Exile's Reach->Battle For Azeroth->Dragonflight?

[Nymrohd]

1: Is that obvious, though? I'd bet against them putting extra effort there.

2: I wish they would jist do that for every expansion. An instanced scenario at the end of the campaign that shows the end of the expansion. I expect theyll just repeat what theyve been doing for decades. Nothing.

I mean we got the stories that effectively introduce expansions in books MULTIPLE times. Heck we got events that could cover a tier or two of content in books. Stormrage could have been an Emerald Dream expansion before Cataclysm. Heck you could also add the Me'dan comics (without Me'dan) to further explain the faction war and add a raid in Revamped AQ40 with Cho'gall absorbing C'thun and escaping. Garrosh' trial was mentioned in game and then we fast forward to the Iron Horde invading when the trial could easily have been a MoP scenario or even a mini dungeon (we could be fighting Wrathion, help the faction leaders against their AU counterparts and then in the end perhaps fight some of the loyalists or Kairoz)

That "show, don't tell" basic principle of composing stories? Blizzard has not even heard of it.

[Eurhetemec]

That "show, don't tell" basic principle of composing stories? Blizzard has not even heard of it.

Yeah, even in their earlier games this has never been something they've been particularly good at, back to before WoW. A lot of their games make some vague attempt at showing, give up, and just decide to tell us a bunch of stuff. Diablo 3 was particularly astonishing in that it managed to show loads of stuff and still engaged in endless telling to the point of utter boredom (also requiring the player to accept that their character is a very gullible idiot wasn't great).

I'm still astonished that Blizzard had the minimal level of taste and decency to reject and then even retcon over Med'an, good god that storyline was some awful nonsense. No thanks to Afrasiabi it seems (thank god he's gone, frankly), who was still keen on Med'an even after he got retcon'd.

[Nymrohd]

Diablo 3 was particularly astonishing in that it managed to show loads of stuff and still engaged in endless telling to the point of utter boredom (also requiring the player to accept that their character is a very gullible idiot wasn't great).

This is really it. For me WoD died in the introduction. Seriously the expansion died just there. In a few minutes instead of killing them (which would also shut down the portal) I release Cho'gall, Teron'gor and Gul'dan. And it happens so many times in WoW. The moment you force me to make my character a moron to see the rest of the story I simply disengage from that character. Same way I no longer care for the lore; it just feels stupid to me at this point and I'll just look at it to see what happens but the excitement was killed; tbh it was nearly dead with "Draenor is free" but then BfA and Shadowlands pissed over it and set it on fire"

[Julian Rayne]

Yes, because BfA content will be the default 10-60 experience, this was confirmed in the announcement (or in one of the interviews directly after). Just like this content scales to 50 now, it will scale up to 60 in 10.0

I wonder if the level caps for the other other expansions will also go up. Right now Legion scales to 45 without Chromie time. I wonder if it will go up to 55 or something.

[scrappybristol]

BFA mattered more for the future of Azeroth than Shadowlands.

I bet the only thing that will be referenced from Shadowlands going forward will be Sylvanas' punishment and Anduin's ptsd, everything else won't matter from Azeroth's perspective.

[bruxx]

Let's be honest, shitty as it is, the story will never make any sense to newcomers because parts are skipped the second that they reach the expansion's cap and move onto "current content" it doesn't matter whether newcomers do vanilla, BfA or shadowlands first, they will be confused all thoghout unless they consume some lore on youtube.

I am not excusing the situation, is it flabbergasting, but it is what it is right now.

[Lady Atia]

Let's be honest, shitty as it is, the story will never make any sense to newcomers because parts are skipped the second that they reach the expansion's cap and move onto "current content" it doesn't matter whether newcomers do vanilla, BfA or shadowlands first, they will be confused all thoghout unless they consume some lore on youtube.

I am not excusing the situation, is it flabbergasting, but it is what it is right now.

Hence they really should make the BfA campaign up until the duel required for leveling up (atleast the first time). You would start with the Battle of Lordaeron and finish with Saurfangs Death and both factions being united. They could also make a small timewalking campaign that has us face up against a few infinite dragons that culminates in a scenario version of the last raid of an expansion or something.

[Mysterymask]

This may be a weird tinfoil hat theory but...
I believe Blizz might be planning something with the "heart of azeroth" later or even in Dragonflight and this can ensure people get it or at least people know about it so it's not a sudden "oh hey remember that necklace we didn't give you cause you skipped BFA?"

Dont forget only reason we didn't bring it to Shadowlands was because it doesn't work outside Azeroth...and guess where we are now

[Orby]

Well I mean by removing shadowlands from Story, you only lose the Slyvannas Plot.
I know the techinal reason is because they have to most likely have to alter things, change limitations and what not.
But I would be happy just to forget/Retcon Shadowlands never happened.

nah nah nah, for you see after killing Saurfang she actually just blasted off back to her home planet

[Lady Atia]

This may be a weird tinfoil hat theory but...
I believe Blizz might be planning something with the "heart of azeroth" later or even in Dragonflight and this can ensure people get it or at least people know about it so it's not a sudden "oh hey remember that necklace we didn't give you cause you skipped BFA?"

Dont forget only reason we didn't bring it to Shadowlands was because it doesn't work outside Azeroth...and guess where we are now

You don't get the heart anymore if you start leveling in BfA. You need level 50 for the Magni quest now.

[MrLachyG]

Do we really believe WoW at this point, in this state, even with dragonflight, is going to get new players?

