9.0 General Discussion

[Soulwind]

Jesus. Why would you do this to us?

Fun fact, the typo was an accident at first.

[protip]

The name Bastion just makes me think of Sanctuary from Diablo. Given that it's a Shadowlands leak and that it's based around death, going to WoW heaven as our base sounds pretty reasonable to me. The name isn't necessarily great, but I don't think it's weird.

[Krille]

If we go by obvious reasoning then Shadowlands is definitely not becoming more than a single zone. It is what happened to the Emerald Dream and Argus.

Thats too specific. Just talking about the overall direction of the game. Sylvanas and Bwonsamdi feeding souls to their boss, who is speculated to be some god of death by reading ilgynoth quotes from the nyalotha raid. Whether its one zone is irrelevant.

[Sondrelk]

But Argus got 3 zones. And ED also had multiple if you count the boss arras as parts of other zones (tho ED is a stretch since its just a raid + druid class ability teleport room)

It got 3 zones, but those were 3 really small zones. And even more importantly, they were a patch area. Spending the entire expansion in the Shadowlands would be about as exciting as spending the entire expansion in Suramar.

Give me 10 minutes and i can come up with an expansion set entirely in the city of Suramar, including dungeons and raids. But even with that it would get boring after a while. Same thing with Shadowlands.

[protip]

It got 3 zones, but those were 3 really small zones. And even more importantly, they were a patch area. Spending the entire expansion in the Shadowlands would be about as exciting as spending the entire expansion in Suramar.

Give me 10 minutes and i can come up with an expansion set entirely in the city of Suramar, including dungeons and raids. But even with that it would get boring after a while. Same thing with Shadowlands.

If each zone is a different interpretation of the afterlife, there's really quite a lot of material to work with. Not to mention that we know that there are actual living beings in the Shadowlands, according to the Odyn story. Maybe it's not so restrictive as we thought.

[Syegfryed]

Oh I don't mean literally Discworld I mean just it feels like a fantasy novel not a WoW expansion.

It feels too original and.... "out there." There's no screaming headlines about a famous lore figure that's showing up. Not even a Sylvanas.

i said one that they would bring the obvious or something entirely new, not middle terms,maybe this is it, just using the shadowlands as concept and going bananas.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Thanks! Saw the Bolvar image yday and realised I completely forgot about leak season >_>

Never too late to join the hype train though.

Never too late indeed, welcome aboard! Next stop: Blizzcoooooon!

[Shadochi]

It got 3 zones, but those were 3 really small zones. And even more importantly, they were a patch area. Spending the entire expansion in the Shadowlands would be about as exciting as spending the entire expansion in Suramar.

Give me 10 minutes and i can come up with an expansion set entirely in the city of Suramar, including dungeons and raids. But even with that it would get boring after a while. Same thing with Shadowlands.

Thing wit suramar was, it also had themes from its neighboring zones (Azsuna, Valsharah, Stormheim and Broken Shore) which gave it more diveristy. If you aplified suramar into an expansion you would again end up with broken isles

[deviantcultist]

One thing that makes the Shadowlands logo leak so credible is that I'm having trouble to speculate on what's it all about. From the looks of the place, it seems like a race AND class is definitely involved.

Should I let myself hope that I'll be free of Shadowpriest after 10 years or should I withhold expectations? Obviously the second, but I want to hop on the train. xD

[Fahrad Wagner]

I got you, fam.

You're a true gem Soulwind.

[Krille]

It got 3 zones, but those were 3 really small zones. And even more importantly, they were a patch area. Spending the entire expansion in the Shadowlands would be about as exciting as spending the entire expansion in Suramar.

Give me 10 minutes and i can come up with an expansion set entirely in the city of Suramar, including dungeons and raids. But even with that it would get boring after a while. Same thing with Shadowlands.

Luckily they dont spend 10 minutes laying down the foundation of an expansion, they started working on this expansion in Legion, surely they had time to make more use out of shadowlands than just one zone. Its still besides the point.

[Sondrelk]

If each zone is a different interpretation of the afterlife, there's really quite a lot of material to work with. Not to mention that we know that there are actual living beings in the Shadowlands, according to the Odyn story. Maybe it's not so restrictive as we thought.

Again. It is easy to make something look varied, what is more difficult is to give the illusion of it feeling varied when you are basically in the same area the entire time.
Consider for a moment spending the entire Legion expansion in Suramar. It does not matter how varied you make it look, or how many different sections of the city, or how many different subsets of Nightborne you meet. After a while the fact that you have spent the entire expansion in the same city is going to get boring.

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Thing wit suramar was, it also had themes from its neighboring zones (Azsuna, Valsharah, Stormheim and Broken Shore) which gave it more diveristy. If you aplified suramar into an expansion you would again end up with broken isles

I mean just the city, the part under the dome. I will even throw in Broken shore because it is connected to the city to be generous.
There is plenty of variety you could squeeze out from it. You could have artifical biomes teh Nightborne use to gather food, you could have ethereal visions in an observatory, you could have grimy underground slums filled with the disenfranchised.

