Battle for Azeroth Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Jokubas]

I kinda hope Blizzard takes up the challenge.

I'm reminded of Guild Wars 2. An early goal they had was to do underwater right, and this included giving you unique underwater abilities and allow you to breathe forever (thanks to a rebreather). Their underwater ended up being pretty unpopular itself, however, to the point where they even neglected to give the new class the ability to fight underwater at all until later on.

The thing is, the problems with their underwater content are actually pretty simple and relatively easy to fix. First of all, their underwater abilities tend to be gimmicky, less powerful than your standard abilities, and sometimes will even CC yourself. It feels like there was a single pass to come up with underwater-themed abilities, and no pass to make sure they were fun. Then, exaggerated by those issues, they also tend to put some of the nastiest and most annoying enemies underwater. Bad abilities would suck on its own, and so would annoying enemies, but then they're paired up. On top of that, the enemy spawns seem to be spread out at the same density as land. The problem with this is that underwater has three dimensions, so it's nearly impossible to go anywhere without aggroing two or three times the number of enemies that you would in a comparable situation on land. So now you're fighting more than your normal amount of enemies who are individually more annoying than normal enemies, with the worst abilities in the game.

The final straw is navigation. We're not really used to navigating in three dimensions (flying doesn't really count because the verticality isn't really used in area design, so it's just the means to take a shortcut), and we don't tend to have maps built for it. Guild Wars especially exaggerated this, because it's big on exploration and secret nooks and crannies, so the underwater areas have some really clever hidden stuff. The downside is that their maps aren't any better at portraying it, so even things that aren't supposed to be hidden end up feeling like they might as well be.

In other words, I think people hate underwater content because it's been poorly designed, but despite that list I just gave, I don't think it's that hard to solve. First of all, make the underwater abilities as fun and useful as normal abilities (World of Warcraft doesn't really have this problem since you use your normal abilities). Then, fill the areas with normal enemies, and make them actually less dense than land, since the three dimensions will make up for that for you. Alternatively, leave extra enemies underwater, but make them simpler that standard enemies, so it's not an issue when you get swarmed.

Finally, either make the underwater areas simple and don't take advantage of three dimensions for exploration, or create different maps for the underwater areas that can better portray what that extra dimension adds.

I guess I could have one last honorable mention in travel speed. Water tends to slow you down and that's just annoying. This can easily be solved just by giving you comparable transportation and movement speeds, whether or not there's an excuse. Sure, a lot of these suggestions make underwater less unique, but if the unique elements make things less fun, then those elements aren't worth it anyway.

[Nyel]

Hey everyone, just coming it with some hot spicy """"leak"""" information. This was from a thread on ebaums famous /wowg/ general, some guy came in and leaked information on a "South Seas" expansion like has been done a hundred times before. However there were a few things in this leak that were interesting and I thought you guys might like to hear.

1) Jaina, Sylvanas and Azshara all get focus, but none of them are the poster character for the expansion. He said it was very much a "girl power" expansion. He also said that the first two are not villains.

2) The "poster character" for the expansion is a new rendition of an "old character" but someone he likened to "Davy Jones": he dropped a strange word (Ordleval) in his first post, but when we pressed him for information later on who the character is (it's not Admiral Proudmoore, it's not the Bloodsail captain, etc), he said he had told us earlier. One of our tech whizzes anagramed it up and came up with the name "Alverold", which brought him to look the name up on wow's gamepedia (I'd post the link but I'm still a new account). This brought him to a now-removed letter in the game:



This was the only mention of the guy, from a DELETED LETTER. It sounds strange and obscure enough to be a lead. Could this Lieutenant Alverod have stumbled on something Old God related and become brainwashed into becoming a "Davy Jones" type character, heading back to Kul'tiras and messing with it before Jaina could return? It's such a strange and far off theory that put the leak in a different category than any other one I've heard. South Seas, Kul'tiras, Azshara, all easy guesses, but Proudmoore's old mysteriously disappearing lieutenant that was mentioned ONCE?

3) He said that the release of the expansion would be in Summer 2018. He said that Argus's three zones would be timegated, building up to the raid being released in November.

4) Various information he mentioned include there not being a new class, there being at least one new race, and Kul'tiras being called a "continent"

I'm just passing along this information, I can provide images of these posts if you want. Just a really interesting sounding theory especially with the Lieutenant. What do you guys think?

This is so awesome. 10/10

- - - Updated - - -

So someone else just a tad bit more special thinks similar things to me. I feel validated.

Well, September is still Summer for Blizzard. :P

[Azalar]

Well Alverold does indeed exist: http://wow.gamepedia.com/Lieutenant_Alverold

Spectral Fleet here we go?

[Saverem]

Underwater zones are bad ass. Why? Because its not the normal-
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones
Land Zones

Land shit that we get. Its a break and unique to see something different and refreshing.

