No new expansion, instead WoW 2

[Deleted]

First off i'd like to say, this is not a leak. This is mere speculation based on what I think is possible and i think there are subtle hints out there that back up of what I think might be possible.

What?
Since World of Warcraft has come out, the big looming ultimate enemy has been Sargeras, leader of the burning legion. Soon in legion, we finally get to face him - resolving a 10+ years long plot line.

World of Warcraft, despite continuous development and iteration, has become bloated. It has a hard time luring a new generation of gamers in because of this content bloat. The starting experience is confusing and outdated - and is not representative of the leaps in quality each new expansion brings, but many players do not get to see because they have been put off by early gameplay.

As some may know, in early stages of development of Legion - it had not been the original plan to visit Argus and confront Sargeras. Legion's plotline had been altered along the way; Thal'dranath (content originally planned for legion and is confirmed by Ion to have been replaced by Argus) had to make way for the final confrontation.

In recently datamined files which can be found on various fansites, it has been discovered that in a final act of spite Sargeras plunges his sword in Azeroth (Silithus), clearing the way for a new ultimate enemy, a new story and era for the Warcraft IP. Beginning with the release of the Old Gods, which will reshape the face of Azeroth and working up towards facing the Void Lords - which will be told over the lifespan of a new game.

The perfect end of World of Warcraft, and a spectacular fresh start of a newly shaped Azeroth in a succesor; World of Warcraft II

Why?

Timing
We are currently in the longest period WoW has ever known from release of a new expansion, to an announcement of a new expansion. Many expected Blizzard to announce a new expansion at GamesCom last summer, like they did for Legion - But they decided to sit on new information for BlizzCon - possibly because they want to announce something as big as a new game at their own convention.

To add to this, it has been confirmed by Blizzard that they have nothing to announce for the Diablo franchise this Blizzcon. This is possbly due to the fact that they do not want another game to steal thunder from their new game.

Year in Review video
During the year in review video recently released by Blizzard, Ion Hazzikostas was expected by many to release a statement about the announcement of a new expansion for World of Warcraft. Instead Ion say's

*"What is Next? Where can we possibly go after this climactic battle that awaits us. and I can't wait to tell everybody more about this at BlizzCon"*
youtube.com/watch?v=SCKXH3Boivw

Tom Chilton
At GamesCom 2014, Tim Chiton (former WoW game director, moved on to an unannounced project) said in an interview with gameinformer when asked if WoW2 is a possibility the following:

*"Definitely. It’s something we have talked about. It’s something we have talked about for ten years.I think that there are a lot of challenges there in seeing how World of Warcraft II relates to World of Warcraft, do they live alongside each other, does one feed into the other, what is that product, etc. These are challenges that have to be figured out before that becomes a reality.”*

gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/08/15/tom-chilton-talks-world-of-warcraft-ii-and-warlords-of-draenor.aspx

---------------------------------------

I am curious to know what you guys think about this. Is WoW2 imminent? If so, will there be new classes? How will combat work? Will there still be a subscription? Discuss!

[Lochton]

Yeah, doubt it.

And the reason no info on GamesCom was most likely because they realized it was a mistake. It took A LOT of thunder away from BlizzCon.

[Eurhetemec]

People are going to tell you it's not possible, but in Gamasutra interview in 2010, one of the Blizzard high-ups (Rob Pardo maybe? I know he's not there any more) said they'd been planning for WoW2 since Vanilla (which I notice Tom's 2014 statement 100% agrees with).

However, he said that given the success of WoW, the only thing that would create a "WoW2" would be if they felt the current WoW engine had gone as far as it could technologically, and that the designers could not do what they wanted with the current engine (by which he seemed to mean a lot more than just graphics/physics, but the way the game was built, the way the players interact with things and so on - little has fundamentally changed in those regards since 2004).

That was 2010. Things change, but it might be worth adding to your data points. Obviously we can't tell if the engine has gone as far as it can. My feeling is - not yet. They've expanded it in fantastic ways.

All that said, if you were going to do WoW2, this isn't a bad juncture. The most pressing threat to the world (the Legion) is defeated. The Old Gods do not seem to be particularly up to anything right now. Same for the Void lords.

So if you wanted to skip forwards, say, 20-200 years, this would be a good moment, maybe the moment.


Do I think it's happening? No. Not yet. Blizzard don't seem to have a big secret project right now, and if they'd been working on an actual WoW2, they would have had to have had a fairly large-scale secret project for at least 3-4 years, I'd say. Titan died less time ago than than, and that was their "big secret project" up to that point.

Do I think they continue to plan for WoW2? Yes. Do I think there will be a WoW2? Yes. Do I think Blizzard will be the first company to really make a direct-sequel MMO work? Almost certainly - they're superb at learning from other people's mistakes. But now? No.

I have considered this for similar reasons to you, but I suspect the most we'll see if a big revamp of WoW, and probably not even that.



As for "what would WoW2 look like"?

Well, I believe it would be:

A) A full-price game.

B) Sub-based, but... I believe they'd make your "WoW sub" cover both games with no increase in cost. This would allow tremendous player retention and actually convince skeptical people to try the new game.

