BfA Patch Speculation thread (8.3 and later).

[PelinalWhitestrake]

There's a lot of people going Classic for curiosity's sake, and many will stop going there after they tire of it.

The first few days are going to be hell, but things should calm down eventually.

People said that for morrowind when bethesda gave it for free, and SUDDENLY there it was a Spike on Nexusmods with people Downloading MGEXE+MSE and the cooler mods like Clockwork city, Mountainous Vvardenfel, Tamriel Rebuilt+skyrim home of the nords, Next gen combat and the AI enhanced textures, even the servers slowed down for a while.

And People loved it and even argued Why Skyrim lacks so much stuff compared to Morrowind and Oblivion.
There is curiosity, but at the same time the next gen will experiment, and even argue why the new ones lacks so much stuff which made the previous ones so good.

i wish the same happens to WoW with classic, blizzard will remake everything from scratch in 9.0 and i hope that everything that happens with classic influences in 9.0's designs and mechanics.

also its time to blizzard to update the Human's beard mesh, those fucking tumors aren't hair.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

People said that for morrowind when bethesda gave it for free, and SUDDENLY there it was a Spike on Nexusmods with people Downloading MGEXE+MSE and the cooler mods like Clockwork city, Mountainous Vvardenfel, Tamriel Rebuilt+skyrim home of the nords, Next gen combat and the AI enhanced textures, even the servers slowed down for a while.

And People loved it and even argued Why Skyrim lacks so much stuff compared to Morrowind and Oblivion.
There is curiosity, but at the same time the next gen will experiment, and even argue why the new ones lacks so much stuff which made the previous ones so good.

i wish the same happens to WoW with classic, blizzard will remake everything from scratch in 9.0 and i hope that everything that happens with classic influences in 9.0's designs and mechanics.

also its time to blizzard to update the Human's beard mesh, those fucking tumors aren't hair.

Not the same thing, Mods change things or make things less buggy. Crappy design decisions of today will still be crappy. The ES games stay more alive because of mods, Wow doesn't have that, it has to live on its game design and not have a luxary of relying on modders. I won't disagree WoW will be on a lot of people's minds classic or regular.

The only takeaway from classic that I would give is don't be soo strict on what abilities a spec can use.


(See Mages only using their specific school of magic type of spells).

[PelinalWhitestrake]

Not the same thing, Mods change things or make things less buggy. Crappy design decisions of today will still be crappy. The ES games stay more alive because of mods, Wow doesn't have that, it has to live on its game design and not have a luxary of relying on modders.

But even that helped it, people knew the game, learned its mechanics, and later went on to tinker with it, we all do the same with wow, but with addons for each situation.

But in this case, people QUESTIONED WHY? Why there is no more spears and javelins? Why there is no more Spellcrafting? what happened to Levitation? and more.

A new player when they go to classic and look at it will ask the same: Why does talent trees has more options than what we have in retail? Why does all classes has some good lore and rewarding quests like paladins, warriors, shamans and warlocks? Why am i more alert in a dungeon than in retail? and so on.

Players, old and new who will play it will be the ones making the decisions moving forward, blizzard knows that, they can't scrap azerite but they need some new ideas for 8.3 and 9.0 and classic may help with that.

the next months until blizzcon will be decisive at irvine.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

A new player when they go to classic and look at it will ask the same: Why does talent trees has more options than what we have in retail? Why does all classes has some good lore and rewarding quests like paladins, warriors, shamans and warlocks? Why am i more alert in a dungeon than in retail? and so on.

Players, old and new who will play it will be the ones making the decisions moving forward, blizzard knows that, they can't scrap azerite but they need some new ideas for 8.3 and 9.0 and classic may help with that.

the next months until blizzcon will be decisive at irvine.

Again those Elder Scrolls game had different problems and Classic is not a place full of ideas, they are old ones. Specs being at odd with one another or just really crap compared to others? Yeah no WoW doesn't need that, never did. I'd rather not go on about Classic's problems that don't need to go to regular WoW

[FlubberPuddy]

I consider myself an avid fan of TES games (played Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim) and this piece of news completely slipped by me so it may not have been as big as you make it. I don't even recall gaming news about it honestly.

Imo, sometimes when you're with the "in crowd" then things may seem more popular than they actually are. For instance I do watch a lot of Twitch streams but I know that in the vast majority of time it's still "niche" compared to YouTube, Sports, Instagram, Twitter, etc etc.

Even within my gamer friends many don't watch or know about Twitch, and of the small percent that do - not much.

Sometimes peeps gotta take themselves out of it.

Like WoW in general isn't very much popular at all among the "Gaming Playerbase" despite it still holding the few millions of players it does today.

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Again those Elder Scrolls game had different problems and Classic is not a place full of ideas, they are old ones. Specs being at odd with one another or just really crap compared to others? Yeah no WoW doesn't need that, never did.

WoW doesn't need to copy Classic 1:1 but if they could take what did feel good back then and somehow morph it into something that works with modern WoW that would be the recipe for success!

[Aeluron Lightsong]

WoW doesn't need to copy Classic 1:1 but if they could take what did feel good back then and somehow morph it into something that works with modern WoW that would be the recipe for success!