If you want under water zones then go play Rise of Atlantis

[Deleted]

Afaik it's the biggest content patch Blizzard has ever created.

By surface area, most definitely. But is there really that more to do compared to 2.4.0, 5,4.0, 6.2.0 or hell, even 7.2.0?

[Renley]

If you want under water zones then go play Rise of Atlantis

If you want land zones, go play Minecraft. We can do this too!

On topic, as always, I'm intrigued to see what, if any, 'leaks' are true. Always fun to read and speculate. Gamescom and Blizzcon couldn't come any sooner!

[EbaumsTipster]

Well Alverold does indeed exist

Spectral Fleet here we go?

He said there was a connection to both Illidan and Arthas in how the "new villain" comes to be, and said we were on the right track when we thought that Helya might be the "lasting evil influence" on him. So maybe this is how Sylvanas's story continues?

[Kazlofski]

Hey everyone, just coming it with some hot spicy """"leak"""" information. This was from a thread on ebaums famous /wowg/ general, some guy came in and leaked information on a "South Seas" expansion like has been done a hundred times before. However there were a few things in this leak that were interesting and I thought you guys might like to hear.

1) Jaina, Sylvanas and Azshara all get focus, but none of them are the poster character for the expansion. He said it was very much a "girl power" expansion. He also said that the first two are not villains.

2) The "poster character" for the expansion is a new rendition of an "old character" but someone he likened to "Davy Jones": he dropped a strange word (Ordleval) in his first post, but when we pressed him for information later on who the character is (it's not Admiral Proudmoore, it's not the Bloodsail captain, etc), he said he had told us earlier. One of our tech whizzes anagramed it up and came up with the name "Alverold", which brought him to look the name up on wow's gamepedia (I'd post the link but I'm still a new account). This brought him to a now-removed letter in the game:



This was the only mention of the guy, from a DELETED LETTER. It sounds strange and obscure enough to be a lead. Could this Lieutenant Alverod have stumbled on something Old God related and become brainwashed into becoming a "Davy Jones" type character, heading back to Kul'tiras and messing with it before Jaina could return? It's such a strange and far off theory that put the leak in a different category than any other one I've heard. South Seas, Kul'tiras, Azshara, all easy guesses, but Proudmoore's old mysteriously disappearing lieutenant that was mentioned ONCE?

3) He said that the release of the expansion would be in Summer 2018. He said that Argus's three zones would be timegated, building up to the raid being released in November.

4) Various information he mentioned include there not being a new class, there being at least one new race, and Kul'tiras being called a "continent"

I'm just passing along this information, I can provide images of these posts if you want. Just a really interesting sounding theory especially with the Lieutenant. What do you guys think?

I am not going to attack this post and immediately say no, it sounds very plausible and it makes a lot of sense.

I heard rumors (Hard to believe rumors but it feels right thinking with Blizz's mindset) that the next expansion will be more of a light one like WoD in terms of story progression, so this fits perfectly here and it will definitely lead into Azshara-Nzoth expansion right afterwards. (Yes I think Azshara will get focus doesn't mean a raid with her, but she will appear or be referenced as usual to build her up a bit more)

It also makes sense for them to test watery elements, all the ideas they have gathered so far to see what works and what doesn't, then throw the good stuff into Azshara-Nzoth expansion.

Also about the 7.3 stuff, I dunno if it's obvious or not but what he says will happen 99% with zones being time gated and the raid releasing in November.

Also if they run out of ideas in that light expansion, they could always push a troll patch in, to tease us about trolls in the future.

[Saverem]

If you want land zones, go play Minecraft. We can do this too!

On topic, as always, I'm intrigued to see what, if any, 'leaks' are true. Always fun to read and speculate. Gamescom and Blizzcon couldn't come any sooner!

I'd rather just play WoW, which has land zones. They made 1 underwater zone that only 4 people leveled in and then never went back to one again.

[Kosez]

2) The "poster character" for the expansion is a new rendition of an "old character" but someone he likened to "Davy Jones"

Oh this could be some good shiet!

[TriHard]

Hey everyone, just coming it with some hot spicy """"leak"""" information. This was from a thread on ebaums famous /wowg/ general, some guy came in and leaked information on a "South Seas" expansion like has been done a hundred times before. However there were a few things in this leak that were interesting and I thought you guys might like to hear.

1) Jaina, Sylvanas and Azshara all get focus, but none of them are the poster character for the expansion. He said it was very much a "girl power" expansion. He also said that the first two are not villains.

