Fresh start WoW 2 1.x

[Throwme]

Biggest from this list is EVE but then again, 25k players in WoW world is "dead 5 times at least"

No other MMO has been as big as WoW when looking at raw numbers, so comparing apples to oranges there.

Going by EVE player count of 25k and calling that dead is far from true. That's 25k on same server. If you want to compare it to WoW, it would be the equivalent of 75 people on the server, in total.

[Felmourn]

So from what I'm reading - a select few of people want to re-invent the MMORPG wheel instead of trying to fix what we currently have.

[Ersula]

You know that EverQuest is not a Steam game, right?

The point remains, considering SOE does not exist anymore & Daybreak merely maintains their 4 properties. Everquest 2 ultimately annihilated SOE just by existing & that's definitely something Blizzard won't be stupid enough to copy.

[kaminaris]

Than maybe try a new Game entirely? And let us who enjoy Wow, is all it's incarnations, play in peace.

That is not going to happen. The only reason we are getting new content and new expansions is because it is still profitable for blizz. Once it drops below certain threshold it will be either new version or we are done. You won't get to enjoy current wow anymore and will be forced to either quit or play on private servers.

[kronides]

Any "WoW 2" could be the ultimate "You think you do, but you don't" experience. If Blizzard ever were to make another mmo, which I doubt they ever will, I believe the chances are high that those of us who have played the first WoW for a long time would not like the new game very much, similar to how old school UO and EQ players didn't like WoW and Rift.

What people want when they ask for this is for Blizzard to make a game according to the principles and criteria that they, the players, have in mind. but that is not what Blizzard (or most companies, really) would do. They would make the new game according to more "modern"and, in their view, forward-thinking principles and criteria.

[kaminaris]

It's concurrent, 24/7 around the clock number since EVE only has one megaserver where everyone plays. Please don't make uninformed comparisons.

I've named three MMOs that are still alive and still actively developed, as you requested.
Now you're introducing additional clauses and constraints.
I suspect you keep doing this until you've "proven" that your narrative is the only correct Truth.

It's not a very fun or constructive way to discuss anything. Please stop it.



Ok then, present the "rock solid" WoW 2 business case that gets greenlighted by Blizzard management. I'm not really interested in the details - the basic ROI is enough (rough development costs and resources, key business drivers, market cap - please address the cannibalization of WoW 1 in this and what kind of timescale can be expected to get that investment back). Feel free to spitball the general numbers, none of us actually know the real numbers.

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Pretty much this.

It is pretty simple actually.

If I would be in charge I would fist develop a story after X years of WoW 1.
1. That would be work amount for few people - mostly writers for about 2-3 months (lets be real here, wow never had deep and sophisticated story).

1a. In the same time there would be a work for main developers to find a suitable game engine. Be it either something that is already in blizzard or 3rd party.
Game engine would need to be easy to work with and provide a lot of options. This will also be a time to plan and split work for entire team. I think this would take around 1 month.

I could go on and compare engines but you have to realize one thing. Reusing engines like UnrealEngine is the way to go nowadays because it will be easier to find developers that have experience with it. Having proprietary or self-created engine meaning a lot of introduction costs for newly hired developers.

2. After having new engine and a rough storyline there would be work for:
2a. Art team to create new maps, sketches, 3d model, instance models, world maps - usually it took blizzard around 6 months.
2c. Part of developer team to actually implement combat system - something not entirely new but enough to be engaging.
2d. Another part would be responsible for implementing reactions - portals, mining, herbing, world objects, flying etc.
2e. Yet another part would be responsible of scripting instances/raids and quests.
2f. And last part - creating new UI.
3. About 4-5 months of work in that timeline, QA would have a chance to roughly test what developers did.

So after a 9 months we would be in a alpha stage of a product. 3 months for fixing bugs and refining product. After that beta period would be up for selected players to test it (like it has been lately).

So a timeframe till beta would be 8-9 months. And about a 11-12 for full release.

