9.0 General Discussion

[Grimbold21]

Scaling redesigned.

I understand the argument of making zones relevant, but the interaction with Classic just made me remember that there should be an element of danger. Making the zones always your level - or near it - completely undermines that. This is even further aggravated by the fact that our characters are simply too powerful - even while leveling - for regular and the so called "rare" mobs to pose any danger to us.

[Jamie081]

Scaling redesigned.

I understand the argument of making zones relevant, but the interaction with Classic just made me remember that there should be an element of danger. Making the zones always your level - or near it - completely undermines that. This is even further aggravated by the fact that our characters are simply too powerful - even while leveling - for regular and the so called "rare" mobs to pose any danger to us.

They could still make scaled zones dangerous by adding enemies/creatures that don't scale, like a Stitches character that travels on the main route of the zone.

I've seen NPCs in game before that don't scale like the whole zone does. They're always NPCs from a quest that is added in the expansion following a past expansion's zone. e.g. 120 mobs in Stormheim from Legion. They could make them max level for the expansion. It can definitely be done.

[ercarp]

Someone asked for predictions elsewhere and I wrote my own "leak". It's more wishful thinking than prediction, but here it goes:

- Sylvanas is dealt with in 8.3.5. We ally with the Death entities to stop her. She's not killed, but her plans are revealed and we set them back for now.
- "New" Continents: Revamped Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, 10 years timeskip.
- Level squish. Levels are divided by three. 120 becomes 40. New max level: 60.
- Can level up from 1 to 60 in the new continents. Zones divided between 1-40, 20-40 and 40-60 brackets (1/3 of the zones are in last bracket).
- Old versions of Kalimdor/EK still available and optional, ranging from 1-40. All old expansions range 20-40.
- Classes keep somewhat like now, but added back lots of utility and skill-based abilities. Several talents become baseline. Six talent rows, one every 10 levels. Every spec has at least one talent row that is about choosing your playstyle (like between Frost DK with one 2h or two 1h weapons). Skills are not auto-learned anymore, instead you have a skill tree that you gain points as you level up and is maxed at 60.
- Allied races now start at level 6.
- Both hero classes start at level 18.
- New class: tinker. Specs are tank that rides a mech, ranged DPS using guns and explosives, chemist healer. For gnomes, goblins, dark irons, mag'har, mechagnomes and vulpera.
- Tons of customization options added for all races. Most of them are unlocked through gameplay. Includes scars, tatoos and even alternate visuals for some races (wildhammer dwarf, highborne night elf, clan skins for normal orcs and more).
- New class combos. Worgen shaman, night elf paladin, void elf paladin, mechagnome shaman, goblin monk, lightforged monk, tauren rogue, highmountain rogue, undead paladin, nightborne paladin and pandaren druid (yeah).
- You can now collect alternate visuals for skills (through glyphs, questing, achievements, and so on). You can change them in a class trainer. Includes undead/void monsters in place of demons for warlocks, holy visuals for Shadow Priest, void versions of paladin spells and so on. Some race/class combos start with different visuals as default (like the void elf paladin or night elf priest).
- Kalimdor themed on exploration and wonder. Also night elf/Horde conflict, and Draenor fauna and flora has spread over the continent.
- Eastern Kingdoms themed on politics and border conflicts between the many kingdoms and city-states.
- Old allied races incorporated into the zones. Can now be unlocked easilly by doing local questlines centered on them.
- Many threats: Amani Covenant, return of Hakkar, botani expansion, Sylvanas' death cultists, the Black Empress (the entity formerly known as Xal'atath) building her own empire on the Wounded Lands (former Silithus/Ahn'Qiraj).
- Many heroes retired, lots of former child/teenage characters getting bigger roles (Galadin and Giramar, Dagran Thaurissan, Arator, Zekhan, Durak)

Cool concept. I don't agree with everything but there are some good ideas mixed in. A timeskip is something I've wanted to see in-game for a long time. It would be great for us roleplayers as well since we'd get to age up our characters a bit. The starting levels for allied races and hero classes are a bit weird (wouldn't 5 and 20 make more sense?).

