A technology-themed expansion could have worked

[Zantos]

Not anymore it can't. BFA Was the best shot they had at an expansion around new technology being developed for use in the war. It even had mechagnomes make an appearance. The race that would have had the Biggest singular chance to add that class. With the fighting over and mechagnomes delegated to a mere allied race, there really isn't any chance any longer. What possible story line could come up now?

[Triceron]

The difference between DK/DH and a Tinker is that the dks/dhs can not choose to become anything else as they are either dead or consumed a demon. A Tinker has to make their contraptions and if the best contraption maker fails then why try to make your own? Tinkers have a choice to be useless or become a hunter and actually contribute to something.

Edit: also more redundancy.

So it's okay to be a failure if you're born into it, but unacceptable when it's a choice?

Okay, you've convinced me.

[Phob]

So it's okay to be a failure if you're born into it, but unacceptable when it's a choice?

Okay, you've convinced me.

Pretty much yes. If you have a choice to not fail, why would you actively choose to fail?
But again I wasn't the one trying to convince. I am the one that is supposed to be convinced. Adding to more redundancy.

[Triceron]

Pretty much yes. If you have a choice to not fail, why would you actively choose to fail?
But again I wasn't the one trying to convince. I am the one that is supposed to be convinced. Adding to more redundancy.

You're right.

You assume having a playable Tinker implies a class that chooses to fail. You've convinced yourself that this is the only path they can take as a class.

And if you believe in something this ridiculous, I mean, who am I to convince you otherwise? You've already made your choice. Would be saying 'Tinkers can choose not to fail' change your mind? I doubt it. There's nothing that I could say that would shake your beliefs. Anything I say contrary to your beliefs would likely make you double down on them rather than be convinced, because you're not actually looking to be convinced you're looking for ways to vindicate what you already believe by dismissing the arguments against you.

And the simple matter is, there's no way to actually prove that Tinkers choose not to fail, because playable Tinkers don't exist.

Just like if I said Evokers would be a new class, there's nothing to actually prove that they would be. Like, what is there to say to convince anyone that Evokers would be a new class? "They could be playable if we have a new Dragon race that Deathwing created in secret that has the powers of all Dragonflights"? Yeah, there's no way to actually convince anyone that a new class could be playable. One has to simply be open to the possibility themselves.

Cuz otherwise, there's more reason to dismiss a class than there is to convince they would be playable. Death Knights? Why would a class that is bound to the will of the Lich King suddenly work on the Alliance and Horde? Not convincing. Demon Hunters? We killed them all in TBC and none are known left alive, with Illidan even being dead. Not convincing. Monks? We already have Monks in Scarlet Monastery and there's no reason for Pandarens to be playable or why they would teach other races their secrets. Not convincing. If these are the beliefs someone has, then no amount of speculation will actually convince them otherwise.

For anyone to be convinced, they have to be open to the possibility first. And it's clear to me that you are not.

[Phob]

You're right.

You assume having a playable Tinker implies a class that chooses to fail. You've convinced yourself that this is the only path they can take as a class.

And if you believe in something this ridiculous, I mean, who am I to convince you otherwise? You've already made your choice. Would be saying 'Tinkers can choose not to fail' change your mind? I doubt it. There's nothing that I could say that would shake your beliefs. Anything I say contrary to your beliefs would likely make you double down on them rather than be convinced, because you're not actually looking to be convinced you're looking for ways to vindicate what you already believe by dismissing the arguments against you.

And the simple matter is, there's no way to actually prove that Tinkers choose not to fail, because playable Tinkers don't exist.

Just like if I said Evokers would be a new class, there's nothing to actually prove that they would be. Like, what is there to say to convince anyone that Evokers would be a new class? "They could be playable if we have a new Dragon race that Deathwing created in secret that has the powers of all Dragonflights"? Yeah, there's no way to actually convince anyone that a new class could be playable. One has to simply be open to the possibility themselves.

I just point out facts. There was a perfect place to put them in but you got meccagnomes instead. And all I was looking for was a convincing argument to sway me or anyone to your side in which you did not give and threw redundancies in. Have a nice rest of your time here.

Stop bringing evokers up they fit the mold of a new class as did dks, monks and dhs they all have something similar I'm sure you can figure it out.

