World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth: The Reduce, Reuse and Recycle expansion.

[Blamblam41]

I’d like to start off by stating the obvious, this is an opinion. You’re entitled to yours, but let me explain to you why I’ve mine.

It starts with that first word, Reduce. The removal of artifacts, the restructuring of leveling and the streamlining of class gameplay has gone to great lengths to decrease the perceived ‘bloat’. These go hand in hand with measures taken that nerfed or otherwise dismantled methods of gaining gold that were deemed ‘harmful’ to the token. Now that leveling and even gameplay itself can be given a dollar value, it will be Reduced to the bare minimum requirements for a consumer product. It's a bit shameless and underhanded, but rather an inevitability of Blizzard's endless goal to appeal to efficiency among their players (even though they still can't manage to fix their own management problems circa end of expansion content droughts.)

The second word, Reuse, outlines their uncanny ability to take themes, plots and narrative structure not only from other cultures and media, but from their own. Case and point, the faction war. Yet another expansion with a story entirely focused on the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde. They call it a persistent theme. I call it an easy scapegoat to reuse the exact same elements and plots over and over again for maximum effect, just change the names of the characters and the plot devices. Perhaps there are new stories to tell, small grains of 'new' among the constant Reuse of themes already exploited and experienced over and over, as if this version is going to attract new people. Though, this Reuse doesn’t even begin to touch upon the elements they are pulling from previous expansions with a slightly new spin.

For that, we move onto Recycle. The bulk of Battle for Azeroth’s problems. But first, a history lesson: In Blizzard’s desperation to refine their systems to an acceptable state in which their game can have meaningful progression while also maintaining profitability, they discovered the largest and most expensive department by and large was the Art and Animation team. People wonder why WoD was a shitty expansion? Look at the graphical quality increase of literally everything from the start of MoP (logically when they would have started working on WoD) and the launch of WoD. They remade every single race into a universal skeleton rig, the graphical quality of the zones, sky boxes, enemy models, enemy animations all of it doubled in quality. I imagine their art team spent overnights for months trying to make it even work. They put literally everything they had into WoD’s graphical superiority keeping players (Not raiders) subscribed forgetting non-raid gameplay entirely into what resulted in objectively the worst expansion the games ever had.

What does this have to do with Battle for Azeroth? Everything, actually. Everything from Allied Races to Warfronts to Azerite gear. They are recycled systems of the last two expansions with shiny, new names on them and new selling points. Except it’s not really new. The Allied races are the same races we have had for a decade with alterations and changes pitched to be sold under a grind for kickstarting the expansion they’re being released in. Warfronts are reused Garrison assets in a reused RTS format in various reused zones across the game. Sure it’s inclusive, but is it really that interesting? Azerite is literally 3 different Legion systems tossed into one and shamelessly so, while also somehow providing less overall progression and customization than what the Netherlight Crucible itself got us. Even the little randomly generated islands they will be having us go to is reminiscent of both the Scenario and the Legion Assault systems.

In short, Battle for Azeroth and it’s alpha have proven one thing to me: This is Blizzard’s design direction. They are looking to monetize what they have already created rather than creating anything new or interesting. This is what they spent the entirety of Legion coming up with next, and it’s not that impressive.

There’s still time to refine it, but I’m calling this expansion for what it is: A second Warlords with an obsessive focus on selling what Warlords failed to sell in their foolish endeavor to appeal to raiders alone.

[Darkeon]

I usually like to experience my Expansions before reviewing them.

[Raone]

You could literally say this about every expansion including TBC as a reduced/resued/recycled version of vanilla .... there "expansions" not a brand new game, whats your point here? Other then trying to make Battle for Azeroth look bad based on extremely early alpha content.

[Jngizu]

I usually like to experience my Expansions before reviewing them.

Pretty much. A whole lot of words, for in the end, bringing nothing interesting. I'm not saying BfA looks promising or that I'm hyped, but AFAIK, you can only level to lvl 113 right now (might have changed in a recent build, haven't kept up). BfA still might be the best expansion to date, we have no idea.

From my experience, the patches are what makes or break an expansion. Sure, what we get on release needs to be great, but it's the updates that matter the most.

Release WoD was fucking amazing. Then after a few weeks, it got pretty clear that they had cut a ton of content and decided to shaft the expansion to focus on Legion. Cata also looked really promising on release. Then DS happened.

MoP on release, while having nice looking zones, was not well received at all. It was buggy, it had even more dailies than Cata, etc,... Then the patches came, and now, a ton of people consider it WoW's best expansion.

[Velerios]

Pretty much. A whole lot of words, for in the end, bringing nothing interesting. I'm not saying BfA looks promising or that I'm hyped, but AFAIK, you can only level to lvl 113 right now (might have changed in a recent build, haven't kept up). BfA still might be the best expansion to date, we have no idea.

I can definitively tell you that this will surely be NOT the best expansion yet. The only thing we get right now are warfronts, nothing else. Everything else is a copy&paste of Legion.

Isle expeditions are a bad copy of legion portals, but there we don't go onto a boring isle, we get on different planets. Some of them are so interresting that i really hope for an expansion there.

In the end we got nothing. And if we don't see at least quite an insane and new endgame-experience, than this will be not the best expansion yet. And if they had this killer-feature, they would have shown it on blizzcon.

Filler-expansion stays a filler-expansion.

[Taeldorian]

I can definitively tell you that this will surely be NOT the best expansion yet. The only thing we get right now are warfronts, nothing else. Everything else is a copy&paste of Legion.

Isle expeditions are a bad copy of legion portals, but there we don't go onto a boring isle, we get on different planets. Some of them are so interresting that i really hope for an expansion there.

