Where has the saved development time gone?

[Raven]

Since we dont know the sizes of the zones or dungeons its kinda hard to say that they saved any time.

[Sondrelk]

Since we dont know the sizes of the zones or dungeons its kinda hard to say that they saved any time.

We were told they are slightly larger than BfA zones, but what slightly larger means is hard to say, not ot mention the potential dead space in the zone like Mount Mugamba in Zuldazar taking up half the zone.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Would you agree that Shadowlands feels - at least at the moment - a lot less like 9.0 and a lot more like 8.4?

8 dungeons
5zones
A new progression system with covenants and soul bounds
A new instance type
Comptly new lore about the after life.

Ya sure feels like a .4 patch

[Benitora]

Quantity =/ Quality.
Hopefully in this case, less will be more.

[Drusin]

Are you blind? Just wait to see if the xpac really HAS less content than previous xpac. It's not due until almost a year, things might change, zones could be bigger than usual.. It's moronic to judge a book until you read it.

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Have you played it? Leveled to 60? Embrace the size of zones and the rest of the content? No you have not, so too early to speak about saved dev time.

You're catching someone elses ass whopping right now. Players always say "x is shit" then someone (you in this case) comes along and says "wait till you see it in game" then it's shit and the "wait till you see it in game" person just keeps saying "they'll fix it come Y" the entire expansion will go by and it will never get fixed until the next xpac but by then they've done something else and players are calling that shit and the cycle repeats.

[Sondrelk]

8 dungeons
5zones
A new profession system with covenants and soul bounds
A new instance type
Comptly new lore about the after life.

Ya sure feels like a .4 patch

I would pin the blame on the lackluster features trailer, which even accounting for the lack of new features didnt really play up much of anything except the zones, i felt about as much interest from that trailer as i did from the Shadows of Argus features trailer.

8.3 cannot come fast enough, i need that to be out so we can start looking forward to more info on 8.3 Alpha or somesuch.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The Argus weapons were actually unused models from WoD.

We’re they really? So it was just the 5 per spec then, id have to count it when I get home but I’d be suprised if bfa had less.

[Sondrelk]

We’re they really? So it was just the 5 per spec then, id have to count it when I get home but I’d be suprised if bfa had less.

Well there was the 3 boss weapons from Maiden, Aggramar and Argus.

[Sangfoudre]

We were told they are slightly larger than BfA zones, but what slightly larger means is hard to say, not ot mention the potential dead space in the zone like Mount Mugamba in Zuldazar taking up half the zone.

There is not a single smart metric to determine the quantity of content we get.
Number of zones => what if they are as big as crystalsong forest
Zone sizes => what about density, or dead space like you mentionned ?
Number of quests => I'd rather have 100 quests with different mechanics than 200 classic quests: boar chops/escort/speaking to X/killing 10 furbolgs
Number of dungeons/raid => what about number of boss, mechanics ...

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

They released a ton of content with bfa and people still hated it. We need well developed content. I have no faith in them whatsoever but that the logic, I've seen people use.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I would pin the blame on the lackluster features trailer, which even accounting for the lack of new features didnt really play up much of anything except the zones, i felt about as much interst from that trailer as i did from the Shadows of Argus features trailer.

8.3 cannot come fast enough, i need that to be out so we can start looking forward to more info on 8.3 Alpha or somesuch.

Do people really put so much stock in those trailers? I’ve always given them a once over then just dismissed them till the actual content was up on beta’s/test realms.

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Well there was the 3 boss weapons from Maiden, Aggramar and Argus.

Ah ya I always forget those exist.

[SirKickBan]

Shadowlands is launching with fewer dungeons, zones, and less staple content compared to the past. In addition, there will be no new features, races, classes or professions with the expansion.

So the question becomes, where has all the saved development time by not adding these standard expansion features gone to instead? Usually those resources are devoted to expansion gimmicks like Artifacts, Warfronts, Garrisons or other things. But in Shadowlands' case, it has no new gimmicks yet STILL has less staple content.