[Teriz]

I just point out facts. There was a perfect place to put them in but you got meccagnomes instead. And all I was looking for was a convincing argument to sway me or anyone to your side in which you did not give and threw redundancies in. Have a nice rest of your time here.

Blizzard would not introduce a new class midway through an expansion. Especially in an expansion where technology or the Gnomish/Goblin themes are tertiary to the overall story. You could very easily place Undermine in an Azshara expansion for example, as demonstrated by the high level of tech being displayed in the latest HS undersea expansion.

Further, with Monks, Blizzard has already shown that it's perfectly willing to retcon history to place a class into the game. A Pandaren Monk was placed in the Draenei starter zone, stating that they witnessed the Exodar crash and was coming to lend aid to the injured. That event happened 3 expansions prior to the introduction of the monk class, so nothing stops Blizzard from retroactively placing Tiinkers in previous lore and simply pretending like they had always been there.

[Polybius]

I'll just say this. Adding tinkers would be dumb af at this point, we already have goblins and gnomes and they already have technology. If they were to add them now why would the goblins/gnomes not be able to be tinkers from 2004 to 2024? You have to make it make sense and I don't think you can or anyone can.

We technically did have them, they just aren’t playable. Just like we had Demon Hunters since the beginning.

I hate to be that guy but this logic is pepega when you account for development time and gameplay. You can ask this for any lore: Why isn’t Gilneas accessible? Why isn’t Undermine? Why don’t blood elves have gold eyes? Why don’t we have Kultiras or Zandalar?

The answer is simple: it’s available when it’s ready, when the plot asks for it.

For the posters going out attacking op. Practice what you preach, you don’t have to like the idea and you don’t have to be antagonistic like you are in every single tech thread. It’s tiring as sh!t. You already know why you’re on your 2nd/3rd burner.

[Aydinx2]

No clue what you are talking about because:
- Mimiron in Ulduar is one of the highly regarded fights and tech themed
- One of the best features in BfA was Mechagon, Mechagnomes and the associated tech zone
- Undermine (as gobline tech), the goblin starting area and the new Aszhara hub have a unique design
- The Iron Horde theme carried over into the Orgrimmar raid
- The tech zone in the other side works too
- Even the ethereals (TBC and now Tazavesh) work quite nicely.
- Engineering is one of the most fun professions since Vanilla with debatable gadgets.
- Siege Weapons and Dwarf tanks are one of the core techs since Warcraft.

And there is still a lot about the Titan technologies we have yet to understand (with Zereth Mortis and co we got a glimpse in the design of the reality). As well as steampunk/cyberpunk theme offering a unique design choice.

Also tech offers quite some references as being the driving factor of the 2020s. Pop culture references to Cyberpunk/Horizon are amass.

The only downside would have been a new race - but you could simply explore the current Mechagnomes/Dwarfs and Makghar/Goblin cultures a bit more. We have not seen much about Goblins yet....

Not quite sure why Alexstrasza waifu should be a better option than tech...

And guess what? Those aren't full expansions worth of Tech. That's why they worked.
People would have hated Ulduar if the entire expansion was like that.

[Echo of Soul]

"Never say never" is a good approach. I think the class is much less likely to happen than some believe because it doesn't seem to be possible to do it without gutting the engineering profession in some way. There's also the thought that while there's a lot of noise about tinkers here most of it is made by less than a dozen people.

That's the danger of loud vocal minorities, if they are committed enough they can make it sound like it's something that a large portion of the community wants. It's essentially how spell batching and mega servers made it in to Classic, both of which were arguably mistakes.

[Triceron]

I just point out facts. There was a perfect place to put them in but you got meccagnomes instead. And all I was looking for was a convincing argument to sway me or anyone to your side in which you did not give and threw redundancies in. Have a nice rest of your time here.

Stop bringing evokers up they fit the mold of a new class as did dks, monks and dhs they all have something similar I'm sure you can figure it out.

I mean, facts are literally able to be twisted any which way.

Let's play devil's advocate. What new class do you think could be added to the game? I can factually dismantle any concept you come up with. I can show you how impossible it would be to be convincing, because there are literally no such thing as 'facts' that support any new class being added to the game. They'd all be considered speculation. It all comes down to personal beliefs and whether you are willing to open up to the possibilities.