[Jamie081]

Cool concept. I don't agree with everything but there are some good ideas mixed in. A timeskip is something I've wanted to see in-game for a long time. It would be great for us roleplayers as well since we'd get to age up our characters a bit. The starting levels for allied races and hero classes are a bit weird (wouldn't 5 and 20 make more sense?).

Not a popular thing for me to mention here, but I think Fortnite handled a timeskip-esque change really well with its new Chapter 2 Season 1.

They basically consumed the old map used from Season 1-10 in a black hole and a few days after the blackout they released a completely new map with new graphics, new items and new features.

It wasn't really a timeskip per-se and more of a dimension change and WoW is different because we'd be going back to the old continents instead of starting completely afresh, but the same result (a massive revamp) was achieved and it's been very well received. People love progress and TLC to old things.

[DeicideUH]

Cool concept. I don't agree with everything but there are some good ideas mixed in. A timeskip is something I've wanted to see in-game for a long time. It would be great for us roleplayers as well since we'd get to age up our characters a bit. The starting levels for allied races and hero classes are a bit weird (wouldn't 5 and 20 make more sense?).

I kinda agree with 5 for allied races, The 18 for Hero classes is due to expecting them to level up a bit in their own starting experiences, so they'd be around 20 when exiting their starting areas).

[Grimbold21]

They could still make scaled zones dangerous by adding enemies/creatures that don't scale, like a Stitches character that travels on the main route of the zone.

I've seen NPCs in game before that don't scale like the whole zone does. They're always NPCs from a quest that is added in the expansion following a past expansion's zone. e.g. 120 mobs in Stormheim from Legion. They could make them max level for the expansion. It can definitely be done.

But doesn't scale deny to element of character progression? I mean, we're already some of the most powerful beings in Azeroth (arguably).

[Jamie081]

But doesn't scale deny to element of character progression? I mean, we're already some of the most powerful beings in Azeroth (arguably).

I think when it comes to scaling tech for leveling they're just following the MMO standard now. People love being able to pick and choose what zone they level in because it's a story and player choice focus. Non-scaling zones are always seen as outdated.

[DeicideUH]

Not a popular thing for me to mention here, but I think Fortnite handled a timeskip-esque change really well with its new Chapter 2 Season 1.

They basically consumed the old map used from Season 1-10 in a black hole and a few days after the blackout they released a completely new map with new graphics, new items and new features.

It wasn't really a timeskip per-se and more of a dimension change and WoW is different because we'd be going back to the old continents instead of starting completely afresh, but the same result (a massive revamp) was achieved and it's been very well received. People love progress and TLC to old things.

I imagine the timeskip being handled as follows:

- A few weeks before prepatch: a quest is enabled to go to Magni. You use the Heart of Azeroth to crumble Sargeras' sword. The wound is healed and the world is saved. The power of the heart starts to wane due to the effort.
- Prepatch arrives. The heart is powerless. Your level is squished. Everyone that logs in, at any level, gets a quest to meet your faction leaders.
- You are received as a hero. There's a cutscene with the leaders talking among themselves and celebrating. There's no immediate threat on the horizon, it's time to rest and rebuild. After delivering the quest, one NPC has a dialogue option to "Retire".
- Using the option, the screen fades to black. "Ten years later..." appear in the screen.
- When the screen returns, you are in the new version of the continent, in your racial starting zone, and the opening narration (as if you had made a new character) explains how the world changed in these ten years and what's your race's situation now.
- The NPC that greets you, however, treat you as a veteran returning from retirement. You've been out of action for quite some time. Peace has been good, but Azeroth needs heroes again, it's time to get your weapons and fight for it.

[Sondrelk]

I imagine the timeskip being handled as follows:

- A few weeks before prepatch: a quest is enabled to go to Magni. You use the Heart of Azeroth to crumble Sargeras' sword. The wound is healed and the world is saved. The power of the heart starts to wane due to the effort.
- Prepatch arrives. The heart is powerless. Your level is squished. Everyone that logs in, at any level, gets a quest to meet your faction leaders.
- You are received as a hero. There's a cutscene with the leaders talking among themselves and celebrating. There's no immediate threat on the horizon, it's time to rest and rebuild. After delivering the quest, one NPC has a dialogue option to "Retire".
- Using the option, the screen fades to black. "Ten years later..." appear in the screen.
- When the screen returns, you are in the new version of the continent, in your racial starting zone, and the opening narration plays as if you had made a new character.
- The NPC that greets you, however, treat you as a veteran returning from retirement. You've been out of action for quite some time. Peace has been good, but Azeroth needs heroes again, it's time to get your weapons and fight for it.