There will be class reworks, but there are always major class reworks in every expansion, yet these expansions still manage to launch with new features like new classes on top of the reworks. So that is not an excuse either. And with the end game zone being barren with your typical reputation grind (Covenants), it makes you wonder what the questing and zone team have actually been doing with their time.

All in all, it seems like Shadowlands has thinned out the amount of staple expansion content that WoW typically provides, without actually giving anything in return. The only explanation I can think of is that a significant portion of the WoW development team has been moved to D4 (similar to how much of the D3 team moved to WoW in Legion). As a result of this cost cutting for WoW, there is less raw content in Shadowlands.

Right into the shareholder's pockets.

[Sondrelk]

Do people really put so much stock in those trailers? I’ve always given them a once over then just dismissed them till the actual content was up on beta’s/test realms.

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Ah ya I always forget those exist.

Blizzard always gives us 2 trailers for the expansion, the cinematic one and a features one.
While the cineamtic one is definitely the most popular one and the only one with real staying power the features trailer is really Blizzards best way to get people hyped for the "actual" game instead of just looking at the pretty lights.
There have definitely been far better features trailers before this, the Legion one sticks out as getting me incredibly hyped, so expecting them to be lackluster isnt necessarily the best approach.
Shadowlands definitely has things to show off even with the little they promised already, they can show more of the rewards from each covenant, or a WIP crafting UI for the new legendaries, things like that.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Blizzard always gives us 2 trailers for the expansion, the cinematic one and a features one.
While the cineamtic one is definitely the most popular one and the only one with real staying power the features trailer is really Blizzards best way to get people hyped for the "actual" game instead of just looking at the pretty lights.
There have definitely been far better features trailers before this, the Legion one sticks out as getting me incredibly hyped, so expecting them to be lackluster isnt necessarily the best approach.
Shadowlands definitely has things to show off even with the little they promised already, they can show more of the rewards from each covenant, or a WIP crafting UI for the new legendaries, things like that.

Mabye it’s cause I’ve been so deep in the data mined stuff for so long but I’ve always just dismissed them till the stuff is actually testable to see how it really feels.

[Sangfoudre]

You're catching someone elses ass whopping right now. Players always say "x is shit" then someone (you in this case) comes along and says "wait till you see it in game" then it's shit and the "wait till you see it in game" person just keeps saying "they'll fix it come Y" the entire expansion will go by and it will never get fixed until the next xpac but by then they've done something else and players are calling that shit and the cycle repeats.

I'd be perfectly happy to see people constructively criticizing bfa or classic or anything concrete. Or at least a complete specsheet with promises and not some pictures and thin air.

[Nerovar]

gear? how so?
Class design? how os explain
pvp? explain
Rewards? explain
you cant just make a list without explaining.

how was legion's gear progression different then wods?

Well, I already explained these things in my previous posts. I merely summarized them again.

Gear & reward changes

• Randomized gear - item level, tertiary stats and sockets are subject to additional rolls. While already featured in WoD (some gear was excluded from these rules), the degree of TF we've seen in Legion completely changed item rewards. Where previously the only variable was whether you'd get the piece or not, now there's a huge check list of things that randomly determine the usefulness of your item. This tied in with the new Mythic+ system that basically changed the nature of gearing in WoW forever since you can pretty much endlessly grind gear this way.
• Artifact weapons - obligatory weapon choice that comes with a bunch of stat bonuses and passives locked behind a practically endless grind with AP being mainly awarded through PvE content.
• Random Legendaries/Legiondaries - contrary to previous versions of Legendary items which were locked behind "hard" content or long quest chains usually involving one or multiple raids, this iteration of Legendary items was awarded by pretty much any content in the game (you could even get Legiondaries from Blingtron gifts) but could pretty much only be farmed effectively by grinding menial tasks like WQs. Even though they were subject to ridiculous degrees of RNG, they had incredibly powerful impacts on your gameplay and overall performance in the game.

