9.0 General Discussion

[KayRule]

They're not going to kill N'zoth off in one expansion

Yes, they are.

[Wangming]

I mean Garrosh(?) isn't really the villain of WoD,

That depends on how you look at it. He was not the end boss. He was not a raid boss. He was not even a dungeon boss. But he came up with the idea of the Iron Horde and he convinced the alternate orcs that it is a good idea.

[Revamp Man]

No problem! Its just if we're doing a world revamp I'd rather it wasn't cataclysm 2.0 with the Black Empire.

My main problem with cata and some other stories in WoW is that we always win

Look at the klaxxi line: we helped them defeat a queen gone mad and then they revealed that they keep attacking the pandaren to strengthen the hive for the old ones return

The troll in that LK dungeon who had us help him only to reveal he served arthas

The dragon in hyjal that we helped only for her to turn into a servant of ragnaros


I want an expansion where we may see what we do as a victory but in the end we lose something

I want 8.3 to be us killing queeny for the last time but n'zoth already planned for that. He used her as a distraction to mobilize his forces causing those of us who are still blessed with his gift to suffer and the only way we survive the attack is dragon ex machina

Wrathion and some of his allies swoop in and rescue us using the same concoction he used on ebonhorn

We learn that the heart he ate has been the cause of recent flashes of the solution to the old gods

We need the arcanomicon that the blue flight hid in their territory in the dragon isles after the deathwing nonsense that led to betrayal by the only competitor to their new leader kalec

The bronze aspect has disappeared and recent sightings place him on the isles but it seems the infinite are also there possibly tracking him to the sands of time

The twilight dragons are clashing with the red and aim to destroy alexzstraza ending the confrontation started in the crucible line

Wrathion must take his first steps on his journey of redemption and face the legacy of his family. He will come to face the consequences of his actions from cata and some echoes of his siblings. The final step is to overcome his father's shadow and find out that in his last lucid moments neltharion created a weapon capable of destroying the corruption but at the cost of the life of those who empower it.

The new dragon soul requires strength beyond that of the current aspects and thus the flights suffer losses unheard of.

Chromie
Kalec
Alexzstraza
The children of ysera
Wrathion and ebonhorn

They along with mortals of azeroth must empower this weapon and end the voids grip on this planet once and for all






That is how you make a story blizz I expect my check in the mail

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, they are.

Just not this one

- - - Updated - - -

Of all the "leaks," you can spot them a mile away because they don't include very basic things Blizzard is dedicated to continuing:

N'zoth
*This is the one thing the "leaks" gets right. N'zoth is obviously the villain of the next expansion. And they didn't want to say N'zoth was the villain of BFA because it would be disappointing to not defeat the big bad at the end of the expansion. Though we can expect some fan-service for 8.3 in the same way we did Siege of Org at the end of Mists

Mechanics
*They had some plan for Warfronts. What they are in BFA was just a prototype. Maybe next expansion we'll get a PvP version. There are also files for a Silvermoon, Azshara & Mulgore warfronts which will likely come into play before 9.0. Not a huge priority but it's biggest purpose was giving the original races sets of badly needed racial-aesthetic armor & structures.
*I saw one proposal that instead of coming up with new class abilities, that in 9.0 players get a second class. Not unlike what the latest Dungeon Run in Hearthstone did. Instead of new abilities, a max level player gets an ability from the other class while in a different spec. A Priest/Death-Knight would get a Battle Rez while in Holy. Or A Shaman/Monk could get Aspect of the Crane while Enhancement. This would appease all the players who complain about having to change class for guild reasons but don't want to start their Reputation grind over, without getting rid of the appeal of alts entirely.
*Another good idea I saw thrown around was now that classes have anywhere between 2 to 4 specs, they start giving classes new specs. They wouldn't even have to do this at any uniform rate. Just new specs whenever they get a new idea for a playstyle.