Some minor problems with that.

Firstly, Sylvanas is still out there and plotting, 10 years seems excessive considering pretty much everyone seems to agree that she has to be brought to justice as soon as possible.
RP is a thing, for better or worse, and there is nothing worse for someone who enjoys RP on any level, from imagining a backstory to hardcore RP guilds, to have the story make decisions on your behalf, especially when the changes are unavoidable.

Other than that though i think it could work, though i am iffy on the whole mechanics of a 10 year timeskip. It would work brilliantly for players who go through the pre-expansion at just the right time, it would feel pretty sketchy for everyone else. I would just scrap the whole timeskip idea, or scale it back to something more reasonable, like a year at most.

- - - Updated - - -

Just to elaborate a bit. I don't think a time-skip is necessary anyways, since we the players have not really gone out to the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor proper for at least a good 4 years in-game time. Most of the zones i imagine to have been trudging along mostly undisturbed for half a decade.

- - - Updated - - -

Just ot fan the flames of a world revamp though. I recently travelled back to old Darkshore for Hallows end farming, and i noticed just how drastic the difference felt by going to the old version of the zones.
Would everyone be okay with a world revamp if it was on the level of Darkshore, where there are big changes, but mostly teh drastic changes that make it feel new are updated textures and color palettes. The grass especially.

[ercarp]

Firstly, Sylvanas is still out there and plotting, 10 years seems excessive considering pretty much everyone seems to agree that she has to be brought to justice as soon as possible.

In his first post he said Sylvanas would be dealt with in 8.3.5, so she would be very dead 10 years later.

[Sondrelk]

In his first post he said Sylvanas would be dealt with in 8.3.5, so she would be very dead 10 years later.

Right you are. The worst part is i remembered he said that as soon as you mentioned it.
Still though, my other problems with a timeskip still stands, mostly that it would feel awful for RPers, especially those like me who RP someone who is getting up in the years, though i guess that is the least of the problems.

[ercarp]

I imagine the timeskip being handled as follows:

- A few weeks before prepatch: a quest is enabled to go to Magni. You use the Heart of Azeroth to crumble Sargeras' sword. The wound is healed and the world is saved. The power of the heart starts to wane due to the effort.
- Prepatch arrives. The heart is powerless. Your level is squished. Everyone that logs in, at any level, gets a quest to meet your faction leaders.
- You are received as a hero. There's a cutscene with the leaders talking among themselves and celebrating. There's no immediate threat on the horizon, it's time to rest and rebuild. After delivering the quest, one NPC has a dialogue option to "Retire".
- Using the option, the screen fades to black. "Ten years later..." appear in the screen.
- When the screen returns, you are in the new version of the continent, in your racial starting zone, and the opening narration (as if you had made a new character) explains how the world changed in these ten years and what's your race's situation now.
- The NPC that greets you, however, treat you as a veteran returning from retirement. You've been out of action for quite some time. Peace has been good, but Azeroth needs heroes again, it's time to get your weapons and fight for it.

I like everything about this, I don't care how unrealistic it might sound to some. I'd love a timeskip personally, especially as a roleplayer.

- - - Updated - - -

Still though, my other problems with a timeskip still stands, mostly that it would feel awful for RPers, especially those like me who RP someone who is getting up in the years, though i guess that is the least of the problems.

Also speaking as a roleplayer, most of my characters would only benefit from a bit of maturing. I would love to RP an older, more mature version of my hunter for example.

[Feali]

Welcome back. I've been away awhile too.

Yay more people I know <3

[DeicideUH]

Some minor problems with that.

Firstly, Sylvanas is still out there and plotting, 10 years seems excessive considering pretty much everyone seems to agree that she has to be brought to justice as soon as possible.
RP is a thing, for better or worse, and there is nothing worse for someone who enjoys RP on any level, from imagining a backstory to hardcore RP guilds, to have the story make decisions on your behalf, especially when the changes are unavoidable.

