Warcraft and its future - Possible Hints

[Yelmurc]

So I’ve been reading interviews with the devs today and noticed that they seem to be working on reworking a lot of the game.

From a gameplay perspective they have said this about questing

Expanding on how the team is always thinking about better ways to deliver the narrative to the players, Afrasiabi pointed out that while they love the questing system, it’s outdated. They are looking at better ways of conveying story via the questing system, though he didn’t give any specifics. He did say that whatever the solutions are, they will have to be built from the ground up “in a really cool way that will blow everyone away.”

https://blizzardwatch.com/2018/11/04...hree-factions/

Seems to me they are looking at revamping the questing system in the future. This could be the perfect opportunity to remake Azeroth as a whole.

They also talked about using the new AI on not just island teams but on bosses and groups of NPC’s

Jeremy Feasel : The island exploration AI is a real experience , and at the beginning of its design, we tried to implement it everywhere. For example, we wondered what would happen if a boss used the AI, then groups of 10 NPC for example. One of the things we wanted to do at the beginning was to test the AI and fix the bugs. So what we did was send two groups of NPCs with AI into the Arathi Basin.

https://translate.google.com/transla...onts-de-guerre

During the Q and A at Blizzcon Ion is not sure how a level squish would turn out psychologically and would like to hear feedback. Meaning they are open to the idea of a level squish.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...raft-Q-A-Panel

Also I pointed out on a post earlier today that the new portal rooms seem to be using new assets for Orgrimmar and Stormwind, possibly hinting at a rework of those cities.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...l-city-reworks

They are also revamping certain zones for warfronts and also updating Warsong Gulth and Arathi Basin.

Also in the translated interview with Jeremy Feasel and Tina Wang they said this (Note i believe yoke is Grasp) Why would they be reworking wintergrasp unless they are working on updating northrend zones.

Have you planned to add a new PVP area like Winter Yoke in the future?
Jeremy Feasel : These areas are part of the epic battlefields . Speaking of the winter yoke, it will soon become an epic battleground in the future. We will then get a maximum of feedback from you to see how things will evolve.

https://translate.google.com/transla...onts-de-guerre

Heck the new Mechagon area is probably assets from a Gnomeregan rework.

I feel that a revamped World of Warcraft might be coming with a level reset. With classic coming out this summer they don’t have to worry about people feeling nostalgic about the old world they can always just go and download classic and play it. They've been putting in the pieces slowly and surely since WoD with all the Orc and Draenai architecture and assets.

Maybe this doesn't happen in 9.0 but 10.0 seems likely enough time for them to do it in the background slowly.

Your thoughts?

[Doffen]

Cleave had a three-target limit, but Saurfang’s Cleave could hit ten targets.
I just love this one.

I do think they are thinking of ways to change WoW drastically. And some of this looks very nice. I mean, they have to. Can't ride on nostalgia forever. A "new" Azeroth or even world could be something they might add, to make it kinda new, but ride on the same systems they got now.

Personally I think we get a merge between the factions at one point, but not just merging it in a old fashioned way. Keeping the factions but make so that Alliance and Horde players can be in same guild, do raids together and so on.

[Halyon]

Can only hope they actually have something good coming, my faith in Blizz is very weak atm and could use a pick-me-up.

[Hugnomo]

As one would infer from my sig, I am a big proponent of this. And I also think it's a pretty reasonable next step. Considering how this expansion is going, I would not be surprised if the development effort for this one was lowered in favor of the next one.

[Kathranis]

I believe the new Portal Rooms are using assets they developed for the Arathi Highlands Warfront, but the buildings could be new, too. I'd have to look again. However, in developing the Warfronts, they're also creating a lot of new assets that would be useful for a visual refresh of the old world.


The Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin revamps obviously include new versions of a lot of old assets, but with the same geometry and collision data. I would guess that the BG revamps are a trial run for a visual refresh of the old world, since all it would really take to update those zones is replacing old assets with new assets and maybe manually touching up a few things here and there. With Classic preserving the old state of the game, I think it opens the developers to take bigger risks on Live when it comes to making changes.


They first started talking about the possibility of a level squish last Blizzcon, and Ion similarily asked for feedback and seemed hesitant that it could be too big a psychological hurdle for players.

