Blizzcon: Dissapointed in weak panels...Thoughts?

[Jokubas]

Nobody asked the question I really wanted answered either. Do you still plan on revamping Gilneas for the Alliance to use as a city?

Yeah, that one really bugged me too. Blizzard set up a lot of loose ends at the end of Mists of Pandaria on top of the loose ends we already have, and the next expansion is coming out of nowhere again. Worse, they say it will spill right into the one after that. Will that one tie back into these loose ends? Or is Blizzard really ditching these plots for the foreseeable future? I really wish someone would have asked about that.

As much as I'm intrigued to see an intact Draenor, we've been waiting for Gilneas, and Kul Tiras, and Alleria and Turalyon, and Azshara, and Sylvanas for far too long now.

[finskee]

I think they didn't say more because they were not allowed. I don't know if it was just me but it looked like Metzen was being heavily controled and there was a lot more he wanted to say.

Clarification: to work at blizz you sign a non disclosure agreement. If you tell the secrets they don't want people to know you lose your job. Would metzen lose his job if he said too much? Yes he would. Would he ever say too much? No he wouldn't, not because he's not being controlled or because of the nda, he actually just wants you to be surprised when they do their reveals. He's the man behind the secrets after all.

[Coldhearth]

To be honest, the devs looked defeated and lethargic. Like they are sick to death of working on this game. You have to realize these guys eat, sleep, breathe, and live this game. It's their job. We can turn it on and off at will. We can leave the game for weeks or months and come back refreshed. They cannot.

Or perhaps they were just physically tired from all the preparation that went into Blizzcon and the panels. Who knows?

The guys with hearthstone seemed way more upbeat, maybe because it was something new and exciting for them to be working on.

Of course, just my 2 cents.

[Deleted]

To be honest, the devs looked defeated and lethargic. Like they are sick to death of working on this game. You have to realize these guys eat, sleep, breathe, and live this game. It's their job. We can turn it on and off at will. We can leave the game for weeks or months and come back refreshed. They cannot.

Or perhaps they were just physically tired from all the preparation that went into Blizzcon and the panels. Who knows?

The guys with hearthstone seemed way more upbeat, maybe because it was something new and exciting for them to be working on.

Of course, just my 2 cents.

Or maybe they are just saddened by the hate they receive from a lot of people after working so hard.

[finskee]

To be honest, the devs looked defeated and lethargic. Like they are sick to death of working on this game. You have to realize these guys eat, sleep, breathe, and live this game. It's their job. We can turn it on and off at will. We can leave the game for weeks or months and come back refreshed. They cannot.

Or perhaps they were just physically tired from all the preparation that went into Blizzcon and the panels. Who knows?

The guys with hearthstone seemed way more upbeat, maybe because it was something new and exciting for them to be working on.

Of course, just my 2 cents.

I saw a few guys like this, but I don't think that is fair to say that about all of them. Some of them might be shy, or not good in front of a camera. Some of them might hate that part of their job, preferring to sit behind a desk instead. Some of them, like ghostcrawler for example, might be waiting for someone to run out of the audience and throw a grenade at them? Who knows? From what I saw though, metzen was stoked, as were most of the guys on the lore panel. The art panel was full of quiet timid types. Not fair to lump them all into defeated and lethargic I don't think. Whenever I watch this kind of thing I think of speech class in college. 80% of students HATE that class.

[Faulted]

The Art of World of Warcraft panel was the best IMO. So much information about what they are doing, how they are doing it, and why they are doing it.

[Apexis]

I think that's because this expansion is sort of like a "bridge" expansion (think EQ expansions, there were a lot of these.)
Also, I am almost certain that Team 1 (Titan/Nilla/TBC/Wotlk team) is back on board and developing the xpac that follows WoD.

WoD is the last effort of Team 2 (Chilton, Ghostcrawler, etc) who also did Cata and MoP.

Surely you work for Blizzard and are able to provide some proof of this statement, instead of just throwing stuff out there and seeing if it sticks. Also there was no mention that this is a bridge xpac, again your opinion with no proof to back it up. I watch every session on Virtual Ticket nothing you state here was even mentioned.

