BfA announcement: 6 Allied Races at launch, more planned

[Nyel]

Found this on Reddit and it's pure gold:



Zandalari Trolls - at launch. 5 months later and Zandalari Trolls are still not playable and most likely will not be playable until March.

I really want to know what went wrong during BfA development.

[Echocho]

They realized what a cash cow they were and decided to sit on them until a time when subs were low. Giving them away for free at the start of the expansion would've been stupid, it's not the Activision way.

[zyx]

You could argue they only meant it as 6 announced allied races at launch? Not specifically "You can play all 6 at launch".

[DesmondCreighton]

I'm still wondering what happened to the dance studio.

[Fistfighter]

but we got MagHar orc and they weren't even on the slide, so it's ok.

jokes aside, the whole allied race unlocking is a very poor practise made to sell race changes, we've already discussed this with legion races, dark irons and mag hars amd now it looks like we are going for round three again.

Yes, it's stupid. Allied races shouldn't have had any requirements and any unlocking and should have been playable since day 1 of the expansion, but this is what we got instead, so just get used to it.

[Justpassing]

I'm still wondering what happened to the dance studio.

And mounted combat. Mounted combat was on the freakin' box.

[Nyel]

You could argue they only meant it as 6 announced allied races at launch? Not specifically "You can play all 6 at launch".

Sure you could and I knew someone would bring it up. I'd say you're right, but Zandalari trolls were announced as one of the key features of BfA - both during the announcement and in the official feature trailer.

Either it was a blatant lie back then or something drastically changed that they had to delay Zandalari trolls for 6 months.

[Felthan]

if that image isn't Photoshop then that's a epic fail on blizzards part, almost near false advertising and at least a bait and switch i hope that picture is fake.

[Nyel]

if that image isn't Photoshop then that's a epic fail on blizzards part, almost near false advertising and at least a bait and switch i hope that picture is fake.

This picture is from the Blizzcon '17 BfA announcement.

[Darsithis]

Sure you could and I knew someone would bring it up. I'd say you're right, but Zandalari trolls were announced as one of the key features of BfA - both during the announcement and in the official feature trailer.

Either it was a blatant lie back then or something drastically changed that they had to delay Zandalari trolls for 6 months.

if that image isn't Photoshop then that's a epic fail on blizzards part, almost near false advertising and at least a bait and switch i hope that picture is fake.

It's not a "blatant lie" or "false advertising". Why does everyone act like Blizzard is some kind of evil villain out to get you?

It's a video game, guys, and Blizzcon announcements are always, always meant to be a projection, not a 100% ironclad guarantee. Realistically, what probably happened is they decided to release zandalari in conjunction with the storyline rather than at release. Most likely they found that the quests they were designing for that allied race made more sense with more of the campaign later into the expansion than it did at launch.

Things change. I tell our clients we plan to add xxx features to our builds regularly and most of the time those happen. Sometimes they're unworkable or just take longer than expected so it's delayed or removed. It's not a blatant lie or false advertising, and that's not what happened here either.

[therealstegblob]

And mounted combat. Mounted combat was on the freakin' box.

Argent Tournament mounts. They only ended up technically fulfilling that one (and even then only in one of the expansion's last patches lol). I guess they decided mounted combat wasn't working out as well as they wanted it, and then regulated it to just being a minigame for one piece of content.

[Jastall]

Times change. Mag'har aren't on the slides either, yet here they are.

[Dhrizzle]

I'm still wondering what happened to the dance studio.

They're in the Lost Kingdom zone with the flying vehicle PvP.

[therealstegblob]

It's not a "blatant lie" or "false advertising". Why does everyone act like Blizzard is some kind of evil villain out to get you?

It's a video game, guys, and Blizzcon announcements are always, always meant to be a projection, not a 100% ironclad guarantee. Realistically, what probably happened is they decided to release zandalari in conjunction with the storyline rather than at release. Most likely they found that the quests they were designing for that allied race made more sense with more of the campaign later into the expansion than it did at launch.