Narrative
*Lich King (not Arthas, Bolvar) was in this expansion. That was weird? They introduced her secret daughter for seemingly no reason? I expect that come up again.
*Calia. I don't know where they're going with her. She doesn't like the Horde so I don't see her becoming a replacement for Sylvanas. There was also datamined flavor banter for a Resurgence of the Scarlet Brotherhood, where they spread propaganda against her & Jaina's undead brother (who were apparently paramours when they were alive?)
*Silithus. I've said it before but doesn't it look like Sargeras' Sword is just begging to be a raid instance? It's even got its own portal.

Pre-Order
*Since the BFA pre-order made obscene amounts of money by granting Allied races it's safe to assume they'll be repeating this for the eighth expansion. They revealed 8 new allied races even if it took the most recent one almost 2 years to be open to players.
*Arkoan, Vulpera, Gilgoblin & Mechagnomes fit the niche that Nightborne, Highmountain tauren, Void Elves & Lightforged Draenei did, complete with their own corresponding reputations.
*The other 4 are harder to predict since there will likely be tied to to theming of the next expansion. But Forsaken Blood Elves & Forsaken Night Elves are already popular. As well as I'm sure Alliance players have been wanting Vyrkul for years. There are even some new Undead Night Elves in the 8.2.5 datamine. Might Sylvanas & her valkyr be returning to Darnassus?

the dual class system is actually really interesting especially because there is a game that already pulled it off rather well once you get past the whole supergrind pay-to-win aspects of it look up runes of magic

[Hitei]

My main problem with cata and some other stories in WoW is that we always win

"My problem is that we always win."
"What they should do is have us win, and then a new threat shows up, and then we beat that threat"

?????

[Holdodlig]

Honestly if I had to bet on a few things, I'd say at the end of the expansion we will use the heart of Azeroth to heal the wound. But since we empowered it so much it would also heal some of the Cataclysm's wounds, resulting in a World Revamp.

A lot of people think it's never going to happen but let's think about it. If you look at the new warsong / arathi assets, you already have half the models done for a world revamp. All the Kalimdor zones that are forest / night elves area use the same tree skin which are the one used in the Warsong Gulch. They also have the textures for the barrens, and could also use Gorgrond / Voldun for the Thousand Needles.

As for the Eastern Kingdom, all the human town, and I insist on it were using the same buildings that we saw in the old Arathi Bassin. They just have to change the Stromgarde fist emblem on them, which is only one texture and eventually add more roof colors and then we have it. As for the trees, Lordaeron is mostly composed of pines. For the swamp areas, I think the Nazmir assets would fit. Same for Stranglethorn, they can simply use most of the Zuldazar doodads. And Island Exploration shown us that they don't care about recycling some assets because let's be honest, it does not look bad at all.

They just have the town to revamp, a few dungeon (but they're always doing new dungeon so I don't think it's going to be problematic) and to remake a few models. I can think of those :
Gnoll, centaur, basic wolf, basic boar, stalagg and feugen, swamp things, bone golem (rattlegore), skeletal mage (aka Bloodmage Thalnos' old model, still used in the Plaguelands) ram, gargoyles, lions, giraffes, antelope and maybe some silithids if they're still a thing.

[Revamp Man]

I know most people hate BFA and can't wait for 9.0, but doesn't BFA still have just under another year left in it? Legion lasted 2 years and BFA is just over 1 year old.

The new expansion won't launch until maybe next September

- - - Updated - - -

So has anyone thought about the possibility that once we hit 10.0 The game stops

Like that could be the final expansion

- - - Updated - - -

"My problem is that we always win."
"What they should do is have us win, and then a new threat shows up, and then we beat that threat"

?????

My point is we never really lose a battle

Like the broken shore we lost that battle we got destroyed we left we came back and we won but we were beaten at one point which doesn't happen a lot

We went to Argus and we dominated
We walk into suramare and we dominate
We went into icecrown and we dominate
We get on the back of the worldbreaker and we dominate

You can count on both hands the amount of times where we seemingly one but in reality it was a hollow victory and that feeling is actually really nice because it means that we aren't unbeatable and that the conflict isn't one-sided

In the lich King fight nobody expected us to actually die and then we get brought back and win but the reality is still that we lost that battle

In the immortal words of Rocky Balboa in life it doesn't matter how hard you hit it matters how hard you can get hit and get right back up

[Nyel]

Probably worth pointing out that they deliberately added an entire massive raid area under Orgrimmar rather than just having the raid be the city.