However, personally, I think a level squish absolutely should happen, and would solve a lot of problems with the pacing of game. More importantly, I think the optimal time to do a level squish is rapidly approaching, as squishing from 120 to 60 would dramatically simplify the process, as they could effectively just halve all of the numbers in the game, across the board. This would be a great first step to improve the feeling and rewards of leveling, as you'd get new abilities twice as quickly, and could get new talents every ten levels, new abilities every level. Reducing the time-to-level across the board would also help streamline the leveling process, while the level scaling would keep it from feeling like you're out-leveling content.

Alongside that, they could adjust the zone/story progression, streamlining things to tell a linear story from 1-60, starting with Cataclysm, progressing into Mists of Pandaria, then into WoD, Legion, and BfA. Keep BC/Wrath as optional, alternate paths.

I think if you were to combine that with an overhaul to questing, specifically something like giving players a streamlined "story campaign" that links together the most important quests from each zone in each expansion to form a cohesive narrative, perhaps with new quests and cutscenes inserted to really flesh it out, and maybe even single player versions of dungeons or raids, they could really, really improve the experience of leveling up new characters. Have campaign quests award a lot of experience and sort of briskly propel players through the game, keep the old quests and dungeons around for players who want to hang out in zones and experience the side stories.

It would be something like, for a new Forsaken player...

Forsaken Introduction (1-5) - Tirisfal Glades
Lordaeron Campaign (5-30) - Silverpine, Hillsbrad, Arathi, Plaguelands, Twilight Highlands
Pandarian Campaign (30-35) - Pandaria
Draenor Campaign (35-40) - Draenor
Legion Campaign (40-50) - Broken Isles, Argus
BfA Campaign (50-60) - Zandalar, Kul Tiras, Nazjatar, ???
New Expansion (60-70) - New Continent

Imagine that linked together with an overarching questline that ties all of the major stories together. You start as a new Forsaken, experience the war in Gilneas, the battles for Arathi and Andorhal, the war escalating between Horde and the Alliance in Vashj'ir and/or Twilight Highlands, spilling over into Pandaria, building up to the rebellion and Siege of Orgrimmar, leading into the hunt for Garrosh on Draenor, which dovetails into the Legion invading Azeroth, then the Battle for Azeroth storyline and War Campaign we're currently experience. All linked together with a cohesive narrative arc, new quests, new voice acting, new cutscenes.

And along the way you get new abilities every level and new talents every ten levels, with optional world content to explore and dungeons to run if you want a break from just following the main story.

I think it would be an amazing change, personally.

[Soon-TM]

(snip)

Interesting points you brought there. And would be frankly welcome, at this point. I really hope they expand upon stuff like the PC choosing between Sylvie and Saurfang.

[Directionalk9]

I can't imagine a level squish without a world revamp. The two really need to go hand in hand. Everything up until Pandaria needs a face-lift, badly. Updating the stories and narratives in the zones, might not be the highest priority, but almost everything up until Legion is un-reflective of the actual world now; and Bronze Dragons are just becoming band-aids, not solutions.

Outside of just flat level squishing and cata-treating the bulk of the game there's plenty of other issues that are going to arise, a sentiment ion expressed.

What do we squish to?
50, 60, 100?
What feels appropriate considering how big the game is?
What continents get updates?
Do Dreanor, Broken Isles, Zandalar/Kul'Tiras need them?
Where do we place old school raids within the new level ranges?
Would everything from Vanilla to MoP be all in the same level group?

Personally I think squishing to 100 feels like the best. It's a bit of an homage to just how big and long standing the game is. It also gives leveling some room to breathe considering just how many zones there are. We could go less, and perhaps if every zone scales to every level, there'll be many, many non-overlapping paths to max. I'll take note that at 100 still making every level feel rewarding is a harder and harder task. I definitely don't want to be learning a new ability every time. I expect a lot of people are going to scream, "bring back old talent trees" but that seems regressive and well lazy. Personally I'd rather have a few new stats, and get a point that I can put into any of the stats for each level while retaining the current talent system. Then again that's basic.

As for end-game in new expansion in a hypothetical level squish world. No more leveling. End game progression systems that you can never kind of finish seem like the right direction. However that's been a hit and miss situation so far. Artifacts after 7.2 felt really good. Azerite is, well, we all know.