Things change. I tell our clients we plan to add xxx features to our builds regularly and most of the time those happen. Sometimes they're unworkable or just take longer than expected so it's delayed or removed. It's not a blatant lie or false advertising, and that's not what happened here either.

You're really being a bit of an apologist.

Yes, hyperbole that "Blizzard lied" is going too far, but let's not act like Blizzard gets a free pass to promise anything just because there's tiny fine print reading "Blizzcon announcements are not legally binding assurances". Yes, Blizzcon is just general projections but people have a good right to be angry when Blizzard doesn't meet their own projections. It makes Blizzard look bad when they host their own big convention, which people are literally banking on and attend/view in order to get new information directly from Blizzard, and then some of that information is wrong or changes. We're not talking about a formal little announcement on their webpage, this is a giant convention that exists for the main objective of announcing things. So yeah, people aren't out of line to hold Blizzard to a bit of a standard with that.

I think what's far more likely to have happened was that Blizzard had troubles with the Zandalari/Kul Tirans and they began taking longer than anticipated, so they defaulted onto placing mag'har orcs in Zandalari troll's spot. There's evidence that they were slow on both races, as Vulpera (lol) were basically in a finished state when Kul'tirans were still missing a lot of animations/faces/etc.

Bad workflow/too much at once (as is often an issue with Blizzard) was probably the real culprit. Releasing them after the second raid was probably just the most convenient (for the story) place to pop them in once they were delayed.

[Dhrizzle]

Sure you could and I knew someone would bring it up. I'd say you're right, but Zandalari trolls were announced as one of the key features of BfA - both during the announcement and in the official feature trailer.

Either it was a blatant lie back then or something drastically changed that they had to delay Zandalari trolls for 6 months.

Or they decided it would make more sense to have the Zandalar unlocked later along with Kul'Tirans, so they gave Horde the Mag'har instead.

[RobertMugabe]

Found this on Reddit and it's pure gold:



Zandalari Trolls - at launch. 5 months later and Zandalari Trolls are still not playable and most likely will not be playable until March.

I really want to know what went wrong during BfA development.

As much as I hate BfA, this is just shitposting...

They've simply decided to give us Maghar Orcs first, because they're more similar to DI Dwarfs (being more of a 'simple' reskin than something rather unique). Releasing KT Humans and Zandalari together simply makes more sense. OR maybe they should've just released Zandalari and KT Humans first.

I don't really see the fuss about this, it's not as if delaying content is something new.

Personally (as a Void Elf main) I really really hate the concept of Allied Races (=races that you have to unlock)

[Dhrizzle]

but we got MagHar orc and they weren't even on the slide, so it's ok.

jokes aside, the whole allied race unlocking is a very poor practise made to sell race changes, we've already discussed this with legion races, dark irons and mag hars amd now it looks like we are going for round three again.

Yes, it's stupid. Allied races shouldn't have had any requirements and any unlocking and should have been playable since day 1 of the expansion, but this is what we got instead, so just get used to it.

If they were supposed to sell race changes why do you have to level from 20 to get the racial armour?

- - - Updated - - -

Argent Tournament mounts. They only ended up technically fulfilling that one (and even then only in one of the expansion's last patches lol). I guess they decided mounted combat wasn't working out as well as they wanted it, and then regulated it to just being a minigame for one piece of content.

It was supposed to be flying mounted combat.

[THEORACLE64]

Found this on Reddit and it's pure gold:



Zandalari Trolls - at launch. 5 months later and Zandalari Trolls are still not playable and most likely will not be playable until March.

I really want to know what went wrong during BfA development.

Nothing went wrong. It literally makes sense story wise for them to be obtainable further into the expansion, along with Kul’Tirans. The models have been complete since the beginning of the expansion, so it was nothing technical that caused their delay. Try and use that squishy thing in your skull, thanks.

[Dhrizzle]

Times change. Mag'har aren't on the slides either, yet here they are.

Also four of those races were available well before BfA released.

[Nyel]

Times change. Mag'har aren't on the slides either, yet here they are.

Yeah I almost forgot Maghar and their breathtaking and outstanding storyline they got as an allied race, sorry.