Sure, I was just pointing out for a Stormwind raid everything's right there. You can start at the Harbour, go to Cathedral district and finish off in the Castle or wherever you choose to. They don't have to add anything, Stormwind has quite some scenarios where fights could happen (more than Orgrimmar would have had imho).

[Hitei]

My point is we never really lose a battle

Like the broken shore we lost that battle we got destroyed we left we came back and we won but we were beaten at one point which doesn't happen a lot

We went to Argus and we dominated
We walk into suramare and we dominate
We went into icecrown and we dominate
We get on the back of the worldbreaker and we dominate

You can count on both hands the amount of times where we seemingly one but in reality it was a hollow victory and that feeling is actually really nice because it means that we aren't unbeatable and that the conflict isn't one-sided

In the lich King fight nobody expected us to actually die and then we get brought back and win but the reality is still that we lost that battle

In the immortal words of Rocky Balboa in life it doesn't matter how hard you hit it matters how hard you can get hit and get right back up

Sounds like you don't really read quests or pay attention honestly.

We went to Argus to find the Army of Light nearly destroyed and had to hide in a cave and rely on the broken to survive.
We walked into Suramar and immediately had to retreat into a safe cave to not get killed by the withered, had to sneak around Suramar in disguise to slowly build up our forces for an attack on Suramar, nearly died to the Fal'dorei and were saved by a random druid, finally prepared enough to attack Suramar, attacked and had our entire armies time stopped by Elisande, forcing us to retreat again and find a new way in.
We tried to walk into icecrown, had our forces nearly die to Arthas and then get massacred by Putress, made our way in deeper and had out argent camp nearly brought to ruin so we had to retake that, finally made it into icecrown only to be one shot by Arthas when he decided to actually stop screwing around and get saved only by Ashbringer and the ghost of Terenas.
I'd say your Deathwing example works except we started off the expansion struggling to deal with his damage while he ignored us, and desperately trying to survive against the forces of Ragnaros and the Naga, the Naga side of which we actually lost.

[Wangming]

My point is we never really lose a battle

Hitei is gonna love this but I think you would like the story in Shadowbringers. TL;DR version. The big bad one and we died so everyone who still survived worked for hundreds of years to find a solution to undo that future. And even that almost failed.

Hmm come to think of it we also lost at the end of A Realm Reborn. And at the end of Heavensward. Yes, we lose a lot.

[Revamp Man]

Sounds like you don't really read quests or pay attention honestly.

We went to Argus to find the Army of Light nearly destroyed and had to hide in a cave and rely on the broken to survive.
We walked into Suramar and immediately had to retreat into a safe cave to not get killed by the withered, had to sneak around Suramar in disguise to slowly build up our forces for an attack on Suramar, nearly died to the Fal'dorei and were saved by a random druid, finally prepared enough to attack Suramar, attacked and had our entire armies time stopped by Elisande, forcing us to retreat again and find a new way in.
We tried to walk into icecrown, had our forces nearly die to Arthas and then get massacred by Putress, made our way in deeper and had out argent camp nearly brought to ruin so we had to retake that, finally made it into icecrown only to be one shot by Arthas when he decided to actually stop screwing around and get saved only by Ashbringer and the ghost of Terenas.
I'd say your Deathwing example works except we started off the expansion struggling to deal with his damage while he ignored us, and desperately trying to survive against the forces of Ragnaros and the Naga, the Naga side of which we actually lost.