That would not be full experience. If I would be blizzard, after releasing, I would start a process called importing assets. Old maps, dungeons, raids etc. into new WoW. And release old content in 6 months timeframe to not strain dev team too much. And still have a room to expand current story.

So 1 year till release, and every 6 months - upgrade to story + imported old content.

Importing entire WoW 1 into 2 would take around 2 years I think. Not everything needs to be preserved tho - for example we could completely scrap items for transmo tokens.

[shade3891]

No, class overhaul alone will not accomplish anything. Because after all these years all spells are similar, no matter what you play - you had something similar:
<snip>

and few other spell categories. Nothing is unique anymore for me because every concept they thrown at us is already known. At this point I no longer see spell names but something like "generic spender with high damage" "generic cooldown based spell".

I would love to see for combat to be moved into more skill-shot based abilities like frontal cone, frontal arrow.
And would like to have more abilities that are instant + channel - like eyebeam. So less clicking - more action.
Also stationary combat is just not fun. Having to stop to cast abilities is outdated.

I would like to see defensives that are channeled, lets says mage barrier. You stop attacking for a sec and channel to absorb otherwise heavy damage.

Or a dodge/roll system to avoid attacks. Maybe an semi-auto skillshot system, if your target doesn't move away fast enough or doesn't use a dodge/evasion skill you will hit. Reintroduce hit-rating to help your auto seeking range?

[Vineri]

So from what I'm reading - a select few of people want to re-invent the MMORPG wheel instead of trying to fix what we currently have.

Sometimes when the wheel becomes damaged, it makes more sense to simply replace the wheel, with better design.

[Pony Soldier]

To have all my progress erased simply to have better graphics and what not and that feeling of noastalgia? No thanks.

Honestly if this "WoW 2" were to ever happen I can say with confidence that I would not play it. Not only would all my progress and achievements made in the original game be gone, it would not feel the same and it would feel that everything that I've accomplished in the original game was for nothing.

I'm having a decent amount of fun with BfA despite all the hate it's getting which I don't completely understand. I've actually had more fun in BfA than I did in Legion. BfA certainly isn't perfect or even great but it's not as bad as people are making it out to be.

[kaminaris]

To have all my progress erased simply to have better graphics and what not and that feeling of noastalgia? No thanks.

Honestly if this "WoW 2" were to ever happen I can say with confidence that I would not play it. Not only would all my progress and achievements made in the original game be gone, it would not feel the same and it would feel that everything that I've accomplished in the original game was for nothing.

Can you stop saying "your progress" ? You know nothing would stop blizzard from importing your "progress" ? right?

[Vineri]

To have all my progress erased simply to have better graphics and what not and that feeling of noastalgia? No thanks.

Honestly if this "WoW 2" were to ever happen I can say with confidence that I would not play it. Not only would all my progress and achievements made in the original game be gone, it would not feel the same and it would feel that everything that I've accomplished in the original game was for nothing.

Experiences and memories, some would argue, are irreplaceable, as one of life's greatest treasures.

[Drusin]

Hey can we ban threads like this?

[Pony Soldier]

Can you stop saying "your progress" ? You know nothing would stop blizzard from importing your "progress" ? right?

Well I only assume they wouldn't because if this is truly supposed to be a "WoW 2" where it's supposed to be a "fresh start" why would they import all your accomplishments and everything you collected from the original game? Wouldn't that kinda ruin the whole point?

And I only said "progress" one time. What's the issue?

[Pony Soldier]

Existing players wouldn't follow you to the new WoW. They would take it as a chance to gracefully move on to other experiences (non-WoW).

This is exactly how I would feel. I've been playing WoW for 13 years. If current WoW would come to an end and they would come out with WoW 2, I would do just that.

WoW would officially be dead to me. A memory of an awesome experience that has been a big part of my teenage and adult life and it will be something I will never forget. WoW 2 would be something completely different to me despite it being the same game.