2) The "poster character" for the expansion is a new rendition of an "old character" but someone he likened to "Davy Jones": he dropped a strange word (Ordleval) in his first post, but when we pressed him for information later on who the character is (it's not Admiral Proudmoore, it's not the Bloodsail captain, etc), he said he had told us earlier. One of our tech whizzes anagramed it up and came up with the name "Alverold", which brought him to look the name up on wow's gamepedia (I'd post the link but I'm still a new account). This brought him to a now-removed letter in the game:



This was the only mention of the guy, from a DELETED LETTER. It sounds strange and obscure enough to be a lead. Could this Lieutenant Alverod have stumbled on something Old God related and become brainwashed into becoming a "Davy Jones" type character, heading back to Kul'tiras and messing with it before Jaina could return? It's such a strange and far off theory that put the leak in a different category than any other one I've heard. South Seas, Kul'tiras, Azshara, all easy guesses, but Proudmoore's old mysteriously disappearing lieutenant that was mentioned ONCE?

3) He said that the release of the expansion would be in Summer 2018. He said that Argus's three zones would be timegated, building up to the raid being released in November.

4) Various information he mentioned include there not being a new class, there being at least one new race, and Kul'tiras being called a "continent"

I'm just passing along this information, I can provide images of these posts if you want. Just a really interesting sounding theory especially with the Lieutenant. What do you guys think?

Why don't you post that concept on your main account instead of creating a throwaway?

[Mojo03]

Hey everyone, just coming it with some hot spicy """"leak"""" information. This was from a thread on ebaums famous /wowg/ general, some guy came in and leaked information on a "South Seas" expansion like has been done a hundred times before. However there were a few things in this leak that were interesting and I thought you guys might like to hear.

1) Jaina, Sylvanas and Azshara all get focus, but none of them are the poster character for the expansion. He said it was very much a "girl power" expansion. He also said that the first two are not villains.

2) The "poster character" for the expansion is a new rendition of an "old character" but someone he likened to "Davy Jones": he dropped a strange word (Ordleval) in his first post, but when we pressed him for information later on who the character is (it's not Admiral Proudmoore, it's not the Bloodsail captain, etc), he said he had told us earlier. One of our tech whizzes anagramed it up and came up with the name "Alverold", which brought him to look the name up on wow's gamepedia (I'd post the link but I'm still a new account). This brought him to a now-removed letter in the game:



This was the only mention of the guy, from a DELETED LETTER. It sounds strange and obscure enough to be a lead. Could this Lieutenant Alverod have stumbled on something Old God related and become brainwashed into becoming a "Davy Jones" type character, heading back to Kul'tiras and messing with it before Jaina could return? It's such a strange and far off theory that put the leak in a different category than any other one I've heard. South Seas, Kul'tiras, Azshara, all easy guesses, but Proudmoore's old mysteriously disappearing lieutenant that was mentioned ONCE?

3) He said that the release of the expansion would be in Summer 2018. He said that Argus's three zones would be timegated, building up to the raid being released in November.

4) Various information he mentioned include there not being a new class, there being at least one new race, and Kul'tiras being called a "continent"

I'm just passing along this information, I can provide images of these posts if you want. Just a really interesting sounding theory especially with the Lieutenant. What do you guys think?

I think it's "too" interesting to be plausible.

But sounds cool.

[Paula Deen]

Why don't you post that concept on your main account instead of creating a throwaway?

If its a throwaway it will be banned. Chances are its just a straggler from /wowg/ who didn't have an account but wanted to initiate discussion on the subject.

Edit:

He said there was a connection to both Illidan and Arthas in how the "new villain" comes to be, and said we were on the right track when we thought that Helya might be the "lasting evil influence" on him. So maybe this is how Sylvanas's story continues?

Davy Jones was the jailer of the dead at sea? Illidan in 7.3 will be the jailer of Sargeras and the Lich King is the jailer of the damned. Maybe he is trying to say the connection is something to do with Hellheim. Makes sense tbh, it was so outlandishly placed in this expansion and Sylvanas seemed super keen to get deep into it.

[Azalar]

He said there was a connection to both Illidan and Arthas in how the "new villain" comes to be, and said we were on the right track when we thought that Helya might be the "lasting evil influence" on him. So maybe this is how Sylvanas's story continues?

If he's a terror of the seas then the influence must be the Naglfar. The connection to both Illidan and Arthas must be love. I call for Jaina being one of the pins of that one.

[Jokubas]

By surface area, most definitely. But is there really that more to do compared to 2.4.0, 5,4.0, 6.2.0 or hell, even 7.2.0?

