Battle for Azeroth Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Polybius]

It's not just him either teasing south seas and pirates. I really don't think we're getting south seas at this point. I think KulTiras as a continent is looking more and more like a pretty safe bet as the jokes from them continue.

This seems more likely as we get new information. There's just too much encompassing a South Seas proper xpac. It may as well be divided into two expansions, with N'Zoth and the Black Empire appearing later

[Zoibert the Bear]

Inside source says expansion was just rebranded to World of Warcraft: Drowned in Coastal Kappa due to previous acronym (ToV) being confusing due to Trial of Valor.

[Hitei]

You don't know that.

I sorta do, though. Go look at any leak/speculation/suggestion concerning Kul Tiras as a main setting. They all share one thing:

They bring something interesting TO Kul Tiras. If your location is completely uninteresting without bringing another, already interesting aspect (Naga, Trolls, Old God Corruption, etc) to it... it is already sort of a shitty location.

I don't doubt that Blizzard could make a good expansion on a continental Kul Tiras. But that wouldn't make Kul Tiras not awful. It's a generic Island that presumably has very similar terrain type to Tol Barad and Gilneas (it's direct neighbors) that has nothing of note besides the city-state which is tiny and mostly keeps to itself.

That is already dull as all hell. It's not like there are secretly massive snowy mountain ranges and arid badlands on Kul Tiras (It's half the size of the Wandering Isle after all). The terrain is bound to be pretty homogeneous.

"But that doesn't mean the terrain has to be homogeneous. Blizzard could do crazy Old God corrupted zones, and flooded zones and zones being taken by the void! You don't know what might be there, Hitei"--Yes, which is kind of my point. In order for Kul Tiras to be interesting and neat, the approach you take is to make it as un-Kul Tiras as possible. To add as much outside neat/interesting as you can, so that it becomes neat as well.

That is terrible. Just pick someplace innately interesting instead. And then you don't have to throw a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the island (Naga, Old Gods, the Void... even Pirates aren't related) on the island to make it attractive, and you don't have to do weird scaling where an island that should fit in the Bay of Storms in Azshara is instead the size of Pandaria.

[Zoibert the Bear]

I don't think blizzard is going to do another single-island expansion right now. Ever since Pandaria the continents have all roughly had the same shape. It's pretty boring, isn't it? I think they are going to mix it up, thats why an island hopping expansion makes sense... It's not just another boring blob on the map, it'd be individual zones that fill in Azeroth very effectively.

Completely agree on the above.

As long as thy manage to avoid the "disconnection" of zones like it happened in Cataclysm, I believe it would be the best way to get out of the current monotony of expansion = huge island.

[Deleted]

I sorta do, though. Go look at any leak/speculation/suggestion concerning Kul Tiras as a main setting. They all share one thing:

They bring something interesting TO Kul Tiras. If your location is completely uninteresting without bringing another, already interesting aspect (Naga, Trolls, Old God Corruption, etc) to it... it is already sort of a shitty location.

I don't doubt that Blizzard could make a good expansion on a continental Kul Tiras. But that wouldn't make Kul Tiras not awful. It's a generic Island that presumably has very similar terrain type to Tol Barad and Gilneas (it's direct neighbors) that has nothing of note besides the city-state which is tiny and mostly keeps to itself.

That is already dull as all hell. It's not like there are secretly massive snowy mountain ranges and arid badlands on Kul Tiras (It's half the size of the Wandering Isle after all). The terrain is bound to be pretty homogeneous.

"But that doesn't mean the terrain has to be homogeneous. Blizzard could do crazy Old God corrupted zones, and flooded zones and zones being taken by the void! You don't know what might be there, Hitei"--Yes, which is kind of my point. In order for Kul Tiras to be interesting and neat, the approach you take is to make it as un-Kul Tiras as possible. To add as much outside neat/interesting as you can, so that it becomes neat as well.

That is terrible. Just pick someplace innately interesting instead. And then you don't have to throw a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the island (Naga, Old Gods, the Void... even Pirates aren't related) on the island to make it attractive, and you don't have to do weird scaling where an island that should fit in the Bay of Storms in Azshara is instead the size of Pandaria.

Makes sense. So what place would you prefer? What would be interesting?

[Lahis]

Bingo. It makes me feel like maybe some of these 'leaks' have been blizzard setting us up and redirecting attention.

They're probably keeping up with with subreddits and fansites and just screwing with us and our theories.

Given how they are not allowed to tell us about expansion before next week, I'd even take any "hint" towards South Seas or other popular theories as a confirmation that the expansion will be anything but that.

[thilicen]

Completely agree on the above.

As long as thy manage to avoid the "disconnection" of zones like it happened in Cataclysm, I believe it would be the best way to get out of the current monotony of expansion = huge island.

How about two regions/continents consisting of 2-3 zones each?