[MistsofBoredom]

Pretty sure you've mixed that up a bit. This "team 1" is working on WoD, along with team 2. I think it would be a little too early and shortsighted to begin work on another expansion before the one just announced has yet to begin Beta.

This. MoP was the expansion that was different from anything else. WoD is part of a huge story that's about to unfold over several expansions.

Not to mention they are promising more endgame content (expansion+patches) than ever before. There is no team 2 or team 1 anymore. The old devs have been assimilated back into the WoW team, and it's supposedly huge now compared to before.

[Bullettime]

I did feel a bit disappointed this year. No class panel to discuss the future of some classes or specs (Rogues and Hunters are supposed to be getting reworks but no details on it,) many Q&A answers being pretty snarky and not answering anything, wayyyyy too much time spent repeating the same stuff about garrisons, and the movie panel was a waste and could have been shortened to 5 minutes and given all the information you got out of it. The rest of the movie panel was basically a direction team circlejerk and telling us for 60 minutes that "we can't give you details but it will be awesome!" and felt like a total waste of an hour that could have gone to a pure lore Q&A or a class panel.

[Apexis]

Pretty sure you've mixed that up a bit. This "team 1" is working on WoD, along with team 2. I think it would be a little too early and shortsighted to begin work on another expansion before the one just announced has yet to begin Beta.

Chilton stated they are already working on the next xpac and are in the process of developing the one after that one, so it is not shortsighted at all. Moving from a team from a team a 65 to 195 allows them to work on multiple things at the same time, this is why they added the addition people. Also this provides a bit of breathing space for previous 65 and at the same time get more creative with tech in game.

[Pockets]

Hi my name is Ragashii, from Illidan in the guild idontactuallyhaveaguild. First let me say uh, thank you for having blizzcon because it's awesome and you guys are too! Right so I have 10 questions, and I plan on asking them in a way that you won't remember the first question. So uh back in like this obscure reference area that has great art why didn't anything happen? Also why did the trees from this zone change so much from this other zone? Was there some sort of deep meaning behind that? Did you ever plan on doing something about obscure/pointless character? He was very interesting. Anyway let me give a shout out to all my guildies on the server!

Nobody asked the question I really wanted answered either. Do you still plan on revamping Gilneas for the Alliance to use as a city?

i want to give you the entire internets <3

Edited: forgot to tell you that someone did ask this in the lore panel on Day 1, and the devs said that the story is not going to be moved forward in WoD. The original question asked was about Slyvanis' role in WoD and will the Alliance / Gilneas story move forward after King Chin mentions it at the end of SoO.

Sad news...

[MistsofBoredom]

Chilton stated they are already working on the next xpac and are in the process of developing the one after that one, so it is not shortsighted at all. Moving from a team from a team a 65 to 195 allows them to work on multiple things at the same time, this is why they added the addition people. Also this provides a bit of breathing space for previous 65 and at the same time get more creative with tech in game.

/facepalm

They've always worked on multiple expansions at a time. They were working on Mists of Pandaria when Wrath of the Lich King was current. That doesn't mean that an entire section of the team permanently divulges. In fact, you're making very idiotic statements here. You don't know the development process, stop pretending that you do.

[Apexis]

I did feel a bit disappointed this year. No class panel to discuss the future of some classes or specs (Rogues and Hunters are supposed to be getting reworks but no details on it,) many Q&A answers being pretty snarky and not answering anything, wayyyyy too much time spent repeating the same stuff about garrisons, and the movie panel was a waste and could have been shortened to 5 minutes and given all the information you got out of it. The rest of the movie panel was basically a direction team circlejerk and telling us for 60 minutes that "we can't give you details but it will be awesome!" and felt like a total waste of an hour that could have gone to a pure lore Q&A or a class panel.

That is because many of the people asking the questions, asked the same question in every wow panel they had. Plus many do not actually pay attention and make up their own stories or post misinformation on the forums and they have to go back over and over again to make sure they thick headed people understand what was being presented to them. Frankly I have never been to BlizzCon, I bought the VT this year to see for my own eyes what was coming down pike on all the games.

