WoW Expansions up to level 100 [rumors & spoilers]

[Wardley]

To be honest, I hope they don't just keep on churning up expansion packs to raise the level bar higher and higher. Would you really want to start a new character after the 4th expansion know that you've got 6 months work ahead of you to reach maximum level? I'm not sure I would.

Instead, what I would like would be for expansion packs covering different aspects of the game. The one that springs to mind (and I'm saying this as a non-twink player) is a Battlegrounds Expansion pack.

It could be something like this - have an island around the size of The Barrens and on this island is two cities - one alliance, one horde. In each city are Battlemasters for various different battlegrounds (say 5 to begin with). However, the island and the cities themselves are world pvp objectives as well. If you raid the city and kill one of the battlemasters, then all the battles that master is watching are won by the raiders (ie. horde raid the city and kill a battlemaster in which there are 7 battles in play at that moment - all 7 finish and the horde win all of them).

To make the battles more interesting, rather than just have 'get the flag' as a main goal, actually have some of them to collect resources. So, for example, have a battleground set within a mine and the goal is to collect as much ore as you can (so - you'll be needing miners in your team). You could do the same for collecting wood, herbs etc. in different battlegrounds.

Ok, so this wont be everyones favourite expansion - but you can bet that all the twinks that play will go out and buy it (esp. if it doesn't follow on from TBC - so that anyone at any level can play) and the good thing for Blizzard is that, once they've sorted out the world pvp stuff in WotLK (with siege weapons and destructable buildings) there shouldn't be anything extra for them to develop - just to come up with geography of the island and the battlegrounds within it. No need to worry about developing quests, and making sure a quest npc is doing what it should etc. cos there will be no questing on the island.

They're talking about some sort of 'world buff' for the new WotLK depending on whos winning that pvp area, so they could also do that for here as well - although, and this is where it probably does get complicated, I would do it so that the faction with the most resources collected gets a price drop in the amount it costs for repairs, to be food, get stuff from vendors (because more resources means cheaper prices).

[Discarded]

Much like they did after TBC I'm sure they will make lower level grinding easier and easier as the expansions grow. I'm sure it will eventually be intended that it will be as easy to level 1-100 as it was from 1-60. And really, this would be mostly frustrating for people rolling alts. People who are first playing the game won't be bored by 100 levels of content. That's usually the reason why most people buy the game, to experience it =P With the new hero class coming out, and possibly more in the future, it could be concieveable that all characters will start at 50 or 60 or 70, etc if you do some sort of hero type quest. Perhaps there will be quests to start your alts off at a higher level also. No matter which way they go they aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot with the leveling mechanic, but they are definitely going to continue to expand the game to 100 and very possibly beyond if it lives that long.

[Azain]

Much like they did after TBC I'm sure they will make lower level grinding easier and easier as the expansions grow. I'm sure it will eventually be intended that it will be as easy to level 1-100 as it was from 1-60. And really, this would be mostly frustrating for people rolling alts. People who are first playing the game won't be bored by 100 levels of content. That's usually the reason why most people buy the game, to experience it =P With the new hero class coming out, and possibly more in the future, it could be concieveable that all characters will start at 50 or 60 or 70, etc if you do some sort of hero type quest. Perhaps there will be quests to start your alts off at a higher level also. No matter which way they go they aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot with the leveling mechanic, but they are definitely going to continue to expand the game to 100 and very possibly beyond if it lives that long.

there was a rumor that once you have a 80 one your account, you will receive a token for a new character to begin at level 55-70, consuming that token of course and giving you an alt free of azeroth content. then you can grind the normal avenue of TBC, and get right back into WotLK without much delay. to me grinding 2 content packs instead of 3 is a good enough upgrade, and starting at 58 would put you in outlands, and of course to stop it from being abused, you would have to grind that 58-70 to 80 before you could start another.

only questions are things like starting gear and professions, do you give everyone t1/t2 at 60 and then let them replace it right away in hellfire, or maybe some s1 gear if you start at 70, who knows.

regardless i don't think it would hurt the game to give every current 70 a level 58 alt, especially for people who have played the game since release, over 3 years now , 2+ of that spent in azeroth its fun to grind the old content and experience it again, but it also becomes tedious at times. if i ever miss old content i take my 70 and ride around on my mount to bring back fun memories.

[Sevira]

...but it will take a lot to top Arthas.

of course it is hard to top arthas and the frozen throne (including the whole Nerzul, Frostmourne thingy)
but why? just of one reason.. most people that play WoW do know WC3 tft
and that people that do not know WC3 tft give a shit on how important the chars are
i know a lot of people that thought onyxia and killing her ist much more interesting than Thrall sitting on his dusty throne in orgrimmar

i dont know exactly how big the number of players is that never played tft but i think they outnumber the others
i just want to say that only because arthas was the most important person of tft you can not say that it is hard to top

to conclude, i made my own theorys about the end of Northrend
actually there is a lot of stuff thats not yet brought to an end and a lot of stuff that leads to greater problems
i think the bond of nerzul and arthas will be broken (he can't be defeatet, all mobs that are controlled by him would turn to what we know as the scourge oder just die)
and i think that there will be one person that will play an important role in the frozenthrone-raid
think of Jaina.. if Arthas will be the one to be defeatet she may be the one to join forces. this would be a good end if they finally get together ^^

(and i think the list in post1 is what they will do, after Lichking is gone they just need to give the burning legion one more chance to enter azeroth... and deathwings kids, the dwarfes, the underworld or the emerald dream will be good to fill up the time until we will face sargeras himself (maybe))

[fizzbang]

As of right now, it only takes about 168-192 play hours (7-8 game days) to go from 1 to 70, with a significant chunk of that time spent going from 61 to 70 (about 50 - 60 play hours). That really isnt too much time to ask, is it? Considering the level mechanics will probably remain the same, you could probably expect 70-80 to take between 60 and 70 play hours to achieve.

