Possible future hero classes.

[Teriz]

You're missing the point.

Something can exist, it can be real, within the structure of a story and still be absolutely terrible -- it doesn't matter if that thing was new or old, well-known or obscure, it can still be received terribly. My contention is that Pandaren were old, obscure and not well-received, and that despite being old and well-known, for other reasons your iteration wouldn't be well-received.

And you know this how exactly? Because you personally view the Tinker concept as "silly"?

Are you really one of those people who won't accept a statistical reality until some arbitrary power-holder spells it out for you? A statistic doesn't lie -- it may mislead, it may prompt misdiagnosis, but it doesn't lie.

I never said that your stats were wrong, I'm saying that you don't know how Blizzard interpreted those stats. For all we know, they may view a new race with 3-5% of the population playing it as a success. Again, unless you have a statement from Blizzard saying that the Pandaren were a failure, you're just stating meaningless conjecture.

As I've repeatedly stated, simply existing doesn't make something not silly. There's stories about Carebears and Power Rangers, Dora the Explorer and Captain Underpants -- they exist, they're shown. They're also crazy and outlandish.

And again, simply because YOU view something as silly doesn't mean that it is universally viewed as silly.

So let me get this straight.

You're going to try and tell me, the world and God that the Monk implemented in World of Warcraft (c. September 2012) was the original incarnation of Monk, and the "Monk" from WC3 (c. July 2002) drew it's inspiration from the former? I just want this on record.

(Note: You think that the WC3 Brewmaster (which was a Pandaren) was completely, undeniably, separate from the Brewmaster Monk of WoW, which launched alongside Pandaren? Color me shocked.)

What the hell are you talking about? I'm saying that before MoP most people viewed a "monk" in WoW as something more akin to the Auchenai Monk, or the Scarlet Monk. The introduction of the Pandaren-based Monk caught a lot of people off guard, and as I stated, there were WoW players who weren't aware of the old Pandaren Brewmaster hero it was largely based on.

It is. The fact that this was your response that what I said shows me that either a) you're not actually reading what I'm writing or b) you're reading it, but don't understand basic concepts.

Then you admit that you were wrong when you stated this earlier;

It seems as if the bedrock of your position is something akin to, "it exists, therefore, it should be implemented as-is regardless of how well it will play with the broader playerbase". Which is problematic and, well, hasn't been done with any class previously added post-Vanilla. They (Blizzard) seem to always be shooting for a general appeal (as opposed to a specific appeal, or niche appeal) because that's a good business practice. No reason to assume this practice would change now.

I won't even address this because it's been addressed above, twice. If you can't grasp it, you can't be reached.

You seriously have no meaningful argument against the Tinker class.

Your argument that they'd be too big is ridiculous because Blizzard could simply make them a desirable size. I say Tauren or Draenei size works just fine. Your response? Nothing.

Your argument that they'd be "too flashy" makes no sense because there's multiple iterations of technology abilities and none of them are flashy.

Your argument that they'd be "too outlandish/fantastical" is stupid because technology is a fairly common theme in WoW, and it's not out of the ordinary to see a Goblin or Gnome pilot a mech.

Your argument that they'd be "too silly" is simply your personal opinion, and pretty much meaningless.

Did I miss anything?

We're clearly not on the same page, in terms of fluid intelligence.

The absence of something from the game, provided it exists within the story/franchise, is absolutely meaningless -- and, for the most part, so is it's presence. There weren't any Blood Elf models before 2007, meant little to nothing insofar as what can/will be added -- conversely, they've remade Vrykul models several times and yet that's absolutely not a guarantee that we'll be seeing playable Vrykul.

Neither position is relevant to what I posited, namely that we see Tinkers in FM-style not because that's guaranteed or likely to be how they'd be presented as a class, but because the assets already existed (and, therefore, take no work to create). It doesn't mean anything, there is no underlaying purpose, it's business.

Where did I say they were guaranteed? I said that there's a higher chance for something to be implemented if it already exists in the game world. Certainly there's a chance that if a Tinker class is implemented, it would resemble the old WC3 iteration, but that's doubtful because no iteration of Tinker in WoW has displayed the mechanical back-pack set up.

Additionally, if we're concerned about something looking silly, the mechanical backpack iteration looks far sillier than the full mech iteration.

Yes, using a retextured model from 2004.

FYI: The model is from 2013. Please try harder.