With the nightfallen I don't really consider that something because we went in and built up an army of essentially foot soldiers to throw away but considering we had the guardian on our side we could have just gone in while all of the conflict in that zone I think was created just for a story aspect which I'm not saying was a bad thing but when you go in and you see oh my God this big bad time Majesty magic check is the big bad and we need to defeat Peter we know we're going to the theater you knew once you went in there that no matter what she did you were going to win that fight


So the Argus thing yeah technically we were saved by the army of light but then at that point we had nothing to really worry about the broken were there and they helped us the same way the wave later currently helping us and that we have a place for when we win every single fight we went into the burning throne and killed essentially gods and I'm not even talking about Argos I'm talking about the dude with the sword that I can't remember the name of right now but yeah I get your point on that and lich King in icecrown I wasn't here during wrath so I only got crappy side quest version of that but those moments are the best

Facing a big bad and losing is what I want

What I want is for N'zoth to win in our first confrontation

What I want is for the broken shore to essentially be an overarching theme

I want us to have a clear goal and on our way to achieving that goal we face an enemy that is insurmountable and we lose severely

I want to come face-to-face with this big demon dragon corrupted thing and right as we think we are going to win it reveals that it wasn't even trying

I essentially want Luffy versus kaijo

The reason is because well that meaning of victory is really nice sometimes you need to lose something in order for the character or the reader or the player to have more of a sense of accomplishment

Much like wandering onto the home base of the legion and not being absolutely destroyed by demons was a little strange to some people

I don't think that blizzard should have us release this final old God this creature who has been alive for thousands of years who has had the power to corrupt beings as strong as deathwing and to have access to an army like the klaxxi and then kill him one patch later.

When you build up an enemy beat deathwing be at the legion be it an old God you add a little bit of wonder and grandeur to the being them self and then you have to build up that fight and right now we are characters who used an item to free him and that item is the strongest thing in our possession so the question is can we kill him

I want a scene where he rises out of the ocean and goes to attacks stormwind and then the giant Cannon that the goblins have fires at him and he turns into smoke and cannonball or the plaster whatever you want to call it wipes out the human capital

Tldr

World of Warcraft has had these big bad fights happened so much that we know that when we come into a confrontation with one we are going to end out on top but what I think we need is a confrontation where everything seems to go our way until the last minute and we lose which is kind of the feeling that we got in palace

- - - Updated - - -

Hitei is gonna love this but I think you would like the story in Shadowbringers. TL;DR version. The big bad one and we died so everyone who still survived worked for hundreds of years to find a solution to undo that future. And even that almost failed.

Hmm come to think of it we also lost at the end of A Realm Reborn. And at the end of Heavensward. Yes, we lose a lot.

I might have to play final fantasy at some point but I have never been able to juggle to MMOs except when I played runes of magic which was so good and I am still f****** crushed that the new company that took over abandoned it because that thing could have killed wow if it wasn't based on a pay-to-win system

[Vladier]

Sure, I was just pointing out for a Stormwind raid everything's right there. You can start at the Harbour, go to Cathedral district and finish off in the Castle or wherever you choose to. They don't have to add anything, Stormwind has quite some scenarios where fights could happen (more than Orgrimmar would have had imho).

The problem with Stormwind as a raid is that it is small and claustrophobic. Only the harbour can really accomodate a raid boss, two even. With Cathedral you're already stretching it (if you bulldoze the trees and the fountain, you have about the same size as the Champion of Light in Dazar'alore, maybe), and the throne room is just tiny.

[Blayze]

The problem with Stormwind as a raid is that it is small and claustrophobic. Only the harbour can really accomodate a raid boss, two even. With Cathedral you're already stretching it (if you bulldoze the trees and the fountain, you have about the same size as the Champion of Light in Dazar'alore, maybe), and the throne room is just tiny.

The raid could start with a naval battle before we land at the docks. Multiple bosses could use the same area if they spawn after each other (like ToC).

We might flip to another perspective (say, an attack on the front gates as a diversion) at some point. Then there's the grassed area behind the city that's got plenty of space.

The streets themselves could be a gauntlet encounter that ends in a minor boss in a given area like the Cathedral. As for the throne room, we could have to spread out across the whole castle to defend it once we claim it back (likely against enemies trying to open portals).

