World of Warcraft: Harbingers of Strife (9.0)

[Shinrael]

i think the mighty titan leader of the burning Legion is a character to be hyped.



Regardless, this one IS dumb, with no connection to wow.

Sageras being free already is nonsensical

What connection to WoW does "Cataclysm" have then, for example?

Sargeras will be free when the expansion that centers around him comes. That could be 9.0, 10.0, 11.0, 12.0 or basically any future expansion. The only nonsensical thing here is to assume what's nonsensical and what is not in a fantasy franchise made my people you clearly do not understand.

[Zyrinx]

The name makes no sense, as the thing is neither about Harbingers, nor Strife.

[Zoibert the Bear]

This is a bear post so I kind of feel like I should trust it.

Bears are pretty good sources of data.

[Kyphael]

The title sounds a lot like what I'd expect from an expansion featuring The Sha.

[Muajin76]

World of Warcraft: Harbingers of Strife

• The premise of the next expansion is about restoring order to a world out of balance. It was established too much Light is a bad thing on Argus, and that concept of balance will be explored further by tying the past few expansions together.
  
  Life has been weakened by the Emerald Dream/dragonflight events, so Death forces start to make a move towards becoming dominant (led by the obvious contenders). The defeat of the old gods weakens Shadow, so Light begins to become more oppressive and requires confrontation. Order/Arcane begins to subdue magic in the world with that much control, as Fel weakened greatly after the Legion's defeat. Multiple storylines, zones, and raids will explore each of these conflicts, with us playing the side of what's often considered the enemy.
  
  We'll see major lore events like Sargeras being freed and the dragonflights regaining power. Each major patch will deal with one of these three major conflicts in open world content and raids.
  
  
• World quests are repurposed towards leveling alts and currency in place of EXP for cosmetics/fun stuff at max level. The vendor has an assortment of goods like "random battle pet," "random toy," or "random exotic gear" (AKA transmog). Players can also save up quite a bit of the currency to get the reward they want. The item pool will be about as large as what islands offered, so there's a lot to collect.
  
  
• Weekly caps will make a return for the new power system. It'll be possible to cap in one day of playing quite a bit or over a week of taking it really casually. Everything in the game will count towards the cap, so players can do what they find the most fun. The goal of a cap returning is to make the game more alt-friendly.
  
  
• Talents are too hard to balance and any choice of similar talents (single target row) is often dictated by a mathematically best. Class identity was something praised in Classic, so talents will return to an MOP-esque design where every spec has some baseline abilities and mostly similar talents. Well-received/mandatory talents currently on live will be baked into specs.
  
  
• Gear upgrading/forging is becoming more controlled. Sockets are becoming baseline on items. Players are given a few weekly chances using a currency to *forge a certain item they want at an NPC. It'll go up a random amount of ilvl, up to a cap depending on its base ilvl. This removes the situation with surprise world quest pants being an unwanted lucky 30 ilvl titanforge.
  
  
• M+ loot is reworked, but it's still very much a work-in-progress. It drops a baseline of normal raid ilvl gear in +10 regular runs. They are given a couple of chances at "good" ilvl loot with what is basically a slot machine (but more thematic) at the end of a run. Players have an option to give the NPC one of their two weekly M+ chance currency. If they do, they are given a interface choice of one of four different items from the dungeon (of what's basically an equivalent ilvl to the weekly box/key level correlation on live). They lose their coin, but they can take up to weekly reset to decide in case they'll be getting other upgrades. The choices presented are stored on an NPC in the main city for future picking.
  
  
• Since 50v5 world PVP wasn't very fun for the receiving side, war mode is changing. There are now six factions players can choose to represent in the PVP menu: Light, Shadow, Order, Disorder, Life, Death. Each faction has cosmetic rewards/titles/mounts for increasing the rank with that faction by partaking in world PVP. The faction will be presented in the world to others as a marker over each player's head and on the nameplate.
  
  Players are free to change these factions at any time, and underrepresented factions gain increased ranking for kills in the world to keep some semblance of balance. The mortal enemies of each faction are worth increased honor (i.e. Life <> Death, Order <> Disorder, Light <> Shadow). There are unique rewards for both swapping around and sticking around. If someone wants to be a Paladin staying faithful to fantasy, there are extremely prestigious Light rewards for their undying loyalty.

Hmm...how does a poster get a 1 year member status and have ONE post?

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1- The name is dumb
2- Freeing Sargeras so soon is completely stupid
3- Even if this thing about "choosing to defend a major magic force" sounds cool, i don't think wow had enough players to pull that off.

Sargeras: *Player name* Too soon, you have freed me too soon!
Player: Didn't Ragnaros say something similar?
Sargeras: Who dat?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

"Talents are broken. So we're doing what sounds like a change but in reality isn't one."

That's about the exact level of stupid I'd expect from Blizzard.

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I'd be really sad if the next expansion was a nebulous concept like "restoring balance" just like this bullshit "faction war" expansion.

There's a part of me that can see it but I'd still be surprised that WoW is so plainly stealing story concepts from a rival.