Personally, I am open to all possibilities, no matter how ridiculous. And I know enough that there is no way to factually convince anyone that a Necromancer or Dark Ranger or Bard or Priestess of the Moon could be playable, because if anything, the facts suggest that they wouldn't be because they literally aren't playable right now. Why would they suddenly become playable if they aren't already? That is the basic argument that you've presented. By your own logic, no new class could be convincingly be presented through facts in the existing lore.

This is literally why any and all new class discussion is considered speculation. Facts only complicate the discussion because facts only prove the class isn't already playable.

[Phob]

Blizzard would not introduce a new class midway through an expansion. Especially in an expansion where technology or the Gnomish/Goblin themes are tertiary to the overall story. You could very easily place Undermine in an Azshara expansion for example, as demonstrated by the high level of tech being displayed in the latest HS undersea expansion.

Further, with Monks, Blizzard has already shown that it's perfectly willing to retcon history to place a class into the game. A Pandaren Monk was placed in the Draenei starter zone, stating that they witnessed the Exodar crash and was coming to lend aid to the injured. That event happened 3 expansions prior to the introduction of the monk class, so nothing stops Blizzard from retroactively placing Tiinkers in previous lore and simply pretending like they had always been there.

They could and should have brought them in at the end of bfa having the meccagnomes teach the current gnomes and having the goblins steal their schematics.
With monks you can definitely see a ship crashing through the air from where ever the turtle island was at the time. So I wouldn't really call it a retcon, monks have been around. They just didn't have a reason to teach their ways until we went to their area of the world.

[Teriz]

They could and should have brought them in at the end of bfa having the meccagnomes teach the current gnomes and having the goblins steal their schematics.

Except that makes no sense, as the Tinker concept comes from Goblins and originates from the Tinker Union in Undermine. Also Blizzard wouldn't introduce a new class at the middle or end of an expansion.

With monks you can definitely see a ship crashing through the air from where ever the turtle island was at the time. So I wouldn't really call it a retcon, monks have been around. They just didn't have a reason to teach their ways until we went to their area of the world.

Except that isn't what they said. The NPC said that he was in the Bloodmyst isles when it happened. Further, all the monk NPCs pretty much had lore stating that they had always been there. They didn't suddenly appear because we found Pandaria.

That's exactly what Blizzard is going to do with Tinkers, unless they're a hero class.

[Polybius]

That's the danger of loud vocal minorities, if they are committed enough they can make it sound like it's something that a large portion of the community wants. It's essentially how spell batching and mega servers made it in to Classic, both of which were arguably mistakes.

You can lay down the ‘minority’ tripe now that we have Evokers that nobody asked for.

Every class is its own minority, as is every race in game. 100/12 is 8%. By 13 is 7.7%.

[Echo of Soul]

You can lay down the ‘minority’ tripe now that we have Evokers that nobody asked for.

Every class is its own minority, as is every race in game. 100/12 is 8%. By 13 is 7.7%.

Yeah because Blizzard putting things in the game that nobody asked for is completely unheard of

[rrayy]

You can lay down the ‘minority’ tripe now that we have Evokers that nobody asked for.

Every class is its own minority, as is every race in game. 100/12 is 8%. By 13 is 7.7%.

Except people have asked for Evokers.

[Triceron]

We technically did have them, they just aren’t playable. Just like we had Demon Hunters since the beginning.

I hate to be that guy but this logic is pepega when you account for development time and gameplay. You can ask this for any lore: Why isn’t Gilneas accessible? Why isn’t Undermine? Why don’t blood elves have gold eyes? Why don’t we have Kultiras or Zandalar?

The answer is simple: it’s available when it’s ready, when the plot asks for it.

For the posters going out attacking op. Practice what you preach, you don’t have to like the idea and you don’t have to be antagonistic like you are in every single tech thread. It’s tiring as sh!t. You already know why you’re on your 2nd/3rd burner.

Whose burner account?

[Ielenia]

I'll try one more time since people don't seem to be reading what I'm saying. People believe Warcraft was high fantasy in the earliest RTS games and that is has strayed too far from its roots by becoming a kitchen sink of all kinds of genres. It wasn't.

Warcraft was high fantasy back in the RTS era. We had magic, we had demons, we had fantastic races, we had other dimensions, etc.

Low fantasy does not have to exclude all magic and be a purely mundane experience in a fantasy world.

That is basically what "low fantasy" is.