C) Gameplay would almost undoubtedly be a bit more action-oriented, but also probably a bit more simplified - not in a dumbed-down sense, but in a "less artificial, more natural" sense.

D) Most systems would probably bear very little similarity to WoW, in much the same way D3 bears little actual similarity to D2. This would turn some people on, and put others off. They'd be benefiting from well over a decade of learning "what works" in an MMO though.

E) If they have learned, they will be focusing on all aspects of "community" from day 1. And I mean all aspects. They will likely put guilds and getting together with others at the heart of the game, and try to make it accessible and natural and constant. They will be much less tolerant of trolls and shit-talkers and general community-harmers, because as time goes on, Blizzard have seen the harm they do more and more clearly.

F) Classes? They'll probably do something snazzy and somewhat ill-advised, but I suspect they'll keep a class-based system.

Anyway, I suspect it's years out. My feeling is the only way it'll arrive before about 2025 is if VR sudden catches on like wildfire. I would be very unsurprised to see a WoW2 as Blizzard's first big game developed with VR in mind. But only if VR catches on, and that still isn't happening.

[Steampunkette]

WoW2 would be a massive mistake.

WoW is the perfect storm. It was based on videogame lore that hooked people into it's story when it came out, it launched when MMOs were just becoming a hot new product, and it marketed itself to the widest possible fanbase through it's similarity to other unrelated properties.

But that's how it -started-. How it continued was by being the game anyone could play, and that anyone -should- play. You usually don't see people who are the only person they know playing WoW. Friends, family, friends of friends. The came is -lousy- with recommendations. The only reason I played it is because my 60 year old mother (At the time) had been playing from Vanilla through Wrath with my older brother and twin sister and finally convinced me to pick it up.

These connections, and the connections created within an active guild structure, really helped to give people a sense of community and almost family-like quality to the game.

WoW is not the finest game on the market. I honestly prefer Wildstar's combat system and SWtoR's focus on my character's personal story. And the Elder Scrolls and Dark Age of Camelot had a much better conceit for mass PvP in their territory control designs. No. WoW is the game that everyone plays. And most of us play for the Momentum of it. We've spent years playing and it's a part of our lives. So we keep playing.

Even when someone dislikes a given bit of content.

WoW 2 would undercut the hell out of that. It would destroy the momentum aspect by asking us all to start over. No more 3 million gold in your bank. All your mounts and achievements and transmog gear gone. Every pet and every toy you've found. All gone. All the old quests and dungeons and raids and environments: POOF! Gone.

There's some incentive to play the new game, but what you'd -lose- would wind up killing the attention of a massive portion of the playerbase who just aren't interested in trying to invest that much time, energy, and flat out cash in something new when they have something familiar and warm, like an old blanket.

[Deleted]

Yeah, no. We still need a void themed expansion, as the void is the ultimate evil after all. After we had that i can see them working on another big project like WoW2 or MMO diablo or something.

[Volendrung]

WoW2 would be a massive mistake.

WoW is the perfect storm. It was based on videogame lore that hooked people into it's story when it came out, it launched when MMOs were just becoming a hot new product, and it marketed itself to the widest possible fanbase through it's similarity to other unrelated properties.

But that's how it -started-. How it continued was by being the game anyone could play, and that anyone -should- play. You usually don't see people who are the only person they know playing WoW. Friends, family, friends of friends. The came is -lousy- with recommendations. The only reason I played it is because my 60 year old mother (At the time) had been playing from Vanilla through Wrath with my older brother and twin sister and finally convinced me to pick it up.

These connections, and the connections created within an active guild structure, really helped to give people a sense of community and almost family-like quality to the game.

WoW is not the finest game on the market. I honestly prefer Wildstar's combat system and SWtoR's focus on my character's personal story. And the Elder Scrolls and Dark Age of Camelot had a much better conceit for mass PvP in their territory control designs. No. WoW is the game that everyone plays. And most of us play for the Momentum of it. We've spent years playing and it's a part of our lives. So we keep playing.

Even when someone dislikes a given bit of content.

WoW 2 would undercut the hell out of that. It would destroy the momentum aspect by asking us all to start over. No more 3 million gold in your bank. All your mounts and achievements and transmog gear gone. Every pet and every toy you've found. All gone. All the old quests and dungeons and raids and environments: POOF! Gone.

There's some incentive to play the new game, but what you'd -lose- would wind up killing the attention of a massive portion of the playerbase who just aren't interested in trying to invest that much time, energy, and flat out cash in something new when they have something familiar and warm, like an old blanket.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Yunru]

There is a high chance they will add Wow 2. But 1.st they need to milk wow as much as posible, since once you add a new version a lot of people will jump on it.

[LordOmedon]

As far as Blizzard has come in using Legion to let every player "own their time" as an individual and as a default option, they still need a population to keep it functioning, especially with the faction divide in place (though I wouldn't complain about seeing it go away), and so giving the "warcraft audience" a new shiny in the same genre is highly unlikely.

Diablo was ok to do sequels, it's 100% a solo driven game with multiplayer kinda tacked on, especially in the current market of online gameplay being no longer novel.