You're not grasping that Blizzard choosing to utilize the existing FM-style in-game is primarily a business decision, and should in no way be taken to mean that all Tinkers are guaranteed to use the FM-style nor should it be taken to mean that efficiency is the only reason they've done it (i.e. nor should it suggest that PM-style is guaranteed, because it's not).

Again, where did I say there was a "guarantee"? I said they're more likely to use the FM iteration because its actually been shown in the game world.

As for your "ease of development" argument, if they're goal was to do as little as possible in regards to Gelbin, why would you go through all the trouble of designing a mech suit for him? You do know that it costs Blizzard money to hire artists to design stuff right? Why not simply show him riding a mechanostrider as usual, since Gelbin has never been portrayed riding a humanoid mech.

There's no hidden meaning, just a company using as little time as possible designing things that they're not currently ready/willing/able/interested in implementing.

You have absolutely no way of knowing that for sure. Again we have you pushing your opinion as a fact.

And then you follow it up with, "they're in the game, look at them, let's be just like them".

You've clearly never heard of proof of concept.

You can't make a point and then contradict it continually, either they'll be as they are in-game (enormous, 18' robogods) or they won't be like that at all (more humanoid in size). My contention is the latter, as yours sometimes seems to be.

Why would it have to be either or? Why must the size be either gigantic or the size of a human? What's wrong with it simply being the size of a full-armored Tauren/Draenei?

Then fantastical is a better descriptor. It doesn't sit easy with people who're trying to play a game intended to be set in a fantasy setting -- the same reason Legion has gotten gripe for all the spaceships.

"Fantastical" doesn't work either, since technology is all over the game world. You even have two races that live in futuristic cities, and one alien race that arrived on an inter-dimensional spaceship.

If you have issues with technology in a high-fantasy setting, you're playing the wrong game. Technology is a consistent and widespread theme in the game itself. It's always been that way.

I wouldn't call it an issue, because I recognize that Blizzard wouldn't ever implement it with excessive flashiness or size.

The same way I didn't expect that DK's would be able to have 1,000 pets and be able to 1v50 other players (despite this being fairly accurate, in terms of the story).

Again, who exactly is advocating for a Tinker to be utilizing excessive flashiness or size? Saying that the mech should be the size of a fully armored Tauren or Draenei, and possessing abilities that aren't uncommon to the Tinker concept (guns, flamethrowers, charges, lasers, turrets, etc.) is in no way excessive and brings it in line with other classes.

[Thimagryn]

I'm not saying it was a confirmation that it would one day appear, only a confirmation that they existed, and were canon to the Warcraft universe and not just a "easter egg".

Warcraft 3 was confirmation for existence. As we've seen, the character's history was entirely revamped, breaking a lot of canon.

[Ielenia]

What the hell are you talking about? I'm saying that before MoP most people viewed a "monk" in WoW as something more akin to the Auchenai Monk, or the Scarlet Monk. The introduction of the Pandaren-based Monk caught a lot of people off guard, and as I stated, there were WoW players who weren't aware of the old Pandaren Brewmaster hero it was largely based on.

Oh, please, Teriz. Any RPG player with a passable knowledge of RPGs and a minimal knowledge of kung-fu movies (Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee) would know that the 'monk' is the light-armored martial artist that strikes either with their bare hands, fist weapons or staves. And 'drunk-fu' was something also very much widely known too.

[Teriz]

Oh, please, Teriz. Any RPG player with a passable knowledge of RPGs and a minimal knowledge of kung-fu movies (Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee) would know that the 'monk' is the light-armored martial artist that strikes either with their bare hands, fist weapons or staves. And 'drunk-fu' was something also very much widely known too.

I said BEFORE MoP.

We had no idea that Blizzard was going to make the Pandaren Brewmaster into the Monk class at the time. Again, the "Monks" in the game were different (and they're still different than the Pandaren variety).When they actually did it the entire thing made sense, but before that, a "Monk" in WoW wasn't Pandaren-based.

Back to the point of mentioning the Monk at all: Blizzard will bring in a class with niche appeal. The Monk class is definitely a much more light-hearted (whimsical) class than the other classes in the game.

[Thimagryn]

Back to the point of mentioning the Monk at all: Blizzard will bring in a class with niche appeal. The Monk class is definitely a much more light-hearted (whimsical) class than the other classes in the game.

If the Naga Empire leaks are true, it looks like whimsical nature is still affecting their decisions on the Tinker.