I just cannot see anything that would attract new players to this game, even with the dragonflight reveal. I'm sure new players will stumble upon the game but the number will be hundreds at most imo.

will be interesting to see how many copies it sells before launch day. as was well documented, Shadowlands set a record for first day sales which I assumed included pre-purchases. no reason to think that Dragonflight will be any different

[Huntaer]

Makes sense to me. If we'd send newbies to Shadowlands they'd be going through a story about the afterlife, seeing characters in story they've never met, see references they don't understand. BfA is about (at least the start) Alliance vs Horde, which is what the whole Warcraft franchise is about. It makes a lot more sense to send them there, because they're kind of expecting it to be A vs H.

[willtron]

It doesn't make sense to go into Shadowlands after Exile's reach, imagine being a new player and you get sent into WoW's version of hell after your first hour.

Or even just the lore behind it.

"You survived being shipwrecked, get home, off to the literal afterlife and face off against insane cosmic powers of creation, get home, dragons need your help for some reason??"

[shadowmatrix]

Nothing is lost by skipping shadowlands. Arguably skipping BfA as well would be a good idea. For a new player going straight to Dragon Isles would be best probably, because the whole excursion into Zandalar and Kul Tiras makes not a lick of sense from final point of Exile's Reach.

How to explain to a new recruit why they are starting with BFA. War is coming, we need allies, this group is the target, go help them while convincing them to join our side.

[Cosmic Janitor]

How to explain to a new recruit why they are starting with BFA. War is coming, we need allies, this group is the target, go help them while convincing them to join our side.

Why would a new recruit be entrusted with such a monumental task? This would only make sense if we somehow would straight up shipwreck again after exile's reach and coincidentally happen to be locked up with Jaina/Talanji and make our escape. A fucking mission impossible style infiltration mission into the stormwind stockades on the other hand as a complete nobody that just happened to mange to survive a few ogres on an island doesn't make a lick of sense. Neither does being the escord of Jaina Proudmore when trying to reconnect with her roots and being asked to deal with a delicate political mission on the scale of nations. While you could maybe explain us being part of the envoy for Jaina (even though it would still make no sense the way the events are portrayed), being part of a super delicate infiltration mission is just complete and utter nonsense.

Again, WoW's story doesn't make sense and Blizzard never cared about it being that way. So we should probably not care either, though it would be wise to at least acknowledge that fact.

[Nathanyel]

Hence they really should make the BfA campaign up until the duel required for leveling up (atleast the first time). You would start with the Battle of Lordaeron and finish with Saurfangs Death and both factions being united.

I'm all for having a condensed path through significant parts of the expansion story of BfA (and other expansions via Chromie Time) and a good concept for that would be Taliesin's "Path of the Curator" idea.

If it's just the recommended, but not mandatory path.

Any player, even a complete newbie, should be able to access the current expansion's content once they reach level 48 (then 58) no matter how they reached that level. Maybe they cleared all the side quests, ran dungeons over and over, doesn't matter.

Once they can, they should be allowed to "skip" (read: leave behind for later) older content to jump into current content.
Forcing players into the story would be copying FFXIV's biggest flaw, one which players starting in the past year overlook because they wanted "something not WoW" and because "reaction streaming" is somehow so popular. Having several expansions of story to play through of course also delays the realization that even there, the maxlevel content will be kinda repetitive after a while.
Skipping older iterations and only reading recaps is something that's the recommend consensus for e.g. the Witcher games, which also have a strong story focus.

And WoW was always built on playing the current content with other players, not trawling alone through the entire story.

By all means, give players also the opportunity to enable a mode that keeps you at-level for content you outlevel, so you can play that without oneshotting everything, but forcing people through every step of a story is the wrong approach.

[Wylyth1992]

I'm all for having a condensed path through significant parts of the expansion story of BfA (and other expansions via Chromie Time) and a good concept for that would be Taliesin's "Path of the Curator" idea.

If it's just the recommended, but not mandatory path.

Any player, even a complete newbie, should be able to access the current expansion's content once they reach level 48 (then 58) no matter how they reached that level. Maybe they cleared all the side quests, ran dungeons over and over, doesn't matter.

Once they can, they should be allowed to "skip" (read: leave behind for later) older content to jump into current content.
Forcing players into the story would be copying FFXIV's biggest flaw, one which players starting in the past year overlook because they wanted "something not WoW" and because "reaction streaming" is somehow so popular. Having several expansions of story to play through of course also delays the realization that even there, the maxlevel content will be kinda repetitive after a while.
Skipping older iterations and only reading recaps is something that's the recommend consensus for e.g. the Witcher games, which also have a strong story focus.

And WoW was always built on playing the current content with other players, not trawling alone through the entire story.

By all means, give players also the opportunity to enable a mode that keeps you at-level for content you outlevel, so you can play that without oneshotting everything, but forcing people through every step of a story is the wrong approach.

I think the main difference between WoW and FF14 is FF14 is about the journey, not the endgame.

[Lady Atia]

I think the main difference between WoW and FF14 is FF14 is about the journey, not the endgame.

You can still do that with WoW though, it just needs some work. I don't expect them to go back and fix old expansions, but they can show what they can do with Dragonflight when people like Afrasiabi are no longer messing with the game.

#bringbackthejourney

[Nathanyel]

I wonder if the level caps for the other other expansions will also go up. Right now Legion scales to 45 without Chromie time. I wonder if it will go up to 55 or something.

Let's say it would be nice, but I don't see that happening. BfA and Chromie Time are increased to match the higher level that Dragonflight requires, but that doesn't apply to older content outside of Chromie Time.

I even see a kind of indirect, unintended upside to this, Suramar and Argus will be more 'valid' to level in.
These zones require "Legion max level" to start, so in 10.0 you'll have not just 5, but 15 levels to quest in these zones.
Obviously it would be even better if we could start them even earlier.

[shadowmatrix]

I think the main difference between WoW and FF14 is FF14 is about the journey, not the endgame.

That is a player choice, you can play both at a casual pace or rush to max level.