[Azain]

As of right now, it only takes about 168-192 play hours (7-8 game days) to go from 1 to 70, with a significant chunk of that time spent going from 61 to 70 (about 50 - 60 play hours). That really isnt too much time to ask, is it? Considering the level mechanics will probably remain the same, you could probably expect 70-80 to take between 60 and 70 play hours to achieve.

depends, what if you decide you want an alt, 7-8 games days could be 3-4 months for a casual player. why do you think so many people go to ptr to make a new class, they are bored of their own or just want something new. it wouldn't hurt the game to give it to them. and you overestimate that time for power leveling, my 41 mage is approx 1.5 days played, should be 50+ at 2 days played, but the motivation of people to grind alts varies and you can't penalize the casual player for wanting something different.

[Dje]

As of right now, it only takes about 168-192 play hours (7-8 game days) to go from 1 to 70, with a significant chunk of that time spent going from 61 to 70 (about 50 - 60 play hours). That really isnt too much time to ask, is it? Considering the level mechanics will probably remain the same, you could probably expect 70-80 to take between 60 and 70 play hours to achieve.

I think it took me 10-11 days /played to get my warlock alt to 70. In real time, it was something like 1.5-2 years.

I'm not pretending to be a typical case or that people should be able to get every class to 70 without a minimum of time investment. However, when talking about alt levelling you should also take real time into account, and that will add up quite a lot for most people.

[Mezz]

Well, we all (at least everyone who played tft) know kind of what will happen in wotlk
but im rly RLY looking forward to the expansions after. ill get any exp until blizz declares wow for dead an turns of the servers due to underpopulation just to see how the story goes ahead.

I dont have to do a lot with the lore but its FUCKING GREAT, just wanted to have that said.

@ Alt-lvling: blizz alrdy pronouced a questchain (sim. to wl mount) (at least for the dk) to start at 50/60/70?
they meintioned that it would be stupid to have millions of lvl1 dk running around. dont know if they'll take it to all other classes - but i think/hope so

im happy that we all come back to azeroth with the maelstorm/wotlk pack (im on since the release and miss it a bit im waiting for Grim Batol & Gilneas since 2004 - but i hope blizz keeps up the fliyng mounts...

[Flautze]

- Plane Set

Pandaria - 1 to 10
Hiji - 10 to 20

Wolfenhold - 1 to 10
Xorothian Plains - 10 to 20

So IF they actually go by this plan, this would mean 2 new races, 1 for each Alliance and Horde. Pandas / werewolves or something similar (judging by "wolfenhold").
But I still think its "impressive" that the zones from BC were kind of correct (besides Deadlands)

[Kanubis]

So IF they actually go by this plan, this would mean 2 new races, 1 for each Alliance and Horde. Pandas / werewolves or something similar (judging by "wolfenhold").
But I still think its "impressive" that the zones from BC were kind of correct (besides Deadlands)

Well, it seems possible that Deadlands were merged in to Terokkar as the Bone Wastes?

[overneathe]

Xoroth is the homeland of the Nathrezim so.... exciting. :]

[Eucep]

Wolfenhold would be of the Worgen most likely, though I don't see them joining either side, then again blood elves, meh. Perhaps neutral races who can join either side at the players choise.

I think Deadlands perhaps would have been an area between Ghostlands and Eastern Plaguelands?

[mokko]

The bone wastes make the most sense to me for the Deadlands It fits in with the name (Since most things there are dead) and it also fits in with the level range.

[shrike126]

Deadlands makes me think of Deadwind pass in Eastern Kingdoms. Granted it was already in the game, but since TBC also had Kara, maybe they had plans to flesh out that zone a bit more?

[Jing Guily]

wont happen

[Bramickias]

I hope thay will never do it 'cos it would downgrade WoW to some stupid manga game.

WoW is already looking more "manga" then FFXI.
But the pandaren would be a dumb race to include.
On the other hand, going from an April Fools joke about the 5th race in TFT to a race in the most successfull MMORPG to date would be fun to see.

[Tuig]

I think Deadlands perhaps would have been an area between Ghostlands and Eastern Plaguelands?

i think they ment Blasted lands, that they changed name before release or something, just guessing here

[bas]

speculated something like this for a long time

wow classic
outland (BC) - final boss Illidan/KJ
northrend (Wrath) - final boss Arthas
great sea - final boss Azshara/Neptulon
plane - final boss Sargeras or even something above him

about the Deadlands,
don't think it's the Bonewastes or Blasted Lands (those zones had those names since Wc2: beyond the portal); so might be either the Deadwind Pass or the area between Ghostland and EPL (DK starting zone maybe?)

[Kerros]

WOW that's amazing people are actually shocked by this. Wake up people THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN. Maybe not exactly as posted but I've seen this chart present to me by friends and other forums long ago. Also Blizzard has stated that they plan on released an expansion yearly now so by 2010 we ought to all be leveling to 100. I mean imagine how much fun it was doing in the quests in Outland and how much fun it was just tooling on mobs for that sick piece of gear that was actually a decent upgrade from epics and other blues you had goten earlier. They plan on implementing better and better experiences soon and before you know it bam your 100 and these are millions of raid instances for all levels to have fun in. Just wake up and realize that Blizzard can and will do anything they feel like doing to their WoW game. Enjoy 80 while it lasts

[frosty]

it's painful thinking about the journey from 1-100? :'(