[Teriz]

If the Naga Empire leaks are true, it looks like whimsical nature is still affecting their decisions on the Tinker.

That's a pretty massive if though.

I will say that the significant rise of rideable mecha in Legion has been very interesting. I really dont know why Blizzard decided to load up this expansion with so many instances of it.

[Stoeger]

They could make necromancer work, have the dps spec be built around the manipulation of various short lived pets that do different things and an edgy healing spec. Wouldn't rob from unholy that much. The bigger issue is how would this make sense? Every class added has had a thematic reason to be added in its respective expansion. Why would necromancers or tinkers suddenly pop up in an old gods/naga expansion? Makes no sense thematically.

Adding more specs (Make survival (great) ranged again. I've seen like three of them geared at max level this entire expansion). Tanking shaman would neat and a nod to the meme low level tank builds of Vanilla/BC, non stealthing feral druid, blood mage, primal warriors etc. Lots of stuff they could come up with.

But again, why? They cannot balance things as is, why bother adding more. I'd rather see more dev time being used to fix current specs/classes, customization, instances and world content.

[Bas Prime]

But again, why? They cannot balance things as is, why bother adding more. I'd rather see more dev time being used to fix current specs/classes, customization, instances and world content.

Diversity. I am a giant Blademaster fan, but am fully aware that Warrior and to an extend the Rogue have a lot of abilities that mirrow the ones of the Blademaster (as does Mirrow Image of the Mage but nobody ever mentions that...)
Bluntly speaking the Blademaster combines aspects of the Warrior and the Rogue, and taking a look at Samuro from HotS there could be a blue print for such a class.
I would prefer to see 4th spec for most of the classes where it would be possible. One problem is balance of course. But it could give players who commit to one class over the years something new.
I would also like to see classes for specific races (Blademaster = orcs, Mountain King = Dwarves). Could be like Blood Knights instead of Blood Elf Paladins. But why? It would be like a theme. It would be cool imo, because there would be diversity and more depth to the game (or just the illusion).
Hero Classes are a nice thing, even the Monk was a nice addition, and I would like to see a Nekromancer Death Knight (Range spec) a Shockadin (Range Paladin) or an Orc Blademaster. Hard to fullfill everyones dream or demand.
They could add some visual things to solve this problem. Quests to optain titles, transmog sets and maybe even slighty changed spells and abilities. You start as a class that can become this "class" and let them do a questchain. Award the transmog and title, and change (for blademaster) the look of bladestorm. Problem is, you just cant add spells like mirrow image or the stealth (or could they?)
I see a lot of interesting ideas. adding everything could become a problem. And just go to hots and play those blueprints is not the solution if I would like to play for example a Blademaster in wow.

[Fyersing]

And you know this how exactly? Because you personally view the Tinker concept as "silly"?

There's no way of "knowing" how something is going to turn out before it is implemented; all we can do is educate ourselves to the situation(s) that are relevant to said implementation and speculate from there. In this case, there are numerous "tells" that suggest Tinker (at least, the version of it most popular on these forums) wouldn't be well-received.

It's likely that the most important of these "tells" is that most suggestions include restricting the class to Gnomes and Goblins -- which, excepting Pandaren, are the two least played and (seemingly) least enjoyed races in the entirety of the game. At the surface of things, you might argue that DH's were also restricted to only two races and it worked out fine... yet, there is an enormous difference between restricting a class to the two most popular races and restricting a class to the two least popular.

If hypothetical examples are your thing, consider the following:

--Monks are the least played class in the U.S. who're of an adequate level for current content (100-110).
--Monks account for 5.6% of the total population in the U.S., who're of an adequate level for current content (100-110).
--Were Monks, seemingly unpopular already, to be restricted to an unpopular race (Pandaren) their percentage of the population would drop to 1.06%.

Source: https://realmpop.com/us.html

The very notion of implementing a class that is bound to races which are within a single-point range, in terms of percentage of the population, of this exact situation should be cause for concern all on it's own without any discussion of class fundamentals coming into the equation at all.

I never said that your stats were wrong, I'm saying that you don't know how Blizzard interpreted those stats. For all we know, they may view a new race with 3-5% of the population playing it as a success. Again, unless you have a statement from Blizzard saying that the Pandaren were a failure, you're just stating meaningless conjecture.