Summary: everything about gearing in Legion became infinitely more grindy and subject to RNG than in WoD as Blizzard seemingly abandoned the concept of weekly reward caps.

PvP

• Removal of PvP gear - whereas every other expansion had a PvP gearing system that rewarded unique PvP gear that was usually BiS for PvP and only obtainable through PvP, Legion abandoned this system in favour of a simplified gearing system. This made targeting certain slots impossible and also created an incentive for PvP players to do PvE content in order to have an optimal Artifact and item level as PvP rewards couldn't really compete with PvE rewards like Mythic+. Additionally, PvP gear was often less than optimal for most specs since almost all of the PvP items had versatility as a secondary stat.
• Stat templates - this completely removed the possibility to target certain secondary stats in PvP, reducing your item choices to "which has the highest ilvl". Trinkets were disabled as well. As a side effect this reduced the amount possible interactions between players and therefor reduced the overall complexity of instanced PvP.
• PvP talents - the addition of PvP talents is another big design shift because it marks the end of Blizzard's attempts to balance PvE and PvP as two game modes of the same game.

Summary: PvP reward structure in Legion is unrecognizable and favoured doing PvE content in order to perform well in PvP. Overall gameplay in PvP was also simplified due to class pruning, stat templates and PvP talents.

Class design

• Class/Spec overhauls - almost every spec in the game got a major rework, some of which made the original specs unrecognizable as they changed their entire playstyle and fantasy (Combat->Outlaw, Demonology, Survival). Where previous expansions featured incremental class changes, Legion completely scrapped or overhauled classes.
• Pruning - though different specs were affected unevenly by pruning, many classes lost a great deal of utility and other abilities in general with some classes losing a double digit number of spells. Although we already had some degree of pruning in WoD, it pales in comparison to WoW Legion in terms of scope. Glyphs were also removed.
• Artifact Weapons and Legendaries - in previous expansions you unlocked the full potential of your class by simply reaching the maximum level. Legion introduced two external systems that heavily impacted how your class played which you had to obtain through constant grinds at max level. This marks a shift in class design.

Summary: specs were overhauled and vastly simplified through spell pruning in order to make room for Artifact Weapons. BfA was also the first expansion to not feature a new row of talents since the introduction of the MoP style talent tree. Overall player agency was severely reduced.

[Beatman]

Where has the saved development time gone?

We don't know. And it's pointless to jump to conclusions.

[apples]

So, financially, the saved development time is going into corporate (therefore, mostly top management) pockets.

As for resources, they were long ago moved to other programs. In case you haven't noticed, BfA was done with substantially less effort than Legion (and it really does show) which means many resources were likely moved to other programs 2 to 3 years ago.

I wouldn't be surprised if most of them have moved over to Diablo IV to get that moving a bit faster. I don't think Blizz will be in a good financial position if Diablo IV releases like Diablo III (approximately 4 years after official announcement).

what % larger bonus did corporate (mostly top management) get this year than they did last year?

[McNeil]

I like to believe that the Shadowlands we've seen during Blizzcon was some very, very early stuff. Which would mean that more has to come eventually. If this isn't the case than I too am worried why this expansion already feels so barebones. Maybe they will make major patches bigger or something.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

Maybe waiting to see with your eyes what's in the xpac instead of speculating on a few slides and interviews almost a year before the release would be a smart move?

Yeah, sorry, that logic would have worked fine when TBC was announced, maybe even WotLK. But when they fail to deliver six times in a row, the only fools are the people saying "it's just [been announced/alpha/beta]! They'll fix it by release!"

It doesn't make you enlightened, or any optimist, or whatever else you think it makes you out to be when you say that stuff anymore; just Blizzard's target demographic who'll believe anything they sell them regardless of the result.

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I like to believe that the Shadowlands we've seen during Blizzcon was some very, very early stuff. Which would mean that more has to come eventually. If this isn't the case than I too am worried why this expansion already feels so barebones. Maybe they will make major patches bigger or something.

See above.