Poll: Good idea?

Page 1 of 2
1
2
LastLast
  1. #1

    Fixing the timeline. For real.

    As of right now, we all know that WoW's timeline isn't exactly consistent.

    But I have a solution.

    Create an expansion, 8.0, that revamps Northrend, as a campaign that follows after the events of Legion.

    Levels 1-60 remain unchanged, Cataclysm.
    Levels 60-70 are replaced with the current 80-85 progression, Cataclysm. Death Knights have a revamped starting zone which has them start as Knights of the Ebon Blade, free from Arthas' grasp and hesitant to serve Bolvar. They arrive to Orgimmar to greet Garrosh Hellscream, and continue in Cataclysm content.
    Levels 70-80 are replaced with the current 85-90 progression, Mists of Pandaria.
    Levels 80-90 are replaced with the current 90-100 content, Warlords of Draenor.
    Legion becomes level 90-100.

    Here's the kicker. Northrend, in its entirety, is a level 100 continent. You are free to progress through each zone as you would in The Broken Isles; whichever order you want. The final zone, however, is gated and reserved for people who have maxed out their Northrend artifacts. That's right, since you'll lose all of your Broken Isles Artifact abilities, it makes sense for them to add a new artifact for you to progress through. What this means for 9.0 is that you'll be able to skip Northrend entirely. With the help of gear scaling, your Northrend gear will scale down to mythic Legion item levels outside of Northrend content. So would 9.0's gear, so you're free to go back and complete Northrend's story at any time, and still have it be something you can progress through. Ideally, this would work for *all* expansions' content, but it would be the easiest to just add this as an effect going forward. Exclusive transmog items, mounts, and titles would still be available to the raids of the current expansion, so there would still be more people running 9.0 raids than 8.0 raids, but you could still actually see a functioning Northrend raiding guild at max level.

    Old Northrend would either be removed, or be accessible through the Caverns of Time, as Outland should be.

    This means at every level, you'll be drawn to the most recent content in the story. If Cataclysm starts to look dated, and they decide to update those zones, fuck all of the work on this.

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by Amnaught View Post
    As of right now, we all know that WoW's timeline isn't exactly consistent.

    But I have a solution.

    Create an expansion, 8.0, that revamps Northrend, as a campaign that follows after the events of Legion.

    Levels 1-60 remain unchanged, Cataclysm.
    Levels 60-70 are replaced with the current 80-85 progression, Cataclysm. Death Knights have a revamped starting zone which has them start as Knights of the Ebon Blade, free from Arthas' grasp and hesitant to serve Bolvar. They arrive to Orgimmar to greet Garrosh Hellscream, and continue in Cataclysm content.
    Levels 70-80 are replaced with the current 85-90 progression, Mists of Pandaria.
    Levels 80-90 are replaced with the current 90-100 content, Warlords of Draenor.
    Legion becomes level 90-100.

    Here's the kicker. Northrend, in its entirety, is a level 100 continent. You are free to progress through each zone as you would in The Broken Isles; whichever order you want. The final zone, however, is gated and reserved for people who have maxed out their Northrend artifacts. That's right, since you'll lose all of your Broken Isles Artifact abilities, it makes sense for them to add a new artifact for you to progress through. What this means for 9.0 is that you'll be able to skip Northrend entirely. With the help of gear scaling, your Northrend gear will scale down to mythic Legion item levels outside of Northrend content. So would 9.0's gear, so you're free to go back and complete Northrend's story at any time, and still have it be something you can progress through. Ideally, this would work for *all* expansions' content, but it would be the easiest to just add this as an effect going forward. Exclusive transmog items, mounts, and titles would still be available to the raids of the current expansion, so there would still be more people running 9.0 raids than 8.0 raids, but you could still actually see a functioning Northrend raiding guild at max level.

    Old Northrend would either be removed, or be accessible through the Caverns of Time, as Outland should be.