That's fair, but understand that Blizzard is a business first and foremost. If their bait-and-hook features don't actually bait-or-hook, they're wasted development time/money -- from a business angle, if nothing else. Though, this particular case may well be because they didn't actually deliver on what they'd already told players to be expecting (namely, completely different feels to Horde/Alliance Pandaren).

And again, simply because YOU view something as silly doesn't mean that it is universally viewed as silly.

Tell you what. You decide a time and date and we'll both login to either of the most populated servers in the US (pretty sure, Illidan and Sargeras) and we'll spend exactly one hour asking the same question:

"If it were implemented as the next class, do you think you'd like or dislike a class whose inspiration comes from Gelbin Mekkatorque or Siegemaster Blackfuse? Does your position change if the class can only be played as Gnome or Goblin?"

We can screenshot every answer and post them here for comparison. Unless you're worried that, when presented to real players, you're mostly going to get laughs and lots of "lulplsno" responses?

What the hell are you talking about? I'm saying that before MoP most people viewed a "monk" in WoW as something more akin to the Auchenai Monk, or the Scarlet Monk. The introduction of the Pandaren-based Monk caught a lot of people off guard, and as I stated, there were WoW players who weren't aware of the old Pandaren Brewmaster hero it was largely based on.

So is your position that the Monk was based on the WC3 Brewmaster or not? Because the last thing you wrote said they were unrelated. I'm just looking for some consistency on this. For a friend.

Then you admit that you were wrong when you stated this earlier

Not at all.

This particular exchange began when I suggested that niche classes probably aren't a good thing -- which is why Blizzard reiterated on the would-be class and adjusted their theme to more appropriately be described as "martial artist" instead of "drunken master".

You responded to this position with, "How exactly is a beer-chugging kung fu panda NOT a niche concept...?"

Which means you ignored the entire point of my initial post, pointing out that a "beer-chugging kung fu panda" is a niche concept... which is why that isn't descriptive of Monks, generally, at all. An intentional reality, brought to you by Blizzard.

You seriously have no meaningful argument against the Tinker class.

Your argument that they'd be too big is ridiculous because Blizzard could simply make them a desirable size. I say Tauren or Draenei size works just fine. Your response? Nothing.

Your argument that they'd be "too flashy" makes no sense because there's multiple iterations of technology abilities and none of them are flashy.

Your argument that they'd be "too outlandish/fantastical" is stupid because technology is a fairly common theme in WoW, and it's not out of the ordinary to see a Goblin or Gnome pilot a mech.

Your argument that they'd be "too silly" is simply your personal opinion, and pretty much meaningless.

I'm not arguing against the Tinker, conceptually, I'm arguing against a few specific manifestations of that concept. If Blizzard wants to implement the class, they will, it just most likely won't look like anything you've suggested in your "whimsical" threads previously. The only interesting thread you've started was the one involving the Artificer, because it's more grounded and realistic, the rest of the threads belong in a dark, dark hole.

Where did I say they were guaranteed? I said that there's a higher chance for something to be implemented if it already exists in the game world. Certainly there's a chance that if a Tinker class is implemented, it would resemble the old WC3 iteration, but that's doubtful because no iteration of Tinker in WoW has displayed the mechanical back-pack set up.

I can't actually think of anything playable, either class or race, that existed in it's current form before it was made playable. So, "higher chance" doesn't really apply.

Blood Elves.
Draenei.
Worgen.
Goblins.
Death Knights.
Monks.
Demon Hunters.
Pandaren.

None of those existed in-game before being implemented. I find it extremely unlikely that they'd just roll the dice when it comes to the success (i.e. sales) of any future expansion, by betting on people being hyped for something that's existed in-game for 13+ years. But hey, what do I know, just drawing from how every expansion and every major patch has worked out thus far. Who knows? Maybe this billion dollar franchise is worth the gamble, to them.

Additionally, if we're concerned about something looking silly, the mechanical backpack iteration looks far sillier than the full mech iteration.

Anecdotally, most people I ask (which, today, was quite a few) just screech out something like this when I ask if they'd play a Gnome-only Tinker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaG5SAw1n0c

You've clearly never heard of proof of concept.

Gnomes and Goblins are very, very unpopular. That's fairly strong evidence that this concept isn't likely to prompt mass sales.

Why would it have to be either or? Why must the size be either gigantic or the size of a human? What's wrong with it simply being the size of a full-armored Tauren/Draenei?

There's nothing wrong with it. I said humanoid, not human. NE's, Draenei, Tauren, all humanoid. All fine.