Starcraft was a bit of an anomaly, I'll grant you that, they sequeled Starcraft within its own genre, but it also doesn't claim to have a massive, visible, potentially co-operative community as part of its core genre. WoW as an "EverQuest" model MMO demands a certain visibility to the community to give it "life." RTS doesn't need that, its "community" are people in the lobby. WoW needs people logged in in significant numbers to function properly, and dividing the playerbase between WoW and WoW2 would hamstring it. Just ask EverQuest.

[Tanthoris]

I honestly don't see a WoW 2 happening with the way the gaming trends are going atm. Huge movements away from MMORPGs to more like MOBA games and such, which is a part of why WoW population has dropped so much in the last few years. Most of the Warcraft stories have been played out now, only things left are the remaining old god, Azshara, and the void. We'll probably see a Warcraft 4 before we see a WoW 2 imo

[druenos]

I'm sure I've heard them say in the past there will never be a Wow 2. They would rather make small improvements in new xpacs and patches over time.

[Steampunkette]

Now Starcraft Online or some other title for same? THAT they could do. Some of their WoW players would swap over, but they're still getting the same amount of cash from them, but they'd also net a big part of the Spacefaring/Sci-fi crowd. And then there'd be a -lot- of WoW players who would simply start playing both games. And so long as they staggered their expansions and content drops they'd wind up getting their hooks even more deeply into the WoWplayers who hop over to Starcraft. Expansion Lull? Hop to the other game! Expansion lull? Jump back!

But the class/race design doesn't work particularly well in that game, with Terrans all being the same race on their "Side" and there only being one type of infected terran over in Zergville while the Protoss are all Protoss. It's the classes that separate them, there, and... well... it gets complex on how it won't work without shifting the way the game setting exists, now, in a fairly drastic manner.

[Smokinya]

Everquest is older than WoW and still releases expansions. We aren't going to be getting a WoW 2 anytime soon. Not within the next two decades.

[MoanaLisa]

It is unlikely that there will ever be a WoW II.

No one has yet explained how Blizzard will create a separate expansion with 50 or 60 starting levels--a project that would require a very large team and several years--and continue to release expansions every 18 months or so. Or what lore it would be based on. Or explained how it would be so very different from what we have now.

This fantasy also ignores the simple fact that Blizzard has more or less made expansions much the same as standalone games. That in itself pretty much negates any need to create a separate MMO. Expansions are, in nearly every way that matters, a separate MMO that is simply stacked on top of what has come before.

[Magistrate]

I believe they said that Warlords was the first of three expansions all in varying states of development before Warlords released, meaning that we should have at least one more expansion on the current game.

Regardless, I think they'd be vary wary of how WoW2 would be done, and I'm skeptical it will happen while the current game is still financially profitable, which seems to be the case despite the conspiracy theory naysayers. There's so many issues that could lead to tragic reception--reimaginings of old content either being too similar or too different from original, tons of collections (toys, mounts, achievements, mog) that millions of players would hate losing... not having access to older classes, specs, raids, dungeons, scenarios, battlegrounds, arenas, landmasses, questlines, etc., at launch, as the scope of WoW1 could never be re-released completely redone in its entirety, let alone any significant percentage.

There's so many ways it could spell doom. I mean, just look at how players reacted to some of the model updates--some differences being so minimal, yet arousing such ire.

Idk. I love new things, and I love Blizzard, and I'd definitely play it. But there's a lot of things to consider.

[druenos]

Also the only reason we got an announcement last time at Gamescon was because WOD was such a disaster they just wanted to move on. Announcing a new xpac at Blizzard this time is just a correction back to normal xpac reveals.

[Lazerbrain]

yes, wow 2 will happen, it might be a few years, im thinking 2020 is a good year to go wow 2.0.

[Zyky]

Yeah, doubt it.

And the reason no info on GamesCom was most likely because they realized it was a mistake. It took A LOT of thunder away from BlizzCon.

I agree with this, I also feel like the only reason the announced Legion at gamescom was because of the HUGE drought that was already happening in Warlords and how subs were dropping faster than ever before. They had to do something so they announced it at gamescome.

[oplawlz]

This fantasy also ignores the simple fact that Blizzard has more or less made expansions much the same as standalone games. That in itself pretty much negates any need to create a separate MMO. Expansions are, in nearly every way that matters, a separate MMO that is simply stacked on top of what has come before.

People love to ignore this. It's why the "subs are dropping because wow is old" argument never holds any water. The game succeeds or fails based on the quality of the current expansion, which is in essence a sequal to the previous one.

[Flurryfang]

Blizzard does not end WoW in Legion, so no... No WoW 2.

[Magistrate]

Also the only reason we got an announcement last time at Gamescon was because WOD was such a disaster they just wanted to move on. Announcing a new xpac at Blizzard this time is just a correction back to normal xpac reveals.

Definitely. It had to also not just be because of what a mess it became, but the severe, and long, content drought after specific promises to deliver on faster content. The news helped to partially deflect from that content gap, in addition to the general lack of quality and cohesion, as you point out.