What I find interesting about 7.3 is that, regardless of how much there is for the players to do, it clearly took a lot of work for Blizzard to make. This seems to imply that Blizzard either finally got that extra team up to speed and they can afford to make more content per expansion... or the next expansion is suffering because of Legion getting more zones. ;P

I heard rumors (Hard to believe rumors but it feels right thinking with Blizz's mindset) that the next expansion will be more of a light one like WoD in terms of story progression, so this fits perfectly here and it will definitely lead into Azshara-Nzoth expansion right afterwards. (Yes I think Azshara will get focus doesn't mean a raid with her, but she will appear or be referenced as usual to build her up a bit more)

It still seems weird to me. Blizzard expressed a desire to not always escalate a few years ago, but they seemed to have given up on that. Warlords of Draenor was theoretically supposed to be the first example, but for every "oh, this is a breather against a mortal army", there was "but we swear, if you don't stop this one particular thing, the Iron Horde will instantly conquer the world." And then Legion goes full-on "worst invasion ever", and the Chronicle reframes the story to push us toward this inevitable conflict to save the entire universe. Not only that, but Legion is constantly hammering in how close the Void is and how N'Zoth might even break out before we can stop Sargeras. It would seem really weird to just act casual after that. I used to want Blizzard to have some quieter expansions, but it would be really hard to justify at the moment.

[EbaumsTipster]

If its a throwaway it will be banned. Chances are its just a straggler from /wowg/ who didn't have an account but wanted to initiate discussion on the subject.

Yep, I don't have an MMOC account. Just wanted to pass this on

If he's a terror of the seas then the influence must be the Naglfar. The connection to both Illidan and Arthas must be love. I call for Jaina being one of the pins of that one.

See, him saying Davy Jones made me think it would be like the POTC Jones with a squid face (sounding like N'zoth/Old Gods shenanigans) but he said it wasn't as much the Disney version as it was something else. So maybe this really won't be all that Naga/N'zoth focused as much as just general water themed?

[TriHard]

If its a throwaway it will be banned. Chances are its just a straggler from /wowg/ who didn't have an account but wanted to initiate discussion on the subject.

I couldn't find anything about this so called "Leak" over there, got a source?
Or I should rather ask that guy but it seems he just came in here posted something random and left again.

[Nyel]

Hey everyone, just coming it with some hot spicy """"leak"""" information. This was from a thread on ebaums famous /wowg/ general, some guy came in and leaked information on a "South Seas" expansion like has been done a hundred times before. However there were a few things in this leak that were interesting and I thought you guys might like to hear.

1) Jaina, Sylvanas and Azshara all get focus, but none of them are the poster character for the expansion. He said it was very much a "girl power" expansion. He also said that the first two are not villains.

2) The "poster character" for the expansion is a new rendition of an "old character" but someone he likened to "Davy Jones": he dropped a strange word (Ordleval) in his first post, but when we pressed him for information later on who the character is (it's not Admiral Proudmoore, it's not the Bloodsail captain, etc), he said he had told us earlier. One of our tech whizzes anagramed it up and came up with the name "Alverold", which brought him to look the name up on wow's gamepedia (I'd post the link but I'm still a new account). This brought him to a now-removed letter in the game:



This was the only mention of the guy, from a DELETED LETTER. It sounds strange and obscure enough to be a lead. Could this Lieutenant Alverod have stumbled on something Old God related and become brainwashed into becoming a "Davy Jones" type character, heading back to Kul'tiras and messing with it before Jaina could return? It's such a strange and far off theory that put the leak in a different category than any other one I've heard. South Seas, Kul'tiras, Azshara, all easy guesses, but Proudmoore's old mysteriously disappearing lieutenant that was mentioned ONCE?

3) He said that the release of the expansion would be in Summer 2018. He said that Argus's three zones would be timegated, building up to the raid being released in November.

4) Various information he mentioned include there not being a new class, there being at least one new race, and Kul'tiras being called a "continent"

I'm just passing along this information, I can provide images of these posts if you want. Just a really interesting sounding theory especially with the Lieutenant. What do you guys think?

Oh and as much as I like this leak I have some doubts regarding the "enemy" and the Alverold theory. Either it's a very well known character which name is a secret right now (and Alverold is just a pseudo) or we are getting somebody different. I don't see Blizzard coming up with an entirely untouched character nobody knows.

[Paula Deen]

I couldn't find anything about this so called "Leak" over there, got a source?
Or I should rather ask that guy but it seems he just came in here posted something random and left again.

I am not linking directly to it, but its not actually on Ebaums World. Its in the current /wowg/ thread on that one website that won't be named. It was also in the last thread.

[EbaumsTipster]

Oh and as much as I like this leak I have some doubts regarding the "enemy" and the Alverold theory. Either it's a very well known character which name is a secret right now (and Alverold is just a pseudo) or we are getting somebody different. I don't see Blizzard coming up with an entirely untouched character nobody knows.

I don't think he's an untouched character nobody knows as much as the devs were combing around for ANYTHING related to Kul'tiras in Warcraft lore so far, found an old letter from Vanilla/pre-Cata wow that mentioned a mysterious admiral going on an adventure and just spun off a story from there.