"Fantastical" doesn't work either, since technology is all over the game world. You even have two races that live in futuristic cities, and one alien race that arrived on an inter-dimensional spaceship.

Scientology is all over the real world. That doesn't make it any less batty.

That it exists doesn't mean everyone suddenly will enjoy it, and based upon the Goblin/Gnome playerbase, most don't seem like they will ever enjoy it.

[Echoherb]

Tinkers will never be a class. Bank on that.

A lot of people said this about Demon Hunters

[Benomatic]

1. Abilities and concepts have been brought over to WoW from HotS. So yeah, HotS is relevant to this discussion.

2. Yes, a tech class riding a mech is head-canon, unlike you i never said differently. What I'm saying is that there is a basis for a mecha-riding tech class in WoW. Especially with the numerous examples we've gotten since the end of MoP.

Just to back you up here Teriz, didn't Thermaplugg ride a mech? since vanilla even? http://wow.gamepedia.com/Sicco_Thermaplugg

[33kamous3]

I've noticed that if you look at the entries for the major lore characters on the wiki sites, many of them are listed under different classes or as a combination of classes. For example, Thrall is listed as "shaman, warrior, far-seer." Sometimes its because the character goes through changes, sometimes its because the character has always manifested qualities from more than one class.

It would be a nightmare from a class-balancing perspective, but I've always thought it would be cool if you could take your established character and then "cross over" to access a mini talent tree from another class. So lets say you start out with a warrior, then once you hit a certain level (or some kind of threshold) you can choose one of a few other "adjacent" classes (say shaman, rogue, hunter, or paladin) and gain access to a few of their abilities. You'd end up with a character that's a hybrid of two classes (warrior/shaman, warrior/rogue, etc) and there's probably names for most of them already (Primalist, Vindicator, etc).

In addition to the problem of balance, you'd also need to have a way to differentiate a warrior-shaman from a plain ol' enhancement shaman, and a warrior-shaman from a shaman-warrior. But the main thing is that instead of adding a whole new "hero" class that "feels op" but still exists on the same power-level as the traditional classes, you could have your established character mature in a new way. Maybe you could also have the option to go "deeper" into your original class if you didn't want to add the second class.

Ever since WotLK, I've always disliked how they've handled the idea of "hero classes" in WoW. Even before the garrisons and class halls and specific recognition from the major lore figures, player characters have always been hero-classes in the sense that we're better and more complex than the npc's like guards and grunts. It's seems hard to credibly differentiate the hero classes like DK and DH from, say warriors and paladins, without going overboard and making them overpowered.

[Teriz]

There's no way of "knowing" how something is going to turn out before it is implemented; all we can do is educate ourselves to the situation(s) that are relevant to said implementation and speculate from there. In this case, there are numerous "tells" that suggest Tinker (at least, the version of it most popular on these forums) wouldn't be well-received.

It's likely that the most important of these "tells" is that most suggestions include restricting the class to Gnomes and Goblins -- which, excepting Pandaren, are the two least played and (seemingly) least enjoyed races in the entirety of the game. At the surface of things, you might argue that DH's were also restricted to only two races and it worked out fine... yet, there is an enormous difference between restricting a class to the two most popular races and restricting a class to the two least popular.

If hypothetical examples are your thing, consider the following:

--Monks are the least played class in the U.S. who're of an adequate level for current content (100-110).
--Monks account for 5.6% of the total population in the U.S., who're of an adequate level for current content (100-110).
--Were Monks, seemingly unpopular already, to be restricted to an unpopular race (Pandaren) their percentage of the population would drop to 1.06%.

Source: https://realmpop.com/us.html

The very notion of implementing a class that is bound to races which are within a single-point range, in terms of percentage of the population, of this exact situation should be cause for concern all on it's own without any discussion of class fundamentals coming into the equation at all.

So just to answer my previous question; You don't know. You're simply guessing.

To your point above, the main problem with this is that you're assuming that a Tinker class would be as unpopular as the Monk class. Again, we don't know how popular the class would be, and we don't know what effect a highly enjoyable Tinker class would have on the Gnome and Goblin populations.

