Seriously, Why Aren't We Getting Boats?

[Soon-TM]

After the HUGE fiasco of WoD garrisons and the attached shipyards, I doubt they willl ever entertain the idea again.

[iamthedevil]

This isn't the Treasure Hunting expansion. That's the next one. That's going to be a good one.

[Sevarin]

Everytime i see this garbage sentence, i cringe so fucking hard

hes right, in this case, to a certain extent. it depends on what the boats were supposed to do. if theyre just supposed to be mounts essentially, theres already boats in the game. you get your very own boat from the thousand needles questline.

[Ehrenpanzer]

We had that, it was called Shipyards... it sucked....

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Because why do something new with you can just Legion 2.0 and the drones will swarm. Makes perfect business sense.

[Mellrod]

Perhaps after how garrisons worked it may be a better choice to play it safe with bold new experimental features for now. At least, that's what i'd be thinking if I were Blizzard.

Also, when I think of the traditional "we get our own ships" feature that players have dreamt about for years i'm sure people imagine AC: Black Flag, but as far as MMOs go, we'd have to look at Archeage, (or Black Desert Online). I honestly don't think WoW's decade old engine is capable of doing something on the scale of Archeage as far as sailing the open sea goes. We'd need a serious overhaul. Not only of water physics and water combat, but being able to create a world that can seamlessly render the four seas of azeroth (if not every continent as well) in their entirety instead of the smoke and mirrors they actually are right now. I reckon it would be an endeavor bigger than even the Cataclysm world revamp was. Something more that's more likely to show up in a brand new "World of Warcraft 2", than in any future expansions for current WoW.

TL;DR - An open seas sailing, ship-having, AC: Black Flag-style feature is a bit too ambitious for WoW's engine. If you ask me, then until the day we get a "WoW 2," it's just not in the cards. If you really want an MMO that lets you sail the seas and pirate other players' vessels, then I guess you can try out ArcheAge.

[Mitobunny]

Most they'd ever do for boats is make it like the one you get in Thousand Needles.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Basically it seems to be a matter of Blizz deciding that focusing on Kul'tiras and Zandalar made more sense than going for a full South Seas expansion.

Basically Tel'abim and Plunder Isle and a lot of the other, let's be kinda honest here, "filler zones" we had made up get demoted to the Island Adventures and instead they blew up two islands that actually matter.

I love boats, I ain't a fan, but it's the route Blizz decided to take.

[roahn the warlock]

MMO-Champion is like anti fun.

[Silver Forte]

Technical limitations and lack of interesting gameplay?

Imagine a guild hall but, instead of a building, it's a boat and the GM can decide where to move it to around the world. Has vendors, repair, other guild functions, message board, bounty board... Phasing would make this very easy.

[cparle87]

The shipyard is not relevant content or enjoyable gameplay in any way, shape, or form. I don't want to manage a shipyard. I just want a boat. One boat. Uno boato.

Go quest in Thousand Needles and you'll get one early on.

[SoulSoBreezy]

I still don't really understand why we aren't getting anything boat related (as of yet) in BoA. Here are my reasons why I think it's ridiculous:


1. There will NEVER be a better time to implement them than now.

This entire expansion is riding on the naval war theme. Both the horde and alliance are trying to amass a seafaring army to kill each other and take down Azshara. If we don't get boats now, we will undoubtably never get them again. Why aren't we using these boats to travel to island expeditions? Eventually even travel to Najatar and The Undermine? They just fit too well into the theme and feature set of this expansion to be left out. It would also help with the feeling of amassing a huge navy to take down the opposition. That could be conveyed perfectly through a simple Mission Table structure, perhaps even better then it did for Order Halls or Garrisons.


​2. They would not be that complicated to implement at small scale. (You don't need to be able to control them)

Blizzard likely already has the basic components of a boat model up and running in their alpha right now. We even have screenshots. They don't have to be super crazy or anything. Maybe like 3 upgrade levels and some custom horde/alliance assets and we are good to go. I don't expect naval warfare or being able to control it out on the open sea. Just somewhere to house story missions and the "gathering a navy" narrative ie; The Misson Table. Also, I would be fine if it was the "Flagship' Horde/Alliance boat, and not yours. That fits the narrative better.


3. They are a perfect home for currently missing features.

Right now we have no idea what is happening to the Blizzard App, the Order Hall mission structure, or any sort of follower system. Plus, whats going to happen to the awesome fast travel system on argus? Would that not be a perfect Segway into a port system in BoA? You could unlock ports throughout the campaign that open up as fast travel locations, further enhancing the theme of the expansion without making things overly complicated. Maybe they could even be world PvP objectives!



Anyway, what are your thoughts? Is just drives me crazy we are finally getting a South Seas-esque expansion and there are NO BOATS?! WHAT?! GAH!

IMO those ideas sound boring even as a high level concept. I myself tried thinking of what Blizzard could do with boats and nothing seemed the least bit compelling.
That said, I can see a few small ideas that come out post launch, AFTER we have our new allies and the ability to tap into our new navy. But in 8.0 we're not at that stage.

[Baine]

Imagine a guild hall but, instead of a building, it's a boat and the GM can decide where to move it to around the world. Has vendors, repair, other guild functions, message board, bounty board... Phasing would make this very easy.

By technical limitations, I mean that the oceans in WoW are just a trick and end not far from the shores.

[zlygork]

Nothing guarantees we won't get a chain of islands as a content patch with a vindicaar ship, but I personally couldn't care less either way.

[Rowarx]

To be honest if you look at wod it looks like it was supposed to have ships. The map the ports all over the place and a bunch of other stuff scream ships.

[Blamblam41]

Is there going to be an equivalent feature to order halls?

I fucking hope not. That way we can move away from the facebook mobile game cancer and actually have some interesting and well thought out endgame content that isn't dungeon blasting, raid farming or being a daily junkie. Seriously, these three things being effectively the end game for the last 5 expansions has begun to be -extremely- tiresome.

- - - Updated - - -

To be honest if you look at wod it looks like it was supposed to have ships. The map the ports all over the place and a bunch of other stuff scream ships.

My biggest problem with WoD is that they stopped halfway through in reaction to subscriber drops, made it look completely convoluted and now act like the stupid expansion didn't even exist.

WoD had potential had they not fucked off and thought that the movie would sell the game.

[Linri]

would be cool to have the option to take the alliance ships, and actually be on the ship as it travelled, same with the horde zeppelins

would be cool to see more of the oceans now that we are are discovering more of the planet time and time again as the game progresses

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

As with most design choices, it just boils to "what Blizzard wants" It's neither good nor bad, just about if they consider it important/interesting enough.

[Deleted]

Flying mounts killed boats, sorry

[Lupinemancer]

An even better question is: Are we ever gonna get kids not whining about insignificant things?