As I said making specs just crappy at their role then others or not even doable in the endgame content(Mythic not counting mind you), no we don't need to go back to that. Nor with the massive grind/unnecessary things that are considered RPG stuff(Weapon skills, are not missed, you can even argue roleplaying wise its dumb because your character is experienced...>.>).

The only thing I will be flexible about is the example I mentioned about Mages, if you're a fire mage, I see no good reason why they can't use a Frost spell.

[Nagawithlegs]

While this may be a small patch in size, I think it may be a huge patch for lore implications if they are being this airtight with encryption. Moreso than the Jaina/Baine quests in 8.1.5.

Possible Sylvanas cinematic + Saurfang necklace model/textures + Durotar WF have some pretty heavy implications.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

While this may be a small patch in size, I think it may be a huge patch for lore implications if they are being this airtight with encryption. Moreso than the Jaina/Baine quests in 8.1.5.

Possible Sylvanas cinematic + Saurfang necklace model/textures + Durotar WF have some pretty heavy implications.

I'd half expect now is the time for big epic twists unrelated to Cosmic Horror stuff.

[Nagawithlegs]

I'd half expect now is the time for big epic twists unrelated to Cosmic Horror stuff.

Yup. It'll be set up for the Sylvanas half of a Sylvanas/Nzoth patch.

[George Costanza]

I expect baine to become the first transgender character with this current writing.

[FlubberPuddy]

As I said making specs just crappy at their role then others or not even doable in the endgame content(Mythic not counting mind you), no we don't need to go back to that. Nor with the massive grind/unnecessary things that are considered RPG stuff(Weapon skills, are not missed, you can even argue roleplaying wise its dumb because your character is experienced...>.>).

The only thing I will be flexible about is the example I mentioned about Mages, if you're a fire mage, I see no good reason why they can't use a Frost spell.

Weapon skills basically turned into iLvL today. They both functioned as hit chance/crit dmg etc they just removed the tedium of hitting mobs over and over to raise a skill and instead put the gate behind the gear (ie can't queue for certain things if below the min ilvl).

I'm talking about stuff in your mage example, or even the use of reagents (I personally love reagent use), but I can understand the bag space complaints because fill their bag with so much crap anyway (also doesn't help when Blizzard doesn't utilize certain mats as currency -looks at spare parts-).

Another thing could be (and idk how they would do this, but I feel it'd be a positive) is making gear upgrades feel like big upgrades. Like someone going to an overall 15 iLvL upgrade doesn't feel huge like before when you'd go from green to blues in Classic. I'm not sure how they would manage this though because of all the difficulties in between tiers.

But essentially I'm saying it would feel cooler if a Heroic Raider would feel THAT MUCH stronger than a Normal Raider. Rather than having to feel that way from being a Mythic Raider (or being a Heroic Raider to an LFR Raider). Hope that makes sense.

Like in DnD a +1 to your weapon and dmg is actually huge, but in WoW currently you'd need >+15 iLvls to really feel a power impact. I think that's something Classic did well that could somehow fit into the modern WoW, and other games do it today so I know it's possible (Look to Monster Hunter World where the Rarities make decent impact).

Another thing, and idk this may be controversial but it feels like WoW has turned into a "checklist" of stuff to do every day and maybe that's for effective player engagement, but I think having that toned down would work better. You spoke of "massive grind" and while I agree we don't need "massive" grind, I do believe it would be good for the game to bring back some type of reward (based on skill/time and not just RNG -some may be okay, but shouldn't define it-) based on a long-term progression path.

Think of something like the Mage Tower in Legion, if you're not good enough to complete it, try again or come back till you're more geared/skilled to do it and once you complete it you get your expected reward.

It doesn't even have to be mandatory, it should actually be optional if it is long-term. Also less artificial time-gating on reps imo, if someone wants to grind those out they should be able to, maybe keep the big increases to time-gated quests for pure "efficiency/hr" but I think peeps should be allowed to grind stuff out if they want.

I went on a little spiel there, it's just fun (imo) in looking at what Classic did do good and see if somehow in some form that can have a place in current WoW. They did say there might be a few lessons they learn from Classic that they implement into current WoW so it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility some of the developers are doing their own brainstorming like this.

[PelinalWhitestrake]

Just bring talent trees back.

Bring the RPG feel back.

Make the world actually dangerous.

Make quests that actually require you to group and socialize.

Can we have something that isn't a fucking race against time like Mythic+ and Islands?

Why can't we have more Mega-Dungeon type stuff like blackrock depths where say a Rogue can lock pick a gate to skip. Where a Warlock could enslave a demon to make a certain boss easier. Etc etc

Just bring RPG shit back man. Bring some complexity back into the classes. Bring moments of glory back.

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Yes but Legendaries were also an insane grind designed to keep you playing. There is a reason people did "Mythic world tours" where they ran every single dungeon to increase their bad luck protection.

Essences are the same. Some of them are insane grinds, especially on an alt.

But they are once again having the adverse effect on anyone that isn't hopelessly addicted - people are just quitting instead of trying an alt out. Same as Legion.

