Now we know why they did the awkward "faction war" story now.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Are we still pretending Legion was decent?

Are we still pretending people can't have different opinions?

[Cena]

Are we still pretending people can't have different opinions?

Ya everyone has a different opinion. Legion was not that great at the beginning, but it did end up getting better by the end, not including the content drought for 13 weeks before tomb of sargares, which was an utter failure on the development end.

[Spiffums]

Odd numbered years are never big years for warcraft. The pattern has nearly always been one year release, next year announce. As for Blizzcon expect nothing announced that isn't being released after Blizzcon 2020. It's not really how they do things as a company. Only real difference with any intent behind it was classic announcement. Which is why there were no things like D4 announce, expansion announcement or anything like that.

It's like Windows OS....odd number releases suck.

[Tiny Dancer]

The earnings call fallout makes something very clear to me.

See here’s the thing, 2019 was never going to be big for WoW. Transitional year businesswise (which we’re learning now), and a transitional story to move to something big. This makes sense because, as I’ve said many times elsewhere, they are taking up this time (too much of it, IMO) to tell a necessary but uncomfortable story: They’re grinding out the last gasp of the faction divide so they can explode into exciting, high concept, “cosmic powers” stories aimed at a united player base in the greater WoW universe. Rough as it is to be a player through this story, this is the time to do this.

I expect Blizzcon 2019, announcing products for BEYOND 2019, to be a mind blower for WoW and maybe Diablo. They’re turning a ship that they’ve said many times must turn slow, and they’re force-turning it with uncomfortable speed. It’s gonna hurt, it’s going to be boring, it’s going to lean on systems meant to keep us engaged with the game if not the story… but once the ship is turned, the future is bright.

Obviously that future brightness doesn’t put food on laid off people’s tables. That part is not cool, full stop.

What does the story have to do with 2019?

[CptEgo]

Are we still pretending Legion was decent?

Are we still pretending you wouldn't complain no matter what? You've probably been whining on these forums about every single expansion.

[huth]

I'm not saying it is, but they did give a bunch of island NPCs brand new flashy Necromancer spell effects for no reason when they added Havenswood. I wouldn't be surprised if the rumors about "prestige classes" that reskin existing classes turned out to be one of 9.0's' major features.

I think what's interesting is that Bwonsamdi's death magic has a completely different art direction from the Scourge's.

Those are seeds at best for the next expansion. Which has me a bit concerned. It implies they are going to be pushing Sylvannas in a direction where she has been doing everything with a purpose for either the good of everything or she has been controlled. Either way, both those storylines will suck beyond all that has ever sucked.

Sure, 8.2 revolving around Azshara is a "seed for the next expansion". And N'zoth really just wants to give everybody Winter Veil gifts.

[buddah13]

Odd numbered years are never big years for warcraft. The pattern has nearly always been one year release, next year announce. As for Blizzcon expect nothing announced that isn't being released after Blizzcon 2020. It's not really how they do things as a company. Only real difference with any intent behind it was classic announcement. Which is why there were no things like D4 announce, expansion announcement or anything like that.

completely agree, this upcoming Blizzcon will be thin, if not awkward

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See this is the thing that makes your argument fall apart.

Once we go cosmic I'm done for good. And there are others who want to get rid of the Sci Fi in WoW. And there are those who like the faction war im sure

Plus, yknow, why gamble the life of your old and declining game on self admitted filler?

which begs the question , how many baddies are left on ol'Azeroth ? Personally I thought we were getting void baddies

[RangerDaz]

Christ, people are really thinking united faction will happen. It won't. Too much of an overhaul needs to be done to most systems... they won't add a faction and they won't join the factions except in spirit like in legion.

This.

The faction split between Horde and Alliance has been in WoW since day one, and has been a core of the world design and gameplay. Uniting or splitting both factions would plunge the previous expansions into chaos, and would require a drastic overhaul to the entire game.

However it doesnt stop them to create parallel faction wars where players decide which faction to go, like an Aldor vs. Scryer like system.

[Soon-TM]

I thought we were getting void baddies

That's what a lot of stuff in Legion's last patch hinted at. Now we are supposedly going through a "bridge" story, so I hope next xpac will be about something more interesting than old, boring AvH.

[Lodreh]

I don't get why people want to take the War out of Warcraft. It's weird...

...to imagine a dangerous world where the enemy can literially be anyone not just someone who wears a red or blue shirt while I wear the other.

Alliance versus Horde needs resolution. Just because that one conflict is resolved doesnt mean it’s all peace, friendship and rainbows. It’s quite the opposite. You either have to trust or live in constant paranoia. Think more in terms of Cold War... technically peace but the threat of renewed War.

[omarxz11]

The earnings call fallout makes something very clear to me.