[Hitei]

/speaks in Harvey Dent voice
That's right. Crush their dreams!

I'm not out to crush dreams. And at this point it doesn't even matter, the expansion is already very far along whatever path Blizzard chose for it.

I just really hope it isn't the continental Kul Tiras one. It's such a waste.

[Lahis]

Completely agree on the above.

As long as thy manage to avoid the "disconnection" of zones like it happened in Cataclysm, I believe it would be the best way to get out of the current monotony of expansion = huge island.

Cataclysm 80-85 was really poorly implemented. Zones, while awesome, were all around the world with no coherent connection to each other.

Expansion with many different smaller islands as zones would simultaneously be different from the "huge Expansion island" formula, while still feeling coherent and connected if there is a good thematic way to travel between the zones (ie. our Flagship).

[Vakir]

Expansion with many different smaller islands as zones would simultaneously be different from the "huge Expansion island" formula, while still feeling coherent and connected if there is a good thematic way to travel between the zones (ie. our Flagship).

The "teleporting" three existing versions of the Vindicaar feels like a solid starting point for tech involving different points to place a major ship at different dock points without breaking the all-important "immersion."

Now the hope is that it wasn't just a one-off and they learn from it.

Judging by the datamined robes, though, we're looking at a continent situation. It's possible it's depicting just one zone that looks like a continent - but I can't see them putting entire individual zone maps on pieces of quest gear.

[thilicen]

The "teleporting" three existing versions of the Vindicaar feels like a solid starting point for tech involving different points to place a major ship at different dock points without breaking the all-important "immersion."

Now the hope is that it wasn't just a one-off and they learn from it.

Judging by the datamined robes, though, we're looking at a continent situation. It's possible it's depicting just one zone that looks like a continent - but I can't see them putting entire individual zone maps on pieces of quest gear.

Add mini-cutscenes with the ship leaving your current port and heading off instead of a loading screen and you've got yourself a good solution to the "disconnection" issue

[Nyel]

I wish people wouldn't bring up this argument. They're different things, and even beyond that, altering sacle once doesn't mean you should alter it again, way, way more drastically in order to make a completely unimportant and dull place viable for an expansion. You're not talking about doing a broken isles again, you're talking about scaling for something ~six times smaller.

Kul Tiras, even compared to the Broken Isles, is barely large enough to be one zone. It's so silly for it to suddenly be 6, and for Kul Tiras (the city) to be similar in size to Stormwind or Org, or Suramar or any large city, when Gilneas city would take up most of the Island.

Again, you don't know what happened in the last years. They can do EVERYTHING with Kul'Tiras. From flora to fauna from landscapes to citizens, it's a blank page in Warcraft history past Cataclysm. It could be a jungle and rain forest like island because XYZ happened to it, it could be a winter wonderland because ABC happened to it. Everything is possible.

[Anufis]

New race selection screen leaked.

https://i.imgur.com/nbXgoDR.jpg

[Zoibert the Bear]

How about two regions/continents consisting of 2-3 zones each?

I think that would be awesome.

[Nyel]

New race selection screen leaked.

https://i.imgur.com/nbXgoDR.jpg

Awesome! But they're still using the very old character models. Sad!

[Zoibert the Bear]

I think a boat would help that, like the Vindicar! Ooh! You know what'd be cool? Each 'zone' being a chain of islands that you can charter a boat between. i.e 'Kul Tiras' being a zone that contains several islands, like Argus!

I just imagined a mighty Grizzly navigating a boat across the ocean, "a la" Windwaker, searching for new islands to explore.

The Witcher 3 also felt very good in this regards (Skellige Islands are amazing).

Now I suddenly need this.

[Deleted]

New race selection screen leaked.

https://i.imgur.com/nbXgoDR.jpg

Hmmmmmmm. Nope.

[Deleted]

New race selection screen leaked.

https://i.imgur.com/nbXgoDR.jpg

Fake. Reported

[Synstir]

I am wondering why would we go on boats when we have the tech of the Vindicaar?
It doesn't make sense to me at all.

It is like inventing high speed and comfortable cars and after that going back to traveling on horse & wagon.
Taking into account, we're not going on a holiday but fight huge threat, it would not be the smartest thing to do.........

Not even with a stat-squish which reduces our Intelligence immensely!!!!!!

[Soulwind]

I am wondering why would we go on boats when we have the tech of the Vindicaar?
It doesn't make sense to me at all.

It is like inventing high speed and comfortable cars and after that going back to traveling on horse & wagon.
Taking into account, we're not going on a holiday but fight huge threat, it would not be the smartest thing to do.........

Not even with a stat-squish which reduces our Intelligence immensely!!!!!!

- We don't have a bunch of Exodars around. We can't build one from scratch.

- It took many years to build the one Vindicaar.

- Both the Alliance and Horde have hundreds, if not thousands, of ships already.