[Wangming]

I might have to play final fantasy at some point but I have never been able to juggle to MMOs except when I played runes of magic which was so good and I am still f****** crushed that the new company that took over abandoned it because that thing could have killed wow if it wasn't based on a pay-to-win system

Not sure how you would like all the other aspects, but the story might be to your liking. I mean we never lose in the sense that the player wins every confrontation she is in, but we tend to fight enemies who like actually complicated gambits. And they tend to win, which gives them temporary victory. And the hero has to flee to a foreign country, sacrefice a friend or just pull insane stunts to undo the damage.

The problem with Stormwind as a raid is that it is small and claustrophobic. Only the harbour can really accomodate a raid boss, two even. With Cathedral you're already stretching it (if you bulldoze the trees and the fountain, you have about the same size as the Champion of Light in Dazar'alore, maybe), and the throne room is just tiny.

Well the Siege of Orgrimmar began in Pandaria. The Siege of Stormwind (SoS) could begin in Elwyn Forest. Or Ironforge and involve a fight on the Deeprun tram. Venture into the Stockade. Maybe even employ that unused instance portal. Maybe even all of the above.

[Ersula]

no clearly nzoth is the villain of the next expansion and not sylvanas, i mean nzoth is at the blizzcon poster etc.

Just like Jaina is the villain of BFA????

[JMitchy96]

Just like Jaina is the villain of BFA????

This. Where are people getting this idea from that the Blizzcon poster MUST feature the villain of an upcoming expansion? Are there some new rules I wasn't informed of?

[spleen1015]

This. Where are people getting this idea from that the Blizzcon poster MUST feature the villain of an upcoming expansion? Are there some new rules I wasn't informed of?

I think there was some consistency to this so that idea as been percolating in this thread.

[Ersula]

I think there was some consistency to this so that idea as been percolating in this thread.

I mean, the idea that Sylvanas might be the villain of the next expansion is slightly more likely than the people saying she's going to die in 8.3 despite being the principal artwork for WoW for the whole year

We datamined new Forsaken Night Elf NPCs. Face it, the entire War campaign was just setting up a new allied race you can get from Preordering the next expansion. That's it. She's going to rez some banshees & nothing else will happen

[Jonwho]

I mean, the idea that Sylvanas might be the villain of the next expansion is slightly more likely than the people saying she's going to die in 8.3 despite being the principal artwork for WoW for the whole year

We datamined new Forsaken Night Elf NPCs. Face it, the entire War campaign was just setting up a new allied race you can get from Preordering the next expansion. That's it. She's going to rez some banshees & nothing else will happen

And I going to be so fucking happy. Forsaken are my favorite race, but next to... basically every race, they look bad as a gypsy curse.

Instead, Night Elves are one of the most good looking race of the game. So: Night Elves + Forsaken = Eternal happiness for this little nerd

[Nyel]

The problem with Stormwind as a raid is that it is small and claustrophobic. Only the harbour can really accomodate a raid boss, two even. With Cathedral you're already stretching it (if you bulldoze the trees and the fountain, you have about the same size as the Champion of Light in Dazar'alore, maybe), and the throne room is just tiny.

Harbour
Front gate
"Lake"
Some kind of running the gauntlet through Stormwind
Varian memorial

There are several places that could work as boss locations and remember, it doesn't have to be a massive 12 boss raid.

My point was simply that all of the Stormwind assets already exist and it wouldn't be too difficult to turn it into an open air raid zone.

[Raetary]

The problem with Stormwind as a raid is that it is small and claustrophobic. Only the harbour can really accomodate a raid boss, two even. With Cathedral you're already stretching it (if you bulldoze the trees and the fountain, you have about the same size as the Champion of Light in Dazar'alore, maybe), and the throne room is just tiny.

I disagree.
Stormwind could easily hold several boss areas, especially if they remove some features from districts (cause siege, destruction and stuff) or simply enlargen them

A naval battle could be possible.
Then the docks.
Lion's Rest.
Cathedral Square
The Cathedral itself
Maybe a fight in the mage quarter
Put a boss in the valley of heroes
The lake is big enough for a potential elemental boss for one reason or another
Stormwind keep

Trade district and Old town are the only ones where i don't think a boss can fit in, but that can be handled with taking advantage of the streets and make some interesting encounter in them.