    This means at every level, you'll be drawn to the most recent content in the story. If Cataclysm starts to look dated, and they decide to update those zones, fuck all of the work on this.
    anyone who cares about the story isnt confused by the jumps, revamping 1-60 with Garrosh as the warchief was a mistake, but they didn't have the phasing capabilities at the time (to keep 1-60 thrall, and still show players 80+ broken barrens) and couldn't do what they can today.

    perhaps a better solution would have been to update 1-60 with new models and textures, but keep the same quests and Thrall as warchief, then when it was time for Cata, break the world for cosmetic effect, but there would be no new quests in 1-60 besides maybe a few hidden ones for toys, etc.

    This way the order of succession would be correct, Thrall>Garrosh>Vol'Jin>Dark Lady
    Last edited by provaporous; 2016-08-26 at 08:25 AM.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by provaporous View Post
    perhaps a better solution would have been to update 1-60 with new models and textures, but keep the same quests and Thrall as warchief, then when it was time for Cata, break the world for cosmetic effect, but there would be no new quests in 1-60 besides maybe a few hidden ones for toys, etc.
    To give the old world those updated textures was a massive undertaking, and the quests were very boring/broken as well, the leveling direction was scattered. If they were going to update the textures, they might as well have gone and updated the quests as well, and it would have been pretty lame to have to create a bunch of new quests that take place before the burning crusade and therefore show no dynamic progression of time.

  4. #4
    Scarab Lord
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    In the same urn as Vol'Jin
    Posts
    4,595
    Quote Originally Posted by Amnaught View Post
    To give the old world those updated textures was a massive undertaking, and the quests were very boring/broken as well, the leveling direction was scattered. If they were going to update the textures, they might as well have gone and updated the quests as well, and it would have been pretty lame to have to create a bunch of new quests that take place before the burning crusade and therefore show no dynamic progression of time.
    Indeed. Cataclysm really happened two years too late or four years too early, in terms of the changes to 1-60.

    Too late in the sense Heirlooms and so on had already been introduced which meant you barely even see the content if you level by questing (leaving every zone unfinished or doing a lot of green or even grey quests!), and too early in the sense that the VAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASTLY superior design of the leveling world in WoD (and that improvement started during MoP) wasn't there, so you don't have the really well-designed quest-flow, contained quest-chain length, tons of hidden treasures and so on, which could actually have made the old world amazing.

    At this point in WoW's history I don't think a full-game revamp makes even a lick of sense. It'll further upset people who have been playing the game for years, it'll cause all the information about WoW and it's quests to become rubbish, so WoWhead would need to be top-to-bottom redone (as would similar sites), and you'd lose all the extremely useful comments detailing the peculiarities of quests and so on, and I don't enthusiasm for WoW would be so high that it would all get re-done.

    This is something I've seen with older MMOs before - even ones with a substantial population - if they re-vamp massively late in their lifetime, the sites following them, esp. ones reliant on users to some extent, simply do not keep up.

    So anyway, whilst I can see some tweaks and so on to improve things, I don't think a wholesale revamp is warranted nor would be desirable.

  5. #5
    Since when does every death knight report to garrosh?
    Also how much content would revamping cost us again no thanks.

  6. #6
    At the very least, I do like the idea of an optional skip through pre-dated content (Northrend and Outland). The rest of it is asking more than I'm sure what Blizzard is willing to deliver.

    With Blizzard's current attitudes, it'd be best to just "squish" the current 1-100 content in such a way that you can just level wherever the hell you want until 100.

    I honestly don't think they'll ever bother updating any part of the old game again, unfortunately.

    Another option would be just have Chromie at the start of anything that has you going "back to the past" so to speak, just to make it attempt to try and make sense. Possibly both those things.

    Real truth of the matter is, is with paid boosts and expansions including boosts, Blizzard pretty clearly feels that anything besides the current will never, ever be important again. Plus, the scapegoating of that being a reason Cataclysm was so bad. (It wasn't. If anything, that was one of the far better things to come from it)

  7. #7
    The Insane Aeula's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Nearby, preventing you from fast traveling.
    Posts
    17,415
    A speedier solution would just be to stretch 1-60 content to last until level 80 (Maybe by using scaling?) then progress naturally into cata zones, leaving Outland and Northrend as optional 'timewalking' areas.