Other than that though i think it could work, though i am iffy on the whole mechanics of a 10 year timeskip. It would work brilliantly for players who go through the pre-expansion at just the right time, it would feel pretty sketchy for everyone else. I would just scrap the whole timeskip idea, or scale it back to something more reasonable, like a year at most.

- - - Updated - - -

Just to elaborate a bit. I don't think a time-skip is necessary anyways, since we the players have not really gone out to the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor proper for at least a good 4 years in-game time. Most of the zones i imagine to have been trudging along mostly undisturbed for half a decade.

- - - Updated - - -

Just ot fan the flames of a world revamp though. I recently travelled back to old Darkshore for Hallows end farming, and i noticed just how drastic the difference felt by going to the old version of the zones.
Would everyone be okay with a world revamp if it was on the level of Darkshore, where there are big changes, but mostly teh drastic changes that make it feel new are updated textures and color palettes. The grass especially.

The quest to skip time wouldn't be limited to prepatch. No matter if you didn't play for one expansion or since TBC, as soon as you log in the old world you'd get the quest to go to the leaders and celebrate. This would actually help old players coming back to get quickly into current events and gameplay. And they could also choose to ignore the quest and keep playing the old world until level 40.

As for the timeskip, I think it's necessary to mark the end of an era and the beginning of another. We already have "one year timeskips" between expansions, and WoW story feels very convolute with a new world-ending threat each year. It's been 15 years in the real world, but around half that for the characters. Give them a break and allow the world to change in unexpected ways. You can't have Draenor fauna expanding all over Kalimdor in one year, for instance. And it would be very cool to give time for the war scars to heal, cities to grow, towns to appear and prosper. The landscape could changed drastically.

As for Sylvanas, the idea is to halt her plans in 8.3.5, then she escapes and bids her time. In ten years, she could return as a much greater threat than she is now alone. It wouldn't be different from, say, the Legion having to rethink their plan and bid their time after the original Horde was stopped. Just because there's a threat it doesn't mean it can't also wait to grow stronger before coming back for round 2. Sylvanas is undead, time is nothing for her.

[Sondrelk]

I like everything about this, I don't care how unrealistic it might sound to some. I'd love a timeskip personally, especially as a roleplayer.

- - - Updated - - -


Also speaking as a roleplayer, most of my characters would only benefit from a bit of maturing. I would love to RP an older, more mature version of my hunter for example.

To each their own i guess, still though. 10 years seems to me to be a bit excessive anyways. Events obviously need to happen in-game at some point, but 10 years is the kind of span of time that could be filled by an entirely new game potentially. I would really just caution reducing the timeskip to 1 year, maybe 2 at a stretch.

[DeicideUH]

To each their own i guess, still though. 10 years seems to me to be a bit excessive anyways. Events obviously need to happen in-game at some point, but 10 years is the kind of span of time that could be filled by an entirely new game potentially. I would really just caution reducing the timeskip to 1 year, maybe 2 at a stretch.

I think 10 years is a nice number because it's within a human lifespan and most races wouldn't even get older within it. It's also a nice number of years to have a new generation starting its adventures.

[Sondrelk]

The quest to skip time wouldn't be limited to prepatch. No matter if you didn't play for one expansion or since TBC, as soon as you log in the old world you'd get the quest to go to the leaders and celebrate. This would actually help old players coming back to get quickly into current events and gameplay. And they could also choose to ignore the quest and keep playing the old world until level 40.

As for the timeskip, I think it's necessary to mark the end of an era and the beginning of another. We already have "one year timeskips" between expansions, and WoW story feels very convolute with a new world-ending threat each year. It's been 15 years in the real world, but around half that for the characters. Give them a break and allow the world to change in unexpected ways. You can't have Draenor fauna expanding all over Kalimdor in one year, for instance. And it would be very cool to give time for the war scars to heal, cities to grow, towns to appear and prosper. The landscape could changed drastically.

As for Sylvanas, the idea is to halt her plans in 8.3.5, then she escapes and bids her time. In ten years, she could return as a much greater threat than she is now alone. It wouldn't be different from, say, the Legion having to rethink their plan and bid their time after the original Horde was stopped. Just because there's a threat it doesn't mean it can't also wait to grow stronger before coming back for round 2. Sylvanas is undead, time is nothing for her.