See here’s the thing, 2019 was never going to be big for WoW. Transitional year businesswise (which we’re learning now), and a transitional story to move to something big. This makes sense because, as I’ve said many times elsewhere, they are taking up this time (too much of it, IMO) to tell a necessary but uncomfortable story: They’re grinding out the last gasp of the faction divide so they can explode into exciting, high concept, “cosmic powers” stories aimed at a united player base in the greater WoW universe. Rough as it is to be a player through this story, this is the time to do this.

I expect Blizzcon 2019, announcing products for BEYOND 2019, to be a mind blower for WoW and maybe Diablo. They’re turning a ship that they’ve said many times must turn slow, and they’re force-turning it with uncomfortable speed. It’s gonna hurt, it’s going to be boring, it’s going to lean on systems meant to keep us engaged with the game if not the story… but once the ship is turned, the future is bright.

Obviously that future brightness doesn’t put food on laid off people’s tables. That part is not cool, full stop.

and i though you would say the smart thing , here is the reason , factoin war is dead since TBC if i tell you hey i have nice legendary item for you but its timegated you say cool when ? i tell you after 12 years from now your hype would be so dead the whole wow focus on antagonist big baddy is make us adapt to this game play of style which is never boring , also world of warcraft makes every race a tree hugger and want love and peace for freaken 14 years so when you suddenly bring faction war it will make no sense what so ever .


the 2nd reason is will be duo to cutting cost since if you think about it form business viewpoint wow stop creating new character skeleton mocap which one of the main core issues in history of wow they just stopped making alot of skeletons like they used to do but all end at mop , and makes the game looks indie and cheap , lets not to mention never upgreat engine ( not mean to unreal 4 but same engine with with big upgrades ) and causing the cut-sense in game to looks so awkward

[Nathanyel]

Uniting or splitting both factions would plunge the previous expansions into chaos, and would require a drastic overhaul to the entire game.

It doesn't have to be a unification ingame, just a lore truce or similar. The day-to-day gameplay would at most be affected by e.g. cross-faction grouping for instanced content. If that instance is faction-specific, you get temporarily racechanged to the party leader's faction - like in Battle of Dazar'alor.
Future races could be technically neutral, but you select an alignment for questing purposes, without suddenly being literally at war with your brethren, like the Wandering Isle Pandaren.

On the other hand, there are signs for another world revamp for 9.0...

Some say there's no reason to "take out the War of Warcraft", I say there never was a reason to keep it for the gameplay (not the story) of the MMO. It took the 4 factions of Warcraft III, which gameplay-wise served as story chapters (as you played them all in sequence), merged them into two major factions, and implemented them as a first-day choice that separated the playerbase.

[Hitei]

I think what's interesting is that Bwonsamdi's death magic has a completely different art direction from the Scourge's.

I think that's to be expected though. They needed to differentiate between a Death Loa's magic and general (un)death magic, particularly since they seem to be at odds with each other. Bwonsamdi's magic is, ostensibly at least, supposed to be the natural side of death, even though he acts like a villain he's as much a normal Loa as the others are, so he needed a form of death magic that is brighter and seems like "evil", it has a similar color palette to "ghost magic" we've seen before, like what you see when you die in game, or the color a lot of the less hostile ghosts use. And interestingly a very similar color set to Elune's magic as scene when she immortalizes Ysera.

It's a lot weirder that, even though they have plenty of necromancer NPCs all over the game who just use shadowy/blighty/boney/dark arcaney/frosty/bloody/bright blue scourgey spells, they'd give the island ones a brand new color that, at least as far as I can remember, has never once been associated with the scourge or necromancy. In fact I can't seem to find anywhere in game that uses the new color. Monk's/Pandaria's jade stuff is close, but much greener.


It's a bluer kind of ectoplasm/seafoam color.

[Kallisto]

completely agree, this upcoming Blizzcon will be thin, if not awkward

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which begs the question , how many baddies are left on ol'Azeroth ? Personally I thought we were getting void baddies

Nah I think you got my years wrong. Even tear blizzcon like ladt tear highlights 2019 schedule and was light.

2019 blizzcon will be packed. New expansion alone. Maybe some end of bfa stuff. Also due to western backlash to D:Immortal expect D4.

[Spiffums]

But wait...how do we count this? I see 8 CE boxes on my shelf.....as #1 and #3, it means Classic and WotLK sucked...and at #6 it means WoD was great, Legion sucked and BfA is great? Or is TBC #1 because it is the first x-pac...so that means TBC sucked?

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Obviously I support this. Everyone has (and should have) their own opinion (and be able to post it). I just get so tired of people posting them as a universal fact....and often without any argument to support it.

There is no counting. Just laugh and move along.