[Triceron]

Warcraft was high fantasy back in the RTS era. We had magic, we had demons, we had fantastic races, we had other dimensions, etc.

Curious, what would you consider WoW's genre to be today, with everything that's already known about the lore at large. I know it has cosmic stuff, but I wouldn't consider it 'Cosmic Fantasy', and I don't really know what else people would call this.

[Ielenia]

Except Blizzard never established that the Tinker concept was rolled into the engineering profession or the Hunter class.

In your opinion. Others may look at how the engineering profession takes all technology concepts and think the 'tinker' concept is covered by the profession. Again, it's a personal issue of yours. It's also a non-issue, like I said.

They did state rather plainly that they put the Necromancer concept in the DK class.

They literally never said that. Blizzard said they took ideas they would put in the necromancer class and put it into the DK once they decided which class to push forward.

Idea is a synonym of concept.

Here, in the context of class creation, they're not. A necromancer is "a concept". Ideas would the kind of mechanics and themes they'd add to the concept.

You mean like increasingly showcasing goblins and gnomes piloting robotic mech tanks, yet not having a buildable mech of any use in Engineering since MoP?

Pretty much, yes. We can build pilotable mechs with engineering. That's the whole point. It demonstrates that the concepts are there.

And the Tinker concept has a possible expansion location, original abilities currently not attached to existing classes, and multiple lore heroes that can be Tinkers.

Unfortunately other class concepts can't say the same.

Come to me when you prove that those are absolute requirements and that new places can't be created for new classes.

Why would a profession satisfy a class fantasy? That isn't what professions are designed to do.

Because, again, it's your personal issue. The engineering is there and it satisfy the fantasy of technology for many players. That it doesn't satisfy the fantasy to you, again, it's your own issue. And, like I said, it's as much a "non-issue" as necromancer fans not feeling their own necromancer fantasies being fulfilled by the death knight.

- - - Updated - - -

Curious, what would you consider WoW's genre to be today, with everything that's already known about the lore at large. I know it has cosmic stuff, but I wouldn't consider it 'Cosmic Fantasy', and I don't really know what else people would call this.

I'd call it "high fantasy", really.

[Teriz]

In your opinion. Others may look at how the engineering profession takes all technology concepts and think the 'tinker' concept is covered by the profession. Again, it's a personal issue of yours. It's also a non-issue, like I said.

Except it's not an opinion. Blizzard never formally stated that they placed the Tinker's concepts in Engineering or the Hunter class. The lack of Tinker abilities in either place confirms that. They DID state that they placed the Necromancer's ideas/concepts into the Death Knight class, and the necromancer abilities within the Death Knight class confirms that.

They literally never said that. Blizzard said they took ideas they would put in the necromancer class and put it into the DK once they decided which class to push forward.

Seriously, what's the difference? You have Necromancer abilities in the Death Knight class. That is taking necromancer concepts/ideas and placing them in DKs.

Here, in the context of class creation, they're not. A necromancer is "a concept". Ideas would the kind of mechanics and themes they'd add to the concept.

You mean mechanics like Raising an undead ghoul from a corpse, raising an ally from the dead as a ghoul, sacrificing your undead minion to gain health, or blowing up a corpse and causing AoE damage? Those are all necromancer concepts that the DK had in WotLK, and in some cases still have.

Pretty much, yes. We can build pilotable mechs with engineering. That's the whole point. It demonstrates that the concepts are there.

Except the concept is to use that mech for attacking enemies, and using that mech's armor to make an INT-based hero into a powerful front line fighter. Building a mount in engineering doesn't fulfill that concept.

Come to me when you prove that those are absolute requirements and that new places can't be created for new classes.

Expansion > Lore Hero/Cover character > Expansion Location > MOBA/RTS unit > New Class

WotLK > Arthas/Lich King/ > Northrend > Death Knight hero unit abilities > Death Knight class
MoP > Chen Stormstout > Pandaria > Brewmaster hero unit abilities > Monk class
Legion > Illidan Stormrage > Broken Isles > Demon Hunter hero unit/Illidan HotS > Demon Hunter class
Dragonflight > Alexstraza > Dragon Isles > Alexstraza HotS > Dracthyr Evoker class

For "Tinkers":

Expansion > Monte Gazlowe > Undermine > Tinker hero unit/Gazlowe HotS > Technology-based class

It's pretty obvious.