I thought they did a fine job with every panel. They are not about to throw stuff out there that they are later going to have to back track from, because someone jumps on the forums and screams that they promised this or that. I really think after all this time they are finally getting tired of crap and are now to resorting to spoon feeding info out to all the whining special people that don't actually take the time to listen or read.

[Phasma]

OP, you should give some more examples because I thought they did an excellent job of answering questions compared to other years. This is the first expansion in a long time that I'm actually excited to see.

[Tastyfish]

The Art of World of Warcraft panel was the best IMO. So much information about what they are doing, how they are doing it, and why they are doing it.

The art team is really the best.
They make the world, they craft the feel, and they sell it to us, convince us with their work.
There is nothing more vital then the job they do.
The passion for the art comes out, and that is always a good thing cause they are imagining the world we play in, and excited artists means great things.

[Bullettime]

That is because many of the people asking the questions, asked the same question in every wow panel they had. Plus many do not actually pay attention and make up their own stories or post misinformation on the forums and they have to go back over and over again to make sure they thick headed people understand what was being presented to them. Frankly I have never been to BlizzCon, I bought the VT this year to see for my own eyes the this coming down pike on all the games. I thought they did a fine job with every panel. They are not about to throw stuff out their that they are later going to have to back track from, because someone jumps on the forums and screams that they promised this or that. I really think after all this time they are finally getting tired of crap and are now to resorting to spoon feeding info out to all the whining special people that don't actually take the time to listen or read.

The thing is that when you have limited time to get through stuff, spending 30 seconds responding to a question with a snarky answer when a quick definitive yes or no would have sufficed and they could move on to the next person.

There's repeats at Blizzcon every year but instead of shuffling through faster, it was like they were just filling time with unnecessarily longwinded answers that had no substance to them. They cut the Q&A panel 5 minutes short this year too which you could tell miffed some of the people in line.

Regarding the movie panel, I get that they wanted to hype it but a 30 minute block would have been much better than an hour. It was time that a more informative panel could have been held such as a lore Q&A or a quick class panel could have filled instead of 5 guys on stage repeating "it will be awesome" over and over with the meat of the panel being about 5 minutes in length.

[Apexis]

/facepalm

They've always worked on multiple expansions at a time. They were working on Mists of Pandaria when Wrath of the Lich King was current. That doesn't mean that an entire section of the team permanently divulges. In fact, you're making very idiotic statements here. You don't know the development process, stop pretending that you do.

I was responding to this statement " I think it would be a little too early and shortsighted to begin work on another expansion before the one just announced has yet to begin Beta." Had you bothered to actually read. I know very well they work on multiple things at one time and I never said anything about "entire section of the team permanently divulges" you did. I am a graphics designer/web developer, I know what it is like to work on a team that is able to work on multiple things at one time. So /facepalm right back at ya dude.

[Deleted]

The Lore Q&A has always been like that. The writers seem not to give a shit about the stories they write and explain it with a clear lack of passion.
The art and sound panels are always the most fun to watch. You can see how devoted these guys are to pull off something that people will enjoy and there's a lot of thought and passion put behind what they do.

[Phasma]

The Lore Q&A has always been like that. The writers seem not to give a shit about the stories they write and explain it with a clear lack of passion.

They care. They just don't want to say something they might regret saying later. Nothing is final. Put yourself in their shoes.

[Sanctify]

To be honest, the devs looked defeated and lethargic. Like they are sick to death of working on this game. You have to realize these guys eat, sleep, breathe, and live this game. It's their job. We can turn it on and off at will. We can leave the game for weeks or months and come back refreshed. They cannot.

Or perhaps they were just physically tired from all the preparation that went into Blizzcon and the panels. Who knows?

The guys with hearthstone seemed way more upbeat, maybe because it was something new and exciting for them to be working on.

Of course, just my 2 cents.

It didnt seem like that at all to me, if anything they looked excited and passionate to present at Blizzcon.