There's a variety of factors that caused both the Monk to have low numbers, and many of those factors are simply not in play with the Tinker class concept. Here's a few of them:

1. The Monk class literally came out of nowhere. Few people expected it, and there was no precedent in WoW for it.
2. The Monk class had similarities to the Rogue class, and was melee.
3. The Monk class arrived before WoW offered level boost, so Monk players had to start from level 1.
4. Blizzard had ridiculous balancing issues with the Monk class throughout MoP (especially Mistweaver), causing early adopters to jump ship.
5. The class was Pandaren-based and came on the heels of the Diablo Monk, which is the style players who desired the Monk class wanted. The "Kung Fu Panda" comparisons didn't help matters either.

Again, none of those issues (except maybe 4) are applicable to potential Tinker class.

That's fair, but understand that Blizzard is a business first and foremost. If their bait-and-hook features don't actually bait-or-hook, they're wasted development time/money -- from a business angle, if nothing else. Though, this particular case may well be because they didn't actually deliver on what they'd already told players to be expecting (namely, completely different feels to Horde/Alliance Pandaren).

However the fact remains that we don't know how Blizzard currently views the Monk and Pandaren populations, or how they view MoP as an expansion. We simply can't say that Blizzard views Monks/Pandarens as a failure because you personally view them as a failure. For all we know, Blizzard could be thrilled that Pandaren are maintaining 5% of their global subscriber base, because that 5% might not be playing right now if Pandaren weren't available.

Tell you what. You decide a time and date and we'll both login to either of the most populated servers in the US (pretty sure, Illidan and Sargeras) and we'll spend exactly one hour asking the same question:

"If it were implemented as the next class, do you think you'd like or dislike a class whose inspiration comes from Gelbin Mekkatorque or Siegemaster Blackfuse? Does your position change if the class can only be played as Gnome or Goblin?"

We can screenshot every answer and post them here for comparison. Unless you're worried that, when presented to real players, you're mostly going to get laughs and lots of "lulplsno" responses?

Except a survey like that doesn't prove anything. Someone could say "no" at that question, and still roll a Tinker if Blizzard implemented it because it looked cool when Blizzard revealed it, or because they saw a guildmate dominate their raid role with it.

So is your position that the Monk was based on the WC3 Brewmaster or not? Because the last thing you wrote said they were unrelated. I'm just looking for some consistency on this. For a friend.

Oh, the WoW Monk was definitely based on the WC3 Brewmaster. My point is that before MoP, the WoW Monk was more generalized. The Pandaren Monk that we got as a class was far more niche and light-hearted.

Not at all.

This particular exchange began when I suggested that niche classes probably aren't a good thing -- which is why Blizzard reiterated on the would-be class and adjusted their theme to more appropriately be described as "martial artist" instead of "drunken master".

You responded to this position with, "How exactly is a beer-chugging kung fu panda NOT a niche concept...?"

Which means you ignored the entire point of my initial post, pointing out that a "beer-chugging kung fu panda" is a niche concept... which is why that isn't descriptive of Monks, generally, at all. An intentional reality, brought to you by Blizzard.

No, I got your point. However the fact remains that the Pandaren Monk of WoW is a niche class because it is way different in tone and spirit than the other WoW classes, and Blizzard designed it that way.

I'm not arguing against the Tinker, conceptually, I'm arguing against a few specific manifestations of that concept. If Blizzard wants to implement the class, they will, it just most likely won't look like anything you've suggested in your "whimsical" threads previously. The only interesting thread you've started was the one involving the Artificer, because it's more grounded and realistic, the rest of the threads belong in a dark, dark hole.

Is that because you personally prefer dark, grittier concepts?

I can't actually think of anything playable, either class or race, that existed in it's current form before it was made playable. So, "higher chance" doesn't really apply.

Blood Elves.
Draenei.
Worgen.
Goblins.
Death Knights.
Monks.
Demon Hunters.
Pandaren.

None of those existed in-game before being implemented. I find it extremely unlikely that they'd just roll the dice when it comes to the success (i.e. sales) of any future expansion, by betting on people being hyped for something that's existed in-game for 13+ years. But hey, what do I know, just drawing from how every expansion and every major patch has worked out thus far. Who knows? Maybe this billion dollar franchise is worth the gamble, to them.

I'm going to ignore the races and focus on the classes, since that's what we're talking about here;

Death Knights: We had an entire raid of DKs in Vanilla long before they became a class in WotLK. They wore heavy armor, plenty of them were swinging 2h weapons around, and they had undead abilities, which is exactly what we ended up getting.

Demon Hunters: We had an entire raid full of Demon Hunters back in TBC, and our DHs do resemble the old Illidari from Black Temple. In a later expansion, there was a toy that transformed you into a Demon Hunter for 5 minutes.

Monks: There were a variety of Monk NPCs in the game before MoP; Risen Monks, Scarlet Monks, Auchenai Monk, and even a Blood Elf boss that had Monk-style abilities. Later (In WotLK) we had a Pandaren Monk pet that followed us around and did Kung Fu moves.

So yeah, each new class existed in-game as a concept years before they officially arrived in the game.

Anecdotally, most people I ask (which, today, was quite a few) just screech out something like this when I ask if they'd play a Gnome-only Tinker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaG5SAw1n0c

And that proves what exactly? That your friends are as immature as you appear to be?

Gnomes and Goblins are very, very unpopular. That's fairly strong evidence that this concept isn't likely to prompt mass sales.

Except Gnomes and Goblins the race isn't the concept. The concept is the class itself. If the class is awesome and plays well, people will play it, even if they're not a huge fan of the races in of themselves.

There's nothing wrong with it. I said humanoid, not human. NE's, Draenei, Tauren, all humanoid. All fine.

So the mech's size is no longer a problem then?

Scientology is all over the real world. That doesn't make it any less batty.

You're comparing a religion to a video game world purposely constructed by designers. Bad comparison is bad.

That it exists doesn't mean everyone suddenly will enjoy it, and based upon the Goblin/Gnome playerbase, most don't seem like they will ever enjoy it.

According to Blizzard itself there is a demand for the class. So clearly there's going to be some people who enjoy it. I personally don't have any Goblin or Gnome characters. I'd happily make both if a Tinker class is implemented.

[Chain Chungus]

The next hero class will be Tinkers. But I do believe we will have another basic class between DH and the next hero class. Probably Bards since Necromancers are just Unholy DKs in cloth.

[Deleted]

Mail user tank needed

[Teriz]

Just to back you up here Teriz, didn't Thermaplugg ride a mech? since vanilla even? http://wow.gamepedia.com/Sicco_Thermaplugg

Yeah, but Blizzard actually introduced a NEW version of Thermaplugg in Legion:

http://www.wowhead.com/npc=113621/endgineer-omegaplugg

He wasn't in a redesigned mech, but he had some new colors, and all-new abilities.

It was one of the several new instances of characters piloting mecha in Legion. I'm still wondering what the reason behind all of these instances are.

[Benomatic]

Yeah, but Blizzard actually introduced a NEW version of Thermaplugg in Legion:

http://www.wowhead.com/npc=113621/endgineer-omegaplugg

He wasn't in a redesigned mech, but he had some new colors, and all-new abilities.

It was one of the several new instances of characters piloting mecha in Legion. I'm still wondering what the reason behind all of these instances are.

It can't be purely an upgrade. http://www.wowhead.com/npc=108582/dx...k-legionkiller For example. The gnomes being brought to the forefront for a reason.

[Belisaurio]

The next hero class will be Tinkers. But I do believe we will have another basic class between DH and the next hero class. Probably Bards since Necromancers are just Unholy DKs in cloth.

Nothing against Tinkerers, but saying that Necromancers are Unholy DKs in cloth is like saying that DH are rogues with demon powers, or Priests are paladins with cloths...yeah, sure, but they can be really diferent and you already know that.
If people can't see how they can create a necromancer, is because they are a bit blinded in their creativity, same with any other class (and I'm a fan of the tinker class).

[Deleted]

If Teriz mentions mechas one more time I'm going to slit my wrists, it's bordering obsession at this point.

OT: Only HERO classses I can think of as being a good options are Wardens, Shadow Hunters, and Dark Rangers, as for how they would function? Who knows, all of them thematically can be ranged and melee DPS I think, but beyond that I don't know.

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I will say that the significant rise of rideable mecha in Legion has been very interesting. I really dont know why Blizzard decided to load up this expansion with so many instances of it.

Every expansion since BC has introduced various kinds of rideable dragons, yet we have not become Dragonsworn or whatever a class like that would be called, or Dragonkin yet.

It's not interesting, and there's no link.

[Deleted]

Come to think of it, Wardens, Dark Rangers and Shadow Hunters are all viable in a certain way. Blizzard tested the waters with DHs: the community will put up with 2 spec class as long as it's cool and OP enough. So 1 spec Warden, 1 spec Dark Ranger and 1 spec Shadow Hunter could be accepted as well.