But in the end the entire expansion would just take place in that one city, and that gets draining after a while. It is much better to take concepts like that and spend all that creativity in a single zone so players do not get fatigued from it.

[xin16]

any updates on wrath of The Bolvar?

[Krille]

Again. It is easy to make something look varied, what is more difficult is to give the illusion of it feeling varied when you are basically in the same area the entire time.
Consider for a moment spending the entire Legion expansion in Suramar. It does not matter how varied you make it look, or how many different sections of the city, or how many different subsets of Nightborne you meet. After a while the fact that you have spent the entire expansion in the same city is going to get boring.

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I mean just the city, the part under the dome. I will even throw in Broken shore because it is connected to the city to be generous.
There is plenty of variety you could squeeze out from it. You could have artifical biomes teh Nightborne use to gather food, you could have ethereal visions in an observatory, you could have grimy underground slums filled with the disenfranchised.

But in the end the entire expansion would just take place in that one city, and that gets draining after a while. It is much better to take concepts like that and spend all that creativity in a single zone so players do not get fatigued from it.

The problem with all of this is that you assume the design of the thing that is shadowlands, which is way above whatever we're discussing here. They could just make it about afterlife/death, and that can take many shapes and forms, not just black and white hell.

[Shadochi]

Again. It is easy to make something look varied, what is more difficult is to give the illusion of it feeling varied when you are basically in the same area the entire time.
Consider for a moment spending the entire Legion expansion in Suramar. It does not matter how varied you make it look, or how many different sections of the city, or how many different subsets of Nightborne you meet. After a while the fact that you have spent the entire expansion in the same city is going to get boring.

Well that the thing. Before Legion the broken isles were just Tomb of Sargeras + naga


But they managed to greatly expand it. Why couldn't they do it with the shadowlands since we know almost nothing of it as is. It might have plenty of native races.

Also, a bit off topic. But I feel they could've made a proper Emerald Dream by looking up different MTG forest cards and going off of that for inspiration.

[FlemmMinis]

I got you, fam.

Perfection

[Wangming]

Again. It is easy to make something look varied, what is more difficult is to give the illusion of it feeling varied when you are basically in the same area the entire time.
Consider for a moment spending the entire Legion expansion in Suramar. It does not matter how varied you make it look, or how many different sections of the city, or how many different subsets of Nightborne you meet. After a while the fact that you have spent the entire expansion in the same city is going to get boring.

- - - Updated - - -



I mean just the city, the part under the dome. I will even throw in Broken shore because it is connected to the city to be generous.
There is plenty of variety you could squeeze out from it. You could have artifical biomes teh Nightborne use to gather food, you could have ethereal visions in an observatory, you could have grimy underground slums filled with the disenfranchised.

But in the end the entire expansion would just take place in that one city, and that gets draining after a while. It is much better to take concepts like that and spend all that creativity in a single zone so players do not get fatigued from it.

Which one of the expansion contients did you consider varied though? Cause you know, Outland was basically Hellfire Peninsula before TBC. Northrend was just a land of ice and snow. Are you sure it won't feel varied?

[ercarp]

I think Blizzard has proven time and time again that they don't mind following the quite literal theme park approach when it comes to designing zones. Look at the Broken Isles for example; every zone is aesthetically different despite being positioned right next to each other.

The idea that an expansion set entirely in the Shadowlands is boring isn't taking this precedent into account. If Shadowlands is the new "continent" of the expansion, you can bet that it will have several zones and each will have its own unique flair to it. Different colors, assets, architecture, and stories.

[protip]

Again. It is easy to make something look varied, what is more difficult is to give the illusion of it feeling varied when you are basically in the same area the entire time.
Consider for a moment spending the entire Legion expansion in Suramar. It does not matter how varied you make it look, or how many different sections of the city, or how many different subsets of Nightborne you meet. After a while the fact that you have spent the entire expansion in the same city is going to get boring.

Right, but it's an entire plane of existence. Why should it just look like one city? Why should the themes be consistent throughout? There's no reason that one area of the Shadowlands shouldn't be a heavenly area with light colors and large ornate buildings, while another is influenced by shadow, or the home of some natural death and rebirth themed zone, etc etc. They can all have rivers of souls going to the same place, a deeper layer of the Shadowlands. Nothing prevents there being varied cultures and zones. Obviously my examples are just headcanon, but if Blizzard wanted to make a Shadowlands expac, that's the sort of thing they would do.

[Prophet June Bug]

Never too late indeed, welcome aboard! Next stop: Blizzcoooooon!

So it's pretty much 99% Shadowlands confirmed at this point yes?

That means I still have 1% to desperately cling onto Dragon Isles.

WoW: Imagine Dragon Isles