Just based off of the things said at Blizzcon and from interviews linked in the OP, the future post-BfA could be very interesting. I know it's popular to call them lazy and all that, but to me, it good to know that they are acknowledging and thinking about these things. Just the hint of totally revamping questing from the ground up coupled with a level squish, damn, my mind is going to racing during my boring ass work days for weeks.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

The best news to come out of the WoW panels has to be the devs outright saying questing is stale and the solution will need to be built from the ground up.

[Omega10]

As one would infer from my sig, I am a big proponent of this. And I also think it's a pretty reasonable next step. Considering how this expansion is going, I would not be surprised if the development effort for this one was lowered in favor of the next one.

I am a big proponent of this as well. I would like to add, besides adding AI to the NPCs, they could also make interrupts an important part of killing mobs starting from level... well maybe not 1-20, but definitely in the 40-60 range. The interruptible spells need to be somewhat long casting, especially at the lowest levels, and killing mobs needs to be made quicker and easier when interruptions are correctly done. But... the mobs still need to be killable even if the spells are NOT interrupted, it just takes longer, or requires more healing to get through it.


Professions needs to be redone. Well, actually it is just the rewards that just need to be redone. A dedicated blacksmith should be able to gear himself at least half way with crafted items being noticeable upgrades every step of the way. So at level 10, a dedicated blacksmith should be able to farm enough stuff to make 4 level 15 pieces of gear (or more), at level 20 enough recipes would be learned so that 4+ level 25 pieces could be created, so on and so forth. Potions and flasks need to be upgraded every step of the way too, and low level version of the pre-pot potions should also be easily mass-creatable.


The main story line for each area should be a nice story that ties in with the main characters of WOW, while smaller quest chains with smaller rewards would give each area flavor and charm. The final quest for each main story line should be an OP piece of gear for that level range. That way if you don't like the story - well the gear is the reason to complete the quest line.


Some of the comments that Ion made rekindled my desire to play more WOW - and the Diablo mobile app announcement got me back to playing some D3. Blizzcon was a double win for them and for me. I hope they are successful.


And I like the theory that one reason that Classic is being done is to give Blizzard more freedom to drastically rewrite pretty much all of the live version of WOW. The idea that they have been putting into place many pieces, and learning from all of them, leads me to believe that WOW's (and Diablo's) best days are still to come.

[Fahrad Wagner]

What they said makes me hopeful. I hope we'll see this next expansion.

[Yelmurc]

This here imo is key. Buildings and trees are WMOs. For the BGs they are making new WMOs with identical space constraints. Such a WMO can simply be swapped in the files and replace existing structures. Sure it would take some testing but it can be done and it would be fairly fast. I still think many zones would still need more extensive work, mainly to make up for the fact that Cataclysm created chaos there; Westfall should not have a crater with an arcane twister for all eternity (it would probably be a great spot to make a lake at).

I’d prefer they rework the zones as much as possible. Some of the transitions from one zone to another are horrid. Plus the idea is to make the world seem new. So returning players feel the game is fresh and current players have new places and POI’s to explore. A simple model swap would be a little disappointing to me.

[allegrian]

Time skip expansion:

-Your character is teleported to the future, or on stasis and awakened later.
-EK/Kalimdor revamp
-Reset level to 1, start anew, no need to level in older content, new player friendly
-New characters, grown anduin, son of Moira, Thrall's sons...
-Possibilty to go back to "old azeroth" via time portal stuff
-Possibility of breaking the faction wall (peace)
-Possibility of a Warcraft 4 covering the time skip period, introducing new heroes, villains, factions, etc.

From this interview: https://blizzardwatch.com/2018/11/04...hree-factions/

Since Afrasiabi brought up the Saurfang vs. Sylvanas option, Mitch pressed him about the idea of splitting the Horde into separate factions for each camp. While the idea would be “thematically cool and appropriate for this scenario,” Afrasiabi explained that creating a third faction would really mean splitting up friendships and guilds since factions cannot adventure together. His preference would be the other way: that the Alliance and Horde could group together “one of these days.”

“That is the bigger meta lesson of Azeroth,” he concluded, “that these battles that we fought, even when we are separated, are for the same damn purpose. For our home.”

[digichi]

Classic is going to fulfil the nostalgia that players want if they want to relive the old days and see old zones, so updating old things slowly but surely and playing with new systems sounds exciting / reinvigorating for the game.

[Deleted]

The hints I'm getting aren't so good.

[wysimdnwyg]

It would be something like, for a new Forsaken player...

