Do you think the Vindicar is a tech demo for ships next expansion.

[Cosmic Janitor]

If I recall correctly the devs. didn't like that all the Cata zones were disconnected from each other. Wouldn't expect to see something like that again outside of patch content like Argus.

But you also have to realize that none of the poeple in charge currently are the ones from back in cata. These past statements carry no weight today, since it depends entirely on what the new guys think about these systems. Personally cata wasn't that bad, if it wasn't for the shitty final raid that is. As for ths ship, I could see it. I just hope they won't sell it to us again as pseudo-housing without soul or make us use the aweful facton look (for horde) again should get a normal ship or something like that.

[Leih]

See, I actually have been wondering if the Blizzcon airship mounts are more related to the next expansion hint than people assume. It would be typical Blizzard fashion to be like "You guys speculated for years about a ship-based sailing expansion? Well we went ONE FURTHER and are giving you a customisation heavy Airship expansion"

They tend to take community ideas and try to find a way to make them Blizzardcool, for better or worse :P

[Nahela]

The Vindicaar doesn't 'move' or anything of the sort, it's actually just 3 separate duplicate 'zones'. You can see this for when certain quests are only available at certain hubs, despite the NPCs being in all sections. I don't think it's really any different than quest hubs we've already seen. Essentially it's no different than something like the hub in Tanaan, or the faction hubs from MoP; they just give the illusion that it's different. They're not showing off any new tech with it, really.

[Wyrt]

See, I actually have been wondering if the Blizzcon airship mounts are more related to the next expansion hint than people assume. It would be typical Blizzard fashion to be like "You guys speculated for years about a ship-based sailing expansion? Well we went ONE FURTHER and are giving you a customisation heavy Airship expansion"

They tend to take community ideas and try to find a way to make them Blizzardcool, for better or worse :P

Customization? There's only 2 races that currently have airships. So there'd be 2 options; horde or alliance.

You could have draenei build an airship, but there's no comparable race on the horde to build a 2nd option and Blizzard wouldn't give the alliance 2 airship options while the horde only had 1.

So, it'd definitely just be 1 type of airship per faction with no customization. Just like garrisons.


At least with normal ships there could reasonably be 1 type of ship for each race and you'd have some actual customization options that way.

[Cosmic Janitor]

See, I actually have been wondering if the Blizzcon airship mounts are more related to the next expansion hint than people assume. It would be typical Blizzard fashion to be like "You guys speculated for years about a ship-based sailing expansion? Well we went ONE FURTHER and are giving you a customisation heavy Airship expansion" They tend to take community ideas and try to find a way to make them Blizzardcool, for better or worse :P

Oh please no.. I don't want that eye-sore of an orc wanker airship for a whole expansion :/.

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The Vindicaar doesn't 'move' or anything of the sort, it's actually just 3 separate duplicate 'zones'. You can see this for when certain quests are only available at certain hubs, despite the NPCs being in all sections. I don't think it's really any different than quest hubs we've already seen. Essentially it's no different than something like the hub in Tanaan, or the faction hubs from MoP; they just give the illusion that it's different. They're not showing off any new tech with it, really.

The npcs aren't even in all versions. Some quests can only be handed in when the ship is "docked" in a certain zone, precisely because they copied it 3 times.

[Venziir]

I hope so. Aslong as we get to customize our ship somewhat, like colours, cannons or no cannons, crew etc.

[Leih]

So, it'd definitely just be 1 type of airship per faction with no customization. Just like garrisons.

Oh it definitely would, would it?

[Wyrt]

Oh it definitely would, would it?

What other option would there be? Are the tauren going to pull fully functioning airship out of their butts?

[Deleted]

No. The Vindicaar is a small questing hub in 3 locations on 3 small maps. Nothing ground breaking. Due to the nature of Argus lore it is necessary to:

1) Replace a fixed ground-based settlement (which really doesn't make sense on the Legion homeworld). Beachheads, forward outposts etc. make sense but those serve a military function with at most a vendor and a quest giver.
2) Replace the flight master system with the beacons.

If we are supposed to have ships in a South Seas expansions (let's hope), they have to be actual transportation or it's just Garrisons 3.0

[Leih]

What other option would there be? Are the tauren going to pull fully functioning airship out of their butts?

Why not?

It's not like the sudden appearance of massive Human and Orc airships in Wrath wasn't just pulled out of thin air, or the submarines in Cata.

There could easily be other racial themed airships If anything I could see Blizzard doing this to try and make up for the complaints about lack of racial themed garrisons.

[Wyrt]

Why not?

It's not like the sudden appearance of massive Human and Orc airships in Wrath wasn't just pulled out of thin air, or the submarines in Cata.