[kaminaris]

But wasn't the WoW story exactly the cornerstone of your pitch you introduced just couple of posts ago? And now you're going to change and rewrite it?

Nobody said anything about rewriting, more like continuation.

Ok, so you'd re-train the current staff in UnrealEngine or just dump them and hire new? And take the investments and tools built to support the current engine over 15 years as a "necessary loss"? The art team is isn't small you know.

That is the thing. Modern engines doesn't have that high learning curve as you think. Have you tried it? I did, as a pure backend developer i found it pretty easy to work with. UE was just an example tho.

Yeah and now you have new staff or at least newly trained staff, without the tools they're used. I'd say that's optimistic, but OK - you're the Director after all.

Have you seen UE tools? Can't say for sure because I did not see blizzard tools but I am fairly certain UE has all they need.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/...ors/index.html

Right so basically you're asking the old same team, to make the same old game as before, but with new engine. Oh and they should innovate, but not too much. I think at this point most of them would be looking at new jobs, to be honest.

Not "not too much" but game engine would be enough to make it "much" + new combat system.

Because reasons, I guess? So everyone would lose their addons and you'd massively piss off the entire addon community with that. Well, at least we'd have lot of angry threads at MMOC asking you to be fired

I am addon developer myself:
https://wow.curseforge.com/members/kaminaris/projects

And believe me, if they changed that damned LUA to something else I would gladly rewrite all of my addons to some modern language.
Lua has a lot of problems like not having "continue" instruction of the fact that zero (integer zero) is truthy value.

if 0 then
print('lua is dumb');
end

Ok, so you're keeping the good old waterfall and not reaping the benefits of moving towards more agile methods with your new engine. What's the point if you're not going to exploit the synergies fully?

I would go with agile methods but honestly I can't plan all that work without knowing team and their capabilities. That was just a very rough plan.

Allright. Awesome. Well, good luck pitching that, I guess I'll look forward to that 20/21 Blizzcon preso.

[Vineri]

Existing players wouldn't follow you to the new WoW. They would take it as a chance to gracefully move on to other experiences (non-WoW).

New players wouldn't join because they can't be bothered to play their grandpa's type of game. They're happy with Fortnite and mobile stuff.

MMORPGs, as you knew WoW, are a dead genre.

Much to my displeasure, Games as a Service (GAAS) titles are popular. While I don't like the monetization scheme (GAAS) for what you get, MMORPG's fall under Games as a Service. WoW just did a better job at making the service palatable.

The idea of evolving a character over time is nothing new. Dungeons and Dragons did it 30+ years ago. MUD's did it 25 years ago. EQ did it 18 years ago .. WoW did it 14 years ago. Many other games did it since (mass explosion of games, actually).

I don't think the concept of the MMORPG, or roleplaying someone else, medieval style, is dead. It will take on a new form. Simple GAAS will stay simple and never get very far (like Anthem, example). Intricate games, like a WoW successor will carry much more weight. Especially coming from Activision-Blizzard. [Activision "merge", yes, but lets hope for the best!]

[spleen1015]

I've said it before. There is nothing they could do to make WoW2 that they can't do with a WoW expansion. Spending the resources to create an entirely new MMO is not going to happen in 2019.

[Felmourn]

Sometimes when the wheel becomes damaged, it makes more sense to simply replace the wheel, with better design.

I'll be the first to say WoW needs some work. My previous post on pg. 6 outlines just that. But there is a point where you can't change core aspects of the genre. An mmorpg will consist of certain things like an rts would or an fps.

[KainneAbsolute]

It was the same with EQ and EQ2. New classes..lands..etc. I don't think Blizzard has the interest in creating a whole new WoW sequal game...at least not with Ion being there.

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Seeing how we have a wow mmorpg already. what would a wow rpg be? *other than something that would be for mobile*

Something like the Campaign of Rexxar in WC3 but probably withe the style of dragon age or bloodborne.

[Boricha]

I think classic+ would be more likely than wow 2, but I'd be interested in either.