  8. #8
    Bloodsail Admiral Chemii's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Great Britain
    Posts
    1,085
    Quote Originally Posted by Otiswhitaker View Post
    I honestly don't think they'll ever bother updating any part of the old game again, unfortunately.
    Whilst I don't agree with the OP at all and am glad a few of you are not devs of any sort, I think that this is wrong. Blizzard won't approach it like they did with Cataclysm but they are already introducing the old world zones and instances back into the game in meaningful ways via the legion campaigns, using phasing techniques.

    Personally I hope for more of this. It seems logical that at some stage our heroes may need to visit other parts of Azeroth outside of their respective zone timelines, to deal with current expansion issues.

    The World, of warcraft actually feels very small right now due to the ease of getting around. It's about time they added in stuff like this that makes the world feel alive again and not just something you leave behind once you out scale a zone.
    Last edited by Chemii; 2016-08-26 at 01:03 PM.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Jewsco View Post
    Since when does every death knight report to garrosh?
    Also how much content would revamping cost us again no thanks.
    1: They don't. They would with this update; it's pretty stupid that as of now they go to see Vol'Jin to walk into the Burning Crusade era where Thrall is the Warchief.
    2: Not much; it's all just level scaling instead of changing entire quests, zones, and land.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Otiswhitaker View Post
    I honestly don't think they'll ever bother updating any part of the old game again, unfortunately.
    A Northrend update only makes sense if they plan on evening out the timeline; it'd have to include a new Death Knight starting experience that would probably tie in with the post-Legion story but still take place during Cataclysm.

  10. #10
    [QUOTE=Amnaught;42068122]1: They don't. They would with this update; it's pretty stupid that as of now they go to see Vol'Jin to walk into the Burning Crusade era where Thrall is the Warchief.
    2: Not much; it's all just level scaling instead of changing entire quests, zones, and land.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Again what about the ones that are alliance I could care less what warchief they go see and any development time spent on such a minor thing is wasteful. How did that work out for cata? Before WoD it was universally seen as the worst expansion so why even go down that road again?

  11. #11
    [QUOTE=Jewsco;42068330]
    Quote Originally Posted by Amnaught View Post
    1: They don't. They would with this update; it's pretty stupid that as of now they go to see Vol'Jin to walk into the Burning Crusade era where Thrall is the Warchief.
    2: Not much; it's all just level scaling instead of changing entire quests, zones, and land.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Again what about the ones that are alliance I could care less what warchief they go see and any development time spent on such a minor thing is wasteful. How did that work out for cata? Before WoD it was universally seen as the worst expansion so why even go down that road again?
    They literally have changed the warchief death knights meet, every single expansion thats changed the warchief. its stupid and wrong and they need to get it back to Garrosh.

  12. #12
    [QUOTE=Amnaught;42068828]
    Quote Originally Posted by Jewsco View Post

    They literally have changed the warchief death knights meet, every single expansion thats changed the warchief. its stupid and wrong and they need to get it back to Garrosh.
    Any development time spent on this is a waste and you want a class with an already made starting area to get a new one? How about a new class gets that development time instead of an already established one? It is a pointless waste.

  13. #13
    Please, no more "world revamps", they've proven they can't do that and provide a decent expansion at the same time.

    If they have the spare time, they can do it zone by zone, starting by the ones that are stuck in a very specific event, such as Darkshore or Western Plaguelands, eventually having an updated world without making an expansion around it and sacrificing the max level content.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Soulwind View Post
    Please, no more "world revamps", they've proven they can't do that and provide a decent expansion at the same time.

    If they have the spare time, they can do it zone by zone, starting by the ones that are stuck in a very specific event, such as Darkshore or Western Plaguelands, eventually having an updated world without making an expansion around it and sacrificing the max level content.
    The only revamp suggested here is a Northrend one, the rest would just get scaled to different levels so the timeline would make sense. Revamping Northrend seems like a better idea to me than scrapping all of the current level 60-80 content, which is what needs to happen in order for the timeline to be corrected.