There could easily be other racial themed airships If anything I could see Blizzard doing this to try and make up for the complaints about lack of racial themed garrisons.

Those are gnome and goblin airships, not human and orc ones. Gnomes and goblins had many flying machines in the past starting in WC2. Submarines are from WC2, they were not new in Cata. Neither of those were randomly buttpulled. They were either advancements on earlier designs or just something that's been there since WC2 but just not shown in WoW.

[Shelly]

I really hope that's not the case.

Getting around the Vindicaar sucks balls. It's like they took the worst order hall (priest) and then decided they could make it even more of a pain in the ass to get around but added a mailbox to compensate.

[Soulwind]

Possibly, yes. I doubt Blizzard would let players sail their ships in the open world, which means they'd have to be static hubs that appear in each port.

That is what the Vindicaar is. The three Vindicaars have the same NPCs, and they all offer and take the same quests, I don't think we had quite seen that in WoW.

Ideally, there would be some additional gameplay to ships, like instanced oceans where you can sail freely and encounter pirates, sea monsters, and maybe even other players. Otherwise they wouldn't be too different from garrisons or quest halls, you'd just have one instance of yours in every island.

Where exactly is the tech that is being demo'd? I saw no new tech at the Vindicar other than the netherlight crucible.
Tech demos are important for Blizzard. Creating new tech seems to cost them a lot of time and thus when they make new tech they almost always reuse it.

Haven't you zoned into Argus standing in the air shortly before the Vindicaar appeared under your feet? That means it's not being loaded with the world. It's being phased in, it's loading the necessary NPCs for you, depending on which quests you've completed and all. It's not brand new tech, but it's a new implementation of it that could very easily be applied to "ship garrisons".

[Leih]

Those are gnome and goblin airships, not human and orc ones. Gnomes and goblins had many flying machines in the past starting in WC2. Submarines are from WC2, they were not new in Cata. Neither of those were randomly buttpulled. They were either advancements on earlier designs or just something that's been there since WC2 but just not shown in WoW.

You will not be able to show me anything even close to on the scale of the airships from Wrath in Warcraft 2. I know, I've played it. There were shitty little gyrocopters and there were zeppelins, but certainly not giant troop-carrying cannon-firing gunships. You can argue "Oh they were just an advancement on the air units that already existed though."

Well fine. Tauren themed airships are ALSO a further advancement of the gunships we've already seen. It's not unbelievable or any more of a buttpull as the invention of the giant gunships.

"But Tauren could never build something so advanced!"

Who says they did? The goblins may have built the airship, but with a Tauren theme and aesthetics.

[Danuel]

"south seas expansion"
No.It won't happen.

[Wyrt]

You will not be able to show me anything even close to on the scale of the airships from Wrath in Warcraft 2. I know, I've played it. There were shitty little gyrocopters and there were zeppelins, but certainly not giant troop-carrying cannon-firing gunships. You can argue "Oh they were just an advancement on the air units that already existed though."

Well fine. Tauren themed airships are ALSO a further advancement of the gunships we've already seen. It's not unbelievable or any more of a buttpull as the invention of the giant gunships.

"But Tauren could never build something so advanced!"

Who says they did? The goblins may have built the airship, but with a Tauren theme and aesthetics.

Only 3 races are capable of building airships. Tauren are not one of them.

[Soulwind]

True. Haha, looking forward to drowning beneath my boat on the different seas of Azeroth!

Well, similarly to the Vindicaar, there would be an invisible floor where you spawn, so that you don't fall down before the ship loads.

[Leih]

Only 3 races are capable of building airships. Tauren are not one of them.

1) Only 3? I'd disagree with that from a lore standpoint for a start. While I doubt Tauren could build an airship alone, I think it's still more than 3. But that's really a moot point to argue so I won't bother, because since when have Blizzard devs even gave a flying fuck about lore? They'll do what they think sounds cool whether it makes sense or not.

2) That aside, I said in the very post you quoted that I in no way think that Tauren would have built an airship. The Gnomes and Goblins could have built an airship fleet and themed them to the appropriate races. I don't think a Tauren would build an airship... but it's totally conceivable that the Goblins would build an airship under Tauren supervision and theme it for their race.

[Kokolums]

The rumor is the next evolution of gameplay is race-specific garrisons instead of class-specific garrisons. I think garrisons are a permanent feature in wow simply because they want something that forces players to use a mobile app on a daily basis. Mobile being the future of computing, they feel compelled to integrate with mobile gaming. Therefore, we will always have mission tables.

[Soulwind]

It's not necessary that everyone creates an airship though, different people may power their vehicles in different ways, and not be bound to technology. Also do they really need to be airships? Sea vehicles would be quite more fun and would allow for greater variety.

Well, the two Blizzcon mounts are airships...