back the sense of adventure to the world.

I bet that if Legion had truely new disruptive features, this discussion wouldn't have been about the lack of innovation, it would just be a complaint of how much they broke the game further from it's origins with truely new features.

[Eazy]

You could take virtually any change and boil it down like this. Innovation doesn't have to be something uncomparably new, extended/improved functionality is a much more common form of innovation.

But he has right with the WF/TF.

For each of your argument that Legion is innovative people can find other innovative thing from other expansion...

-World Quests
-Artifact Weapon
-Class Hall Garrison
-Followers NPC's in outworld We already had followers, for example mantids from Dread Wastes
-Mythic + Dungeons
Weekly Chest in Class Hall Missions from Garrison
-New Transmogrification System Old Transmogrification
-War/Titanforge it was since MoP
-Legiondaries We already had Legendaries
-Suramar We already had similar area - Vale of the Eternal Blossoms
-PvP Templates
-PvP Talents Old Talents
-Prestige System
-Plus the usual of every expansion (new class demon hunter, class revamps, profession revamps) That's not even innovative

Only underlined and bolded are innovative, rest was there in the previous expansions.
There are plenty of other innovative things from other expansions, such as:
-reforging
-challenge modes
-battle pets system
-dailies
-arenas
-if you count legiondaries as other type of legendary then you can also add legendary quests in the other expansions innovative things
etc.

[Echocho]

He said, defining it immediately.

The hard modes in Ulduar for example. Maybe it wasn't groundbreaking in the larger scheme of things but within the wow eco system it was new and fresh. Too bad they never used it again after that when it was the most praised raid mode they've ever implemented.

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He said, defining it immediately.

I meant that it can't be defined because there's already a definition.

[Prawnapple]

Recolored challenge modes.

Been there since MoP.

Icecrown Glacier/Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

Wrong, not even close.

[Valysar]

Legion = more grind
Grind is not innovative

[Beloren]

-World Quests -> daily quests with a different name
-Artifact Weapon -> leveling moved into a weapon, still leveling
-Class Hall -> garrison 2.0
-Followers NPC's in outworld -> taken from Guild Wars 1 and Diablo 3
-Mythic + Dungeons and Weekly Chest in Class Hall -> how is this in any way innovative, it's just another difficulty
-New Transmogrification System -> it's just a wardrobe, once again, where do they innovate?
-War/Titanforge -> a random loot type is innovation now?
-Legiondaries -> they're...legendaries
-Suramar -> ?????????????
-PvP Templates -> ??????????
-PvP Talents -> Guild Wars 1
-Prestige System -> Leveling for PVP
-Plus the usual of every expansion (new class demon hunter, class revamps, profession revamps) -> How are class revamps and profession revamps innovation?

Demon hunter is the only thing out of that list I would call remotely "innovation", because they've managed to introduce a class with semi-flight as something which isn't game breaking, yet at the same time only has 2 specs which is utter lazy bullshit, and cancels out the aforementioned effect.

So out of all that "innovation", all I see is catching up, appropriation and adding basic fucking utility to a stale MMO that was falling sorely behind the times.

What is innovative about blizzard is the production. How they bring all those aspects together. Sure a lot of lore and systems is t anything new but it's how they bring their shit together that's actually quite innovative

Also you completely forget the art, the music no the tech they use to do the things they are giving us on such an old system is Lao quite innovative

Legion is by far the most impressive and packed expansion, they've given and covered so much in it. Now adding Argus to it will probably make it the largest expansion too.

The depth and detail are the highest ever

Useable and reusable content has never been this good or meaningful

Lore, cinematically and presentation have blown all the previous xpansions out of the water

And systems. Whether it's Artiodactyla power, class halls, m+, raids, world quests, invasions, I've never seen an expansion so feature packed and all the features are interesting no meaningful

It's not that you've seen similar versions of most of these before, it's that you have seen a version that works, is fun, and certainly keeps you coming back in ways none of the earlier versions did. And that is innovative the changes and adaptations

Give credit where it is due

[SirCowdog]

The OP's question was just asking about differences in innovation between wow expansions, regardless of where the innovations originated externally.

That's literally not how innovation works. There's a word for what you're describing: ADAPTATION.

Maybe the OP should use the right terms, or ask the right questions. :/

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The way keystones work and influence the whole system

The Way ilvl scales making dungeons finally relevant throughout an entire expansion

Those systems may be new to WoW, but they aren't new to gaming. I think that's the point of contention here. The question of "Is Legion the most innovative expansion" can't be taken seriously when, literally, almost everything about it is simply being adapted from other mechanics or games. The entire basis for the original question is faulty.

[Viikkis]

Most innovative WoW version was vanilla itself when compared to all other MMO's at the time.