    It's okay for a zone to be stuck perpetually in a specific event, so long as by the time you reach the level to complete that event, you haven't literally just done something that implies it has already happened. Like what happens at level 60 right now.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Amnaught View Post
    The only revamp suggested here is a Northrend one, the rest would just get scaled to different levels so the timeline would make sense. Revamping Northrend seems like a better idea to me than scrapping all of the current level 60-80 content, which is what needs to happen in order for the timeline to be corrected.

    It's okay for a zone to be stuck perpetually in a specific event, so long as by the time you reach the level to complete that event, you haven't literally just done something that implies it has already happened. Like what happens at level 60 right now.
    The thing is, would you really want to remove questlines like Wrathgate or finding Muradin in Storm Peaks? I'm okay with phasing the zones for max level players so that their efforts have some impact and fix the world around them, as long as there's something to actually do there.

    Replacing leveling content means removing things players are potentially fond just for alts and new players. I'd rather see the shard technology and world quests giving some updated, periodic content in those zones for players who already completed them.

    As for fixing the timeline, just make Chromie give you the first quest and explain that the past needs heroes or something like that.
    Last edited by Soulwind; 2016-08-27 at 12:54 PM.

  16. #16
    I don't think it's worth it at this point to risk another big revamp like this, nor is it really necessary, and this is coming from a lore fan.

    What I think they will need to do is speed up the leveling even more. With each new expansion and level cap raise, the bar for getting to the latest content is getting increasingly ridiculous. Unfortunately they seem to have found a solution for this with the tokens, which I don't really agree with. I think that Outland and Northrend should be merged so that you can do 60-80 in whatever zones you want (perhaps using that new Legion scaling tech). They could do the same with Cata and Pandaria, and eventually with Draenor and Broken Isles. Couple this with faster experience gains (or even better a small class quest like Monks currently get). Basically get new and rerolling players up to speed faster and with more options.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Amnaught View Post
    To give the old world those updated textures was a massive undertaking, and the quests were very boring/broken as well, the leveling direction was scattered. If they were going to update the textures, they might as well have gone and updated the quests as well, and it would have been pretty lame to have to create a bunch of new quests that take place before the burning crusade and therefore show no dynamic progression of time.
    re-read my post, at no point did i suggest making new quests 1-60, the old world quests were fine the way they were, they had already balanced drop rates for the most part in WOTLK and BC.

  18. #18
    Honestly? level 1 - current xpac is a total mess, id go another route, id reduce the XP needed to get to max level and bring the legion dynamic leveling for all past content so that i could get to level 100 by only doing vanilla content and never having to step into pandaland.

    Forcing a linear story at this stage isnt a great idea imo, let the player choose what route they want and at what speed they wish to do it. If i want to complete hillsbrad, i dont want running 1 dungeon to ruin my flow!

  19. #19
    Its pointless. As anyone who is leveling a character now is someone who has already hit max level and wants an alt. New players get a free boost with each expansion so they skip all the leveling content. I mean it would just be a lot simpler for the sake of teaching new players the story, to make the boosted experience, scenarios of the previous expansions. A TL;DP(Too long didnt play) type of thing if you will. "Here's Illidan, he did this, go kill him". Where at the end of each scenario you gain more class skills.

    The scenarios could be led by the bronze dragonflight even. Then if players want to experience the full story, they can go back to those zones and do the low level quests.

    Quote Originally Posted by Otiswhitaker View Post
    I honestly don't think they'll ever bother updating any part of the old game again, unfortunately.
    why would they after how people are still complaining about cataclysm? not to mention, every time they do something with old content everyone bitches. look at kara, all you see is people going "omg rehashing kara".
    If what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Then I should be a god by now.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by bloodmoth13 View Post
    Honestly? level 1 - current xpac is a total mess, id go another route, id reduce the XP needed to get to max level and bring the legion dynamic leveling for all past content so that i could get to level 100 by only doing vanilla content and never having to step into pandaland.
    This would be a very good idea indeed. No more outleveling areas and obsolete quest rewards.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •