Battle for Azeroth Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Aeluron Lightsong]

They used Wrath of the Lich King not because of the word Lich but to point to the character that is the Lich King. That's pretty obvious to anyone that poked at Warcraft III and The Frozen Throne.

[Soulwind]

@Soulwind - by your logic, they can absolutely have an expansion with a character name in it. Like, say "Corruption of Jaina" (I know it's super crappy, just throwing it out there as an example)
1. Corruption - pretty self explanatory.
2. There is a character Jaina and she gets corrupted.
3. She's in the expansion name, so she must be important.

Add to it a nice box art featuring Jaina - "this is an expansion about this girl, who is very important and gets corrupted by something evil". The title definetely conveys what the expansion is about. That said, I don't really think they will do it - but not due to the reason you listed. I just think that they won't want to outright base an entire expansion around a single, specific character. Even WotLK was not really about Arthas personally, but about the Lich King, who - while being only one character, had a huge army of mindless undead under him and the expansion was about the whole package.

Yeah, the thing with that is that in your example, Jaina could be a place that's corrupted, or someone different than the girl in the box art. Jaina doesn't mean anything, and corruption isn't that specific either. Maybe Jaina is a dimension, and the corruption comes from it, and it infects the poor girl below!

Mists of, only applies to a place, and it sets a theme of mistery and adventure. Pandaria being also a fairly obvious name.

Warlords of, could technically apply to a character, but if that were the case, it would probably be Draenor's Warlords. The word Draenor isn't as transparent, I'll give you that.

I can't think of many subtitles that would feature a name and give enough context for it at the same time.

It's not impossible, and like every other theory about what they're going to do based on what they've done, it's flawed at its base. But if we are to speculate about the name of the expansion, I think it's worth keeping in mind the way the previous ones have been worded.

[Sarethion]

Yeah, the thing with that is that in your example, Jaina could be a place that's corrupted, or someone different than the girl in the box art. Jaina doesn't mean anything, and corruption isn't that specific either. Maybe Jaina is a dimension, and the corruption comes from it, and it infects the poor girl below!

You're right, but Jaina doesn't really sound like a place, so the most simple and obvious association people could make is think that Jaina = that girl on the box. Or, at least, I think most people would think that Still, that's a good point.

But if we are to speculate about the name of the expansion, I think it's worth keeping in mind the way the previous ones have been worded.

I agree. They might always do something completely unlike anything they've done before, but the naming convention they've used so far definetely is something that's worth keeping in mind.

Overall, I agree. I don't think they will have any character in the expansion's name.

[Tartys]

Maybe this time they won't follow this "rule", but chances are, their marketing team has already chosen a name that sounds good and isn't too obscure.

No, not for Jaina, for two reason:
1) It's an Ally character
2) Is a secondary character with one role: be pissed of and you dont name ax expansion about someone that is just be angry.

[Valysar]

Can someone tells me if we'll be AK41 tomorrow after Maintenance?

[Chickat]

It expires Friday.

I'd wait until early November and then resub. Gives you 1-2 weeks to gear up and see everything and then the raid unlocks mid-late November.

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America can beta test the patch before we get it. Nice, huh?

Pretty bug free for the most part. Id say NA wins this one.

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Can someone tells me if we'll be AK41 tomorrow after Maintenance?

Yes. My 40m missions last night turned into 160m today.

[GenericDragon]

Overall, I agree. I don't think they will have any character in the expansion's name.

This is why I like the names Shadowfall and Rise of the Naga Empire. The second one also just sounds really cool, since the box art would most likely have a snakeman on it and naga/snakemen/lizardmen are pretty staple rpg fantasy races.

[Chickat]

World of Warcraft: Nazjatar

If Najzatar become Azshara's continent.

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Maybe not the best name for marketing though.

[Pantupino]

I had to do it

[Deleted]

a couple hours into 110 and all my alts are killing mobs in 4-6 seconds.

Scaling IS a problem - 100-109 the scaling mobs dy in 4 seconds, you hit 110 the scaling mobs feel like hiting a wall. bad design is just bad design. ANd no scaling didnt brought us mobs in the old world as these mobs where mostly (except for the weapon quests) 110 mobs.

[Azalar]

I had to do it

image

Fixed that for you :P

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Scaling IS a problem - 100-109 the scaling mobs dy in 4 seconds, you hit 110 the scaling mobs feel like hiting a wall. bad design is just bad design. ANd no scaling didnt brought us mobs in the old world as these mobs where mostly (except for the weapon quests) 110 mobs.

So the scaling isn't quite the best but it still made the old world relevant after you hit max level.

[Paula Deen]

WoW Scaling is shit. See ESO and GW2 for proper implementation

[Paula Deen]

I don't honestly understand why people still defend this company.

They have had 10 years of raking in billions of dollars and they STILL can't seem to stop the huge droughts.

This is a BILLION DOLLAR endeavor. You cannot make the argument anymore than quantity/=/quality because we have neither received a large quantity of content NOR exceptional quality.

I will be the first to admit that Legion has been quite good. The content has come at a somewhat "faster" rate. Calling the content quality though is something I can't really do. Them calling 7.2 their biggest content patch ever was a laughable joke. A weekly meta-quest with the sort of content like "Do 12 WQs" and then about 2 "good" quests for each class at the end of that chain is not HEAPS of content.

The Broken Shore sucked ass. Period.

They claimed they had a MUCH BIGGER team this time around. They claimed it impacted WoDs development because of some "training" bullshit. Now, they're trained up now surely? Problem is they are all Diablo 3 devs and they are just loading the game up with bullshit RNG. But the team should be bigger right?

They also claimed that expansion development was happening alongside the expansion before it. So 8.0 should have started development at the same time as Legion.



Yet here we are again. Ion all but confirming another MASSIVE content drought. Why do people still defend it? They say "just un-sub" but that's not really the point is it? We're all fans, we like playing this game.

I know myself and hundreds of thousands of others will un-sub - That's not me speaking for other people I don't know. That's fact. It's what always happens because after 10 years they still can't get it right.

Honestly after MoP I had faith in teams other than the art team. .. now I barely have faith in the artists. Its really sad that the game as a whole has sunk so low especially after promises like no droughts and big ones like biggest patch ever. The game is just sad now.

[rda]

I don't honestly understand why people still defend this company.

They have had 10 years of raking in billions of dollars and they STILL can't seem to stop the huge droughts.

This is a BILLION DOLLAR endeavor. You cannot make the argument anymore than quantity/=/quality because we have neither received a large quantity of content NOR exceptional quality.

I will be the first to admit that Legion has been quite good. The content has come at a somewhat "faster" rate. Calling the content quality though is something I can't really do. Them calling 7.2 their biggest content patch ever was a laughable joke. A weekly meta-quest with the sort of content like "Do 12 WQs" and then about 2 "good" quests for each class at the end of that chain is not HEAPS of content.

The Broken Shore sucked ass. Period.

They claimed they had a MUCH BIGGER team this time around. They claimed it impacted WoDs development because of some "training" bullshit. Now, they're trained up now surely? Problem is they are all Diablo 3 devs and they are just loading the game up with bullshit RNG. But the team should be bigger right?

They also claimed that expansion development was happening alongside the expansion before it. So 8.0 should have started development at the same time as Legion.



Yet here we are again. Ion all but confirming another MASSIVE content drought. Why do people still defend it? They say "just un-sub" but that's not really the point is it? We're all fans, we like playing this game.

I know myself and hundreds of thousands of others will un-sub - That's not me speaking for other people I don't know. That's fact. It's what always happens because after 10 years they still can't get it right.

Yes to everything you said.

I will add this:

As I said before, they are obviously reducing the development efforts. This is clearly seen through all of Legion (and likely started in WoD). It's not even that they try their hardest to fix things (eg, avoid droughts) and can't do that because the task is too big. No. For at least the last two years it's that droughts are built-in into the system, and all they are doing in relation to them is trying to spread the content thinner, trying to make up "more content" by doing trivial stuff like adding more numeric coefficients to existing content, and trying to delay players by whatever means.

Having little original content *is an intent*. They don't view WoW as something with potential. They view it as something that used to be big but now is going to dwindle no matter what they do. So they reduce the time they spend on it to the bare minimum that can keep the sub money coming for as long as possible, and the real work and effort and ideas and life and bets they put into other projects.

It is pointless to expect anything. The ship sailed several years ago. One day we might know what was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back (perhaps it was a big disarray during development of WoD and a complete failure of WoD that became apparent very early into an addon - maybe some of the disarray is related to Metzen leaving and some reshuffles following with nobody at the helm for some time / a wrong guy at the helm, I don't know).

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PS: The "we have a MUCH BIGGER team" is almost certainly just some creative counting = an oblique lie. Like, you know, there was some routine reorganization and the person who said that counted one number for "now" and another number for "before". (Example to illustrate the point: let's say part of the reorg is a creation of a separate team for Battle.net, drawing from all projects, the counting guy is now counting the whole new team towards WoW and this creates an illusion of "we have a MUCH BIGGER team" while in reality nothing happened - and if we are going to nitpick, WoW actually lost part of the devs, they are now busy with general Battle.net services and if WoW wants some feature related to that, that feature is going to wait in line.) This happens all the time. No wonder the key WoW guy now is a lawyer.

[Nyel]

No, not for Jaina, for two reason:
2) Is a secondary character with one role: be pissed of and you dont name ax expansion about someone that is just be angry.

Pretty sure Jaina is the protagonist / antagonist in the next expansion.

[rda]

BTW, here is a summary of 7.3 so far:

The story line starts and very soon stops at the time gate.

The mob density is such that you aggro a couple every two steps. You also cannot fly. Both these things desperately try to slow you down and make a very small amount of content seem bigger, yet it still ends in something like two hours at best.

Really, 7.3 is very similar to what 7.2 was and is very characteristic of what WoW currently is / what it will continue to be until the end. You run out of content in hours after a major patch, insane time gates on everything, Ion "doing a good job" of keeping a straight face saying things like "biggest patch ever". Please pay your $15.

[Tartys]

Pretty sure Jaina is the protagonist / antagonist in the next expansion.

Not the antagonist... about that Ion was quite clear, when he says that she will not a "dreadlord", he means she will not play the "bad guy" role.
We will have to deal with her, but probably she will be play a role like "illidan". And I would not be surprised if Thrall would come back too...

[Nyel]

Man, 1 hour on Argus and I miss flying. Those horrible pathways and little hills that make you go round a hill and walk 100m more than needed is just awful game design.

[Ashenhoof]

Man, 1 hour on Argus and I miss flying. Those horrible pathways and little hills that make you go round a hill and walk 100m more than needed is just awful game design.

I agree. Blizzard should only implement flat plateaus without vegetation, so you can run in straight lines and not be disturbed by silly things like hills. This would make everything better...

Imo if Blizzard would ever implement flying on Argus or any other feature patch zones, where we have a high enemy density, they should be shooting everyone that is flying down immediately. That would be great.