I suppose we shall wait and see.

I would be happy with just a proper world revamp expansion honestly. I am not a fan of tiemskips generally in persistent story games like these, but we shall see. Until then i shall cross my fingers and hope we get a world revamp on at least the level of Darkshore.

[Reinhart11]

Someone asked for predictions elsewhere and I wrote my own "leak". It's more wishful thinking than prediction, but here it goes:

- Sylvanas is dealt with in 8.3.5. We ally with the Death entities to stop her. She's not killed, but her plans are revealed and we set them back for now.
- "New" Continents: Revamped Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, 10 years timeskip.
- Level squish. Levels are divided by three. 120 becomes 40. New max level: 60.
- Can level up from 1 to 60 in the new continents. Zones divided between 1-40, 20-40 and 40-60 brackets (1/3 of the zones are in last bracket).
- Old versions of Kalimdor/EK still available and optional, ranging from 1-40. All old expansions range 20-40.
- Classes keep somewhat like now, but added back lots of utility and skill-based abilities. Several talents become baseline. Six talent rows, one every 10 levels. Every spec has at least one talent row that is about choosing your playstyle (like between Frost DK with one 2h or two 1h weapons). Skills are not auto-learned anymore, instead you have a skill tree that you gain points as you level up and is maxed at 60.
- Allied races now start at level 6.
- Both hero classes start at level 18.
- New class: tinker. Specs are tank that rides a mech, ranged DPS using guns and explosives, chemist healer. For gnomes, goblins, dark irons, mag'har, mechagnomes and vulpera.
- Tons of customization options added for all races. Most of them are unlocked through gameplay. Includes scars, tatoos and even alternate visuals for some races (wildhammer dwarf, highborne night elf, clan skins for normal orcs and more).
- New class combos. Worgen shaman, night elf paladin, void elf paladin, mechagnome shaman, goblin monk, lightforged monk, tauren rogue, highmountain rogue, undead paladin, nightborne paladin and pandaren druid (yeah).
- You can now collect alternate visuals for skills (through glyphs, questing, achievements, and so on). You can change them in a class trainer. Includes undead/void monsters in place of demons for warlocks, holy visuals for Shadow Priest, void versions of paladin spells and so on. Some race/class combos start with different visuals as default (like the void elf paladin or night elf priest).
- Kalimdor themed on exploration and wonder. Also night elf/Horde conflict, and Draenor fauna and flora has spread over the continent.
- Eastern Kingdoms themed on politics and border conflicts between the many kingdoms and city-states.
- Old allied races incorporated into the zones. Can now be unlocked easilly by doing local questlines centered on them.
- Many threats: Amani Covenant, return of Hakkar, botani expansion, Sylvanas' death cultists, the Black Empress (the entity formerly known as Xal'atath) building her own empire on the Wounded Lands (former Silithus/Ahn'Qiraj).
- Many heroes retired, lots of former child/teenage characters getting bigger roles (Galadin and Giramar, Dagran Thaurissan, Arator, Zekhan, Durak)

I agree with most stuff.

What i would add to the list is a system, that allows you to dye armor and weapons.

And aside from that, i think at some point we need either the already existing continents of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms (or Northrend and Pandaria too for that matter) to be larger, so the devs get more room to put content there, or we need new continents where for example the Mag'har and their Gronnlings, Ogron and Gronn could settle. Or both.

[brt2pp]

Scaling redesigned.

I understand the argument of making zones relevant, but the interaction with Classic just made me remember that there should be an element of danger. Making the zones always your level - or near it - completely undermines that. This is even further aggravated by the fact that our characters are simply too powerful - even while leveling - for regular and the so called "rare" mobs to pose any danger to us.

game with 120 levels can't have hard encounters during leveling, it would take either too long to level, or would require to few quests to level, the design of retail wow is about end-game not leveling

[Sondrelk]

I think 10 years is a nice number because it's within a human lifespan and most races wouldn't even get older within it. It's also a nice number of years to have a new generation starting its adventures.

You would still be playing the same character presumably, so the idea of the new generation taking over is already on shaky ground.

Still though, as i mentioned above. Not a hige problem. I would just scale the years back, you would still have essentially the same idea, just less problematic.