In the end we got nothing. And if we don't see at least quite an insane and new endgame-experience, than this will be not the best expansion yet. And if they had this killer-feature, they would have shown it on blizzcon.

Filler-expansion stays a filler-expansion.

It’s not a copy paste, it’s taking systems and improving them. There’s a difference, it makes gameplay much better with the systems being better than they were.

Isle expeditions you have no idea about at all, we haven’t even seen them yet so you have no clue if they’re a bad version of legion portals. We don’t go to “one island” they literally are making a ton so every new island expedition should be a new island and you can choose to explore new islands. Just from that alone you’ve shown you know nothing about BfA even with the information given.

Here’s how I view BfA:

1. Less RNG. Titanforging chance reduced, 3 main pieces of gear can’t titanforge, weapons can’t titanforge, no RNG legendaries.

2. Incentive to mythic raid. We haven’t had this in a long time and legion completely lacked it, however with Azerite Armor not being able to titanforge means the mythic level gear will be the best. The traits in the gear are also better based on ilvl which makes the mythic versions even better.

3. Pvp gear progression returning. Pvp participation has been down overall in legion, this was one of the main complaints. Gearing in pvp is very fun so having this back will get more people into pvp including myself.

These are 3 huge positives about BfA that make it look very exciting. You can say that content has been “recycled and reused” since BC/vanilla. Raids? Recycled content. Assets? Reused. Skeletons? Reused. Systems? Recycled. Really there aren’t many people complaining about “recycled content” because it’s extremely stupid. It’s a 13 year old MMORPG things will be recycled and reused all the time. It’s common sense.

[Silver Forte]

Someone posts these copy/paste threads every time an expansion is announced. Every time.

[cparle87]

You could literally say this about every expansion including TBC as a reduced/resued/recycled version of vanilla .... there "expansions" not a brand new game, whats your point here? Other then trying to make Battle for Azeroth look bad based on extremely early alpha content.

This. I've seen this exact title every time. BC the RRR xpac, Wrath the RRR xpac, Cata the RRR xpac. OP needs some new material. He's becoming a blatant whiner up there with Trollduin Menefail and WoWIsDead64.

[Lac]

We know so very little about BfA at this stage so anyone making snap judgments falls squarely in the 'Sky is Falling' camp and should be ignored. We don't even know what the overall story of the xpac is yet. All we know right now it starts with horde v alliance and that the second raid involves Queen Azshara. In Legion terms, that is everything up to Gul'dan which leaves many surprises in store.

[Syegfryed]

BfA look like they are taking "the best" from WoD and Legion and putting in one, with more things to milk money from

It is reuse and recycle, but if they are reusing and recycling good old things, i don't have much of a problem.

I mean, legion had mistakes, not too much (but not too few) who are too big for me, worse than WoD, if they can fix this, using the "reuse and recycle" system, im ok

[Jngizu]

I can definitively tell you that this will surely be NOT the best expansion yet. The only thing we get right now are warfronts, nothing else. Everything else is a copy&paste of Legion.

Isle expeditions are a bad copy of legion portals, but there we don't go onto a boring isle, we get on different planets. Some of them are so interresting that i really hope for an expansion there.

In the end we got nothing. And if we don't see at least quite an insane and new endgame-experience, than this will be not the best expansion yet. And if they had this killer-feature, they would have shown it on blizzcon.

Filler-expansion stays a filler-expansion.

Does it matter though? As long as those systems are fun, I don't see the problem with it. But my entire point is that what makes 90% of an expansion are the world, the story, and the instanced content.

What did MoP have in terms of features compared to Cataclysm? Just flex that came with SoO, that's it IIRC. But people still praise it as the best expansion in WoW. If BfA has amazing leveling, zones (what we've seen so far looks gorgeous), dungeons and raids + the extras with warfronts, isles expedtions and the likes, it might very well end up being amazing.

My real concern is for classes's gameplay. I have a hard time trusting them on that. But the rest? We literally don't know yet aside from the premise (which isn't that exciting, true).

[Kathranis]

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth: The Reduce, Reuse and Recycle expansion: The Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle thread.

[lazza25784]

Pure speculation and another pointless post. Until the expansion has concluded you cannot really draw this conclusion.

[bardicbass616]

Gasp! A game that releases content based on ideas from it's own history and universe? How dare they!

[Deleted]

I usually like to experience my Expansions before reviewing them.

No flawed Logic! you will dislike it, and you will dislike it now!

[rda]

Here’s how I view BfA:

[...]

3. Pvp gear progression returning. Pvp participation has been down overall in legion, this was one of the main complaints. Gearing in pvp is very fun so having this back will get more people into pvp including myself.

Could you be a bit more specific regarding this item 3?

What are you referring to? Any links / interviews? (Basically, I guess it's either that I missed some announcement or I didn't miss anything and you are reading too much into one of the things they did say.)

[Deleted]

I usually like to experience my Expansions before reviewing them.

Please marry me.

Also, to the OP: it's a 14 year old game, be thankful we're still getting new content instead of going into maintenance mode. They're not going to reinvent the wheel - or any part of it - at this point.

[tikcol]

Why play Bfa with classic on its way? Forget about such petty games and focus on the impending return of the true world of warcraft game...

[Taeldorian]

Could you be a bit more specific regarding this item 3?

What are you referring to? Any links / interviews? (Basically, I guess it's either that I missed some announcement or I didn't miss anything and you are reading too much into one of the things they did say.)

They’re returning pvp gear to pvp vendors in BfA. What else would that mean? It was in the last QA. They stated they went too far with stat templates and will allow you to customize secondary stats through pvp gear.

[Marcellus1986]

Why play Bfa with classic on its way? Forget about such petty games and focus on the impending return of the true world of warcraft game...

Yeah in three years. Have fun playing a shittier version of retail.