Forsaken Introduction (1-5) - Tirisfal Glades
Lordaeron Campaign (5-30) - Silverpine, Hillsbrad, Arathi, Plaguelands, Twilight Highlands
Pandarian Campaign (30-35) - Pandaria
Draenor Campaign (35-40) - Draenor
Legion Campaign (40-50) - Broken Isles, Argus
BfA Campaign (50-60) - Zandalar, Kul Tiras, Nazjatar, ???
New Expansion (60-70) - New Continent

So you're suggesting the ability to completely bypass 2 1/2 expansion's (BC/Wrath/most of Cata) worth of content?

[The Stormbringer]

I would fucking love it if they revamped Gnomeregan with the Mechagon assets. Mechagon is absolutely god damn gorgeous.

[Threndsa]

-End faction war. BG's can exist as "relive the battle of X" and warmode can either be non cannon or cannonized as sanctioned skirmishes to keep combat readiness up.

-Level squish and introduce an optional "main story line" that would take characters through the major points of the story so far. Probably have BC and wrath be included only as "visit the past" or be optional since the main world basically starts at cata now.

- Cut leveling back down to 5/expac and give each level something meaningful. It doesn't need to be an ability either it can be features. Having a different part of the warfront questlines open up at various levels was a good touch in BfA. Things like that can be used going forward.

-Combat ilvl bloat. If they continue to do artifact style dealies i think they should add a passive to them that empowers your gear during the expansion. An internal percent boost that would allow them to tighten up the overal ilvl increase during an expansion without actually making player progression suffer.

[Zandalariprelate]

After the mess of cataclysm, I prefer the arathi treatment and phase the area for max content if the story of the expansion involves said areas(would have loved an event of defending durotan and elwyn forest from the legion)

[Kathranis]

So you're suggesting the ability to completely bypass 2 1/2 expansion's (BC/Wrath/most of Cata) worth of content?

You can already bypass BC/Wrath, they're out of the timeline. If they weren't there, the story would flow linearly from Cataclysm up to now. And I included Cataclysm in the leveling path, bridged together directly with the old 1-60 zones. They could keep BC/Wrath as alternate leveling options, like they are now.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Well, i think a leveling revamp should be something like this:

1.) You may play every questing content at every level
2.) Leveling up is no brickwall for endgame content. You may directly jump into a new continent with a new expac right after creating a char
3.) Leveling up gives you character power, you have all skills ready from start, and get introduced when you start a new character. Both by NPCs showing you how to use the skills and group play which is based on the proving ground system. You may only play challenging content if you master both.
4.) Every questing content should be repeatable, after you finished a zone. It would yield gear based on your current gear. You could chose between 3 difficulty levels, easy, normal and hard. Harder questing content yields better gear. Grouping up is always an option, but not needed. Mobs scale accordingly.
5.) Leveling will be revamped as like in new open world games nowadays. Kill 20 x and collect 10 y will be a no go, and replaced by minigames and fun events.
6.) Every region has world bosses which drops great loot
7.) Every region has open group dungeons, which allow you to join and grouped auoatimatically if available. If no other players are around, you get accompanied by NPCs or may play them alone
8.) A follow from your current mission table may join you as permanent companion.
9.) You may tell your other companions anywhere what they should do, which includes to send them to collect crafting mats.

Honestly I think if they revamp leveling they should take a leaf from FFXIV (big surprise there, huh?). Part of the problem for me is there's no story progress when you're leveling anymore thanks to the level scaling and "choose to go wherever whenever."

Blizz should implement a story-driven "Main Storyline" that takes you by the hand and leads you to the land that it... wait, I went into meming mode. A main storyline that, sure it holds your hands and takes you linearly through the zones, but also doesn't have all the quest padding that we see in Legion and BFA. Instead of having big story beats seperated by 1-3 hubs worth of random filler so you get a levelup, have exclusively major story beats in the Main Storyline and then put all the padding in optional side hubs that do take advantage of the level scaling and go anywhere anytime that we currently have.

Also I think, on your subject of repeatable quests, rares, and bosses, that World Quests should be unlocked as you level up instead of all being unlocked at max level. Take Brennandam for example. Once you finish the questlines there you would unlock world quests for that part of the continent, like how it worked on Argus.

And for the love of Bwomsamdi PLEASE bring back Bodyguards.