Also NLC was not made account wide and was also an RNG clusterfuck.


If you have "every" essence at Rank 3, you play a lot. Like, a lot.

This and a thousand times this! They could shove even racial and class quests too back into the mix.

Im a hunter, dk, warrior, lock or paladin, give me a damn quest to test my skills that is rewarding and help me on the run on each patch, not a damn transmog.

MoP atleast had the Green fire quest, while cosmetic, it felt like a classic class quest.

[Kiki b]

If you have "every" essence at Rank 3, you play a lot. Like, a lot.

what would you consider a lot, because I have every essence at 3 (just got conflict and strife today) except the teleport one, which I should have like next week or the week after. I even have a few at 4.

I play like 2-3 hours a day maybe. Sometimes I skip days completely.

[Kiki b]

Yeah you really don't. The PvP Essence itself takes far longer than that.

You're claiming to have the raid Essence at rank 3 too. Funny you're smashing out a Heroic/Mythic raid in 2 hours.

Not mentioning the 8-12 hours you play on the weekend?

My guild raids thursday and sunday 9-11:30 server. We're 3/8m. Daily bgs, epic bg quests, and 2 bg weeks got me to rank 3.

I average around 2-3 hours per day. I'm not trying to start an argument. Just seeing what you consider "a lot" to be

[Kiki b]

Oh okay. I didn't know you had a 100% winrate in BGs.

I don't. but I'd definitely say I'm on the higher side. I also queued as a merc for the extra honor buff and I don't think most people who don't pvp going for the essence know that they can do that. Also they'd have to be horde, alliance get it by default.


It's weird that you keep trying to rebuff everything I'm saying to you, trying desperately to come up with a reason that it can't be true, without ever just answering my question.

[Drekmar]

Dayum, they really took additional steps in this build to conceal encrypted stuff. GG Blizz.

[Nyel]

Speaking as an Alliance main, he hasn’t really gotten... any. He’s always kinda just been this ultra good holy boy. He used some shadow magic in MoP, and that implied he’d lean towards being a disc priest, balancing light and dark, but instead he became a literal beacon of holy lawful goodness, and it’s frankly irritating. He needs to develop as an actual character, but that might not actually happen with the current team... but we also don’t know what 8.3 and whatnot will have, so... eh.

This is exactly my point and why I bring this up regularly. Anduin has zero character development. Started as a good boy and grew up to be a good boy. Wow, what an amazing journey he had over the span of three expansions! What will he be next, a good boy? Or will Wrathion make him a bit rougher on the edges?

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There's a lot of people going Classic for curiosity's sake, and many will stop going there after they tire of it.

The first few days are going to be hell, but things should calm down eventually.

That's why their explanation for the Classic realm population is so important. Medium Classic realm means they still have more players on them than the most populated (edit: changed retail with Vanilla) Vanilla realms ever did. That's pretty massive, especially when you consider that they added like what, 8 new servers within the last days because all of the other ones are full.

I think many underestimate the staying power of Classic.

[SaneOstrich]

That's why their explanation for the Classic realm population is so important. Medium Classic realm means they still have more players on them than the most populated retail realm. That's pretty massive, especially when you consider that they added like what, 8 new servers within the last days because all of the other ones are full.

I think many underestimate the staying power of Classic.

It feels weird they rely so much on the name reservations though, how many people reserved a name 'just in case', even I almost did and I have 0 intention of playing classic. Aren't they inflating interest too much this way? Adding more and more server sounds great, but if it means they all end up deserted after the initial launch isn't doing anyone a service. Especially when you consider that classic servers need a community to thrive.

[Nyel]

It feels weird they rely so much on the name reservations though, how many people reserved a name 'just in case', even I almost did and I have 0 intention of playing classic. Aren't they inflating interest too much this way? Adding more and more server sounds great, but if it means they all end up deserted after the initial launch isn't doing anyone a service. Especially when you consider that classic servers need a community to thrive.

They answered this yesterday, they're very careful with adding new servers and even if there will be "dead" realms they are already planning server transfers.

I mean generating a character for naming purposes is restricted to 3. And even if you just take 1/3 of the amount of interest as granted for Classic (as you said, some might just take the name and never play it) it's still massive when you compare it to retail realm player/character numbers.

[Shadochi]

It's also very possible that for medium/high/full marks they aren't using the number of names reserved total to determine that, but instead number of accounts that reserved a name on that realm (would counter the 3 characters per realm to fill it up thingy)

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Yeah you really don't. The PvP Essence itself takes far longer than that.

You're claiming to have the raid Essence at rank 3 too. Funny you're smashing out a Heroic/Mythic raid in 2 hours.

Not mentioning the 8-12 hours you play on the weekend?

Just because you don't know how to play the game doesn't mean others don't.

Heroic is easily cleared in 2-3 hours or less with a guild. Outside of the PvP essences (don't need them on r3 so didnt go for them) it's easy to get rank 3 in ecerything if you average 2-3 hours played daily (sometimes it might be 9, a couple times 0, that's how average works) and participate in organized play with other people (and not just play solo and complain how there is no community nowadays)