How would you feel about a "Mega Expansion"

[Mayia]

This would assume blizzard would spend the entire time making a legion wrath or TBC kind of expansion, and not half shit, half decent, so we'd basically just end up with a semi decent expansion.. of which case why not just leave one expansion to one story?

Hey i'm sure we'd be fine if they said "Okay shadowlands storyline is going to take an extra year, but we are going to keep making content."

However, Blizzard or more Activision doesn't want that.. they want the money every X often, the sub isn't enough they also want to sell a $60 expansion as often as they can.

and if they charged 120$ and fucked it up majorly they'd be set for low subs for so long before they could bring empty promises with the next expansion fixing all the issues.

[George Costanza]

I think we can all say that the expansion system does refresh the game, but Blizzard have only ever really minimally dipped into more extreme or larger projects. How would you feel about a mega-expansion - an expansion with huge development time (4 years) which would be able to come with a large vast continent similar to the size of original Azeroth, many dungeons, a well developed story etc. -- I think something like this would do a lot better for Blizz in the long run.

How do you feel? Vote in the Poll!

Sure but have them develop it when we are in a Good expansion.

[Hinastorm]

when blizzard made wow they were still 3 guys in a garage and they made a 150 billion$ game and it took them 3 months.

youre saying that blizzard right now, a company of 100 thousand people, needs 9 months to create a single zone with a boss fight that has 2 mechanics and is just pay irl money to win lootbox and so you can farm more ap?

blizz shills

Is this satire?

[Swnem]

No. I think blizzards current 6 month big patch cycle is one of the things that is wrong/outdated with the game.
Content drops need to be more often and don't need to be as big.

For example, instead of releasing a 10 boss raid every 6 months, they can release two 5 boss raids every 3 months. That would keep players more actively engaged rather than have these terrible months/years of draughts.

Check what PoE and FFXIV do. That is the way to keep people engaged. Every 3 months there is something new to look forward to.

[Ielenia]

when blizzard made wow they were still 3 guys in a garage and they made a 150 billion$ game and it took them 3 months.

Well, at least you're upfront with the fact you're just talking nonsense. Three months to create vanilla WoW? Really? That hilarious. I mean, even the Wiki entry for the game states that it took 4-5 years to make.

youre saying that blizzard right now, a company of 100 thousand people,

And I bet you believe all those "one-hundred thousand people" are all developers.

needs 9 months to create a single zone with a boss fight that has 2 mechanics

You're insane if you believe that the Blizzcon demo was all there was of the expansion at the time.

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I think we can all say that the expansion system does refresh the game, but Blizzard have only ever really minimally dipped into more extreme or larger projects. How would you feel about a mega-expansion - an expansion with huge development time (4 years) which would be able to come with a large vast continent similar to the size of original Azeroth, many dungeons, a well developed story etc. -- I think something like this would do a lot better for Blizz in the long run.

How do you feel? Vote in the Poll!

Dude. 4-5 years is the average development time. When MoP was being developed, they were already starting on WoD.

[MoanaLisa]

How would you feel about a mega-expansion - an expansion with huge development time (4 years)

Total game-killing idea.

It's interesting though that the effects of doing this would be precisely the same as everyone that wants a WoW II which would take years to build/develop and meanwhile no content in WoW I.

To be honest if they were to take this approach they should just do what they do now with WoW and release a giant mega-RPG as a single-player game ala Skyrim. That would also do well if they were to get it right. I would prefer that to this any day.

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when blizzard made wow they were still 3 guys in a garage and they made a 150 billion$ game and it took them 3 months.

Lies. All of it.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Anyway "Mega Expansion" would only work if they took a page out of FF14's book. It'd need to be a total recreation, probably a shutdown and re-release later deal. In other words, a WoW 2.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

OP's post history is...sketchy.


I have pondered the thought of an expansion lasting longer then it usually does(Obviously with more major content patches obviously). That doesn't seem to be something thats come to their mind. And considering a WoD and BFA happening, they want to just do some decent job and then move onto the next big thing(Shadowlands).

[Ragnarohk]

No.

Imagine being stuck with the Heart of Azeroth and azerite gear system for 4 years

/shiver

[derpkitteh]

they need to change the entire system completely.

instead of reinventing the wheel every goddamned expansion, they need to just cap the level at 70 from shadowlands on, and use "expansions" to just expand story and add raids and other shit. let people get their character progression from a champion system that has a cap on how much power you can get from it.

basically, they need to copy eso's endgame. copy the CP system, copy the character progression. leave character progression to just fine-tuning your character's gameplay through set effects.

[Thetruth1400]

A mega expansion like that would be fine, but they'd need patches every 4-6 months in the meantime to do it. That means between 8 and 12 patches of actual content, not things like selfie cams or small little 1-3 boss raids, actual patches with content.

Having all of that with a progressing story that has lots of actual time in an expansion and lots of patches to further the story over a 4 year period would be quite nice, we'd get a decent story progression instead of the jumpy, patchy nonsense we got in BfA.

[Polarthief]

Why? What would they get out of this? They'd lose so many subs while we all wait for the new expansion. Would work great without the sub model, but I don't see it happening since they need those subs always ticking.

ALSO, is this all just questing like vanilla or is it end-game content? WoW has turned into "Endgame is all that matters" now so having a ton of zones like Vanilla just for leveling/telling a story doesn't remotely work. Vanilla's also very light on endgame content comparatively and I wouldn't want that, especially after waiting a year or two of lackluster content.

[Kithelle]

No thanks...long development means longer droughts.

Let me just ask you, could you imagine if BfA went on for a few more years?

[S2H]

Isn't this just code for saying that every other expansion is barebones to make every second one better?

[Scorched2Black]

wait 4 years for content? that's a horrible plan

[itsmonika]

I didn't get this. What is this about?

[Megitsune]

Imagine being stuck with the same content for YEARS. The end of expansion content drought that already exists causes a massive drop in subs. So no, that's an awful idea.

Only way to do anything like that would be to hire a completely separate team to develop the "mega expansion" while WoW proceeds as regular.

[RaoBurning]

I just want a Diablo style Hardcore mode. Really puts those world first's back on a proper pedestal.

[Kyphael]

They already take about 1-3 years developing expansions, one twice as big from Blizzard would in theory take about 6 years. These are just arbitrary titles anyway, every expansion should be made with the mentality to go big or go home. Like Legion in its scope and delivery could be considered a "mega expansion" compared to say, WoD. So if you're asking me, do I want more expansions like Legion, where they take extra time to develop it and it seems big and successful versus expansions like WoD? Yes, yes I do. But I suppose before any "mega expansion", you need a mediocre expansion that has its development time sacrificed in favor of the subsequent mega expansion.

[Alyajna]

I would just like to have smaller patches every 2-4 months for however long the current expansion last until the story feels done (unlike what has happened in bfa, with the story feeling extremely rushed at the end). But, I think they'd need to be willing to do "major changes" if necessary. Right now they refuse to make big adjustments to classes/systems if the playerbase is unhappy, always saying it has to be addressed next expac. So I'm at a point where I just want bfa to be dead and over, despite having interest in the story. The systems are too frustrating/tedious and they aren't going to change them. They would be in a lot of trouble if it was going to go on for another 2 years. I feel like they realized this and have dumped everything for Shadowlands (just like Wod into Legion).. it just doesn't feel great knowing that even the dev team has given up on what we have to play for the next almost-year, we have official word that there are no more patches for this expac, nothing.

They really need to get away from this mentality.