Page 1 of 4
1
2
3
... LastLast
  1. #1

    Is Blizzard holding back for 10.0?

    Do you believe that perhaps Blizzard is simply holding back on Shadowlands to reignite us for 10.0? As we know, Blizzard works two expansions ahead, so it wouldn't be a surprise if Blizzard has moved a greater than usual number of developers to 10.0 instead of Shadowlands.

    Shadowlands' content offering has been modest at best, and insulting at worst. It feels like a maintenance expansion going through the hoops with no real passion or enthusiasm. Do you think this is intentional to go all out for 10.0?

  2. #2
    Titan Seranthor's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Langley, London, Undisclosed Locations
    Posts
    11,355
    Quote Originally Posted by styil View Post
    Do you believe that perhaps Blizzard is simply holding back on Shadowlands to reignite us for 10.0? As we know, Blizzard works two expansions ahead, so it wouldn't be a surprise if Blizzard has moved a greater than usual number of developers to 10.0 instead of Shadowlands.

    Shadowlands' content offering has been modest at best, and insulting at worst. It feels like a maintenance expansion going through the hoops with no real passion or enthusiasm. Do you think this is intentional to go all out for 10.0?
    Didn't you say these same things about BfA, and Legion?

    --- Want any of my Constitutional rights?, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
    I come from a time and a place where I judge people by the content of their character; I don't give a damn if you are tall or short; gay or straight; Jew or Gentile; White, Black, Brown or Green; Conservative or Liberal. -- Note to mods: if you are going to infract me have the decency to post the reason, and expect to hold everyone else to the same standard.

  3. #3
    Insulting? You wot mate?
    They always told me I would miss my family... but I never miss from close range.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by styil View Post
    Do you believe that perhaps Blizzard is simply holding back on Shadowlands to reignite us for 10.0? As we know, Blizzard works two expansions ahead, so it wouldn't be a surprise if Blizzard has moved a greater than usual number of developers to 10.0 instead of Shadowlands.
    Yes with the steady rise of regular players and more and more sub+shop money, I am sure they change the direction of the game, because of some non-players/non-subs.

    Just move and add developers to a running project, what could go wrong. You know, 2x the amount of DEVs is 2x faster and more changes late into the project, the better outcome. Thats how software development works! :>

    Shadowlands is WoW 2.0, targeting NEW players and NOT the crybabys that are never happy, nor paying subs to the game. Blizzard basicly told everyone at blizzcon, that the game stays as it is in its core and everything else is targeted at new players.

    They said it, they wrote it, it is not really that hard to get. You dont have to shake your mirror ball to see the future, the WoW dev team was transparent in what they will do in the next years to come.
    Last edited by Ange; 2019-12-06 at 11:24 AM.
    -

  5. #5
    They only showed the levelling content, how can you or anyone accurately judge the credibility of the expansion? And propagate from it, how bad it will be for the entirety of the 2-year expansion... based off of 5 explained zones? That in some cases were extensive in some details but also brief in others as like most developmental work... It's not finished?

  6. #6
    We don't know how much content Shadowlands will have. Maybe the new systems will be revolutanary and awesome like m+ was. Maybe the new features will suck like warfronts. We will see. (Also, somehow every xpac, except for maybe legion, has been called a maintanance xpac since at least MoP...so what does that even mean at this point?)

    We also have no idea about who is working on what at Blizzard. So ... not really worth discussing before we get to see the 10.0 beta.
    "And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five?
    A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head."

  7. #7
    Light comes from darkness shise's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Denmark
    Posts
    6,750
    Might as well wait and see.

    PRT is full focus on 8.3, so of course we know nothing really about Shadowlands yet.

    BfA has turned out to be pretty huge in terms of content, so expect Shadowlands to be about the same at least.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by styil View Post
    Do you believe that perhaps Blizzard is simply holding back on Shadowlands to reignite us for 10.0? As we know, Blizzard works two expansions ahead, so it wouldn't be a surprise if Blizzard has moved a greater than usual number of developers to 10.0 instead of Shadowlands.

    Shadowlands' content offering has been modest at best, and insulting at worst. It feels like a maintenance expansion going through the hoops with no real passion or enthusiasm. Do you think this is intentional to go all out for 10.0?
    Ehhh. I'm losing hope to see really good xpack. I think, it's becoming something like "This content works for us - why do we need to change anything?". So, I really doubt, 10.0 will have something good. I really think, that their current motto is "It's better to have 1M of stable players, than put some effort into trying to attract more". Because, you know, "no matter, what we do - they don't like it". And they don't even think, what is really wrong with their game and that they constantly do things wrong, but think, that they do it right.

    I don't care about Wow 11.0, if it's not solo-MMO. No half-measures - just perfect xpack.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by shise View Post
    BfA has turned out to be pretty huge in terms of content, so expect Shadowlands to be about the same at least.
    Its after cataclysm the second try to open the game for new players. I expect tons of content and a lot of not announced things for new players only.

    The content spacing in BfA was allready a big step up to the content holes in LEGION. Maybe we see multi-staged content patches to close the gaps even more.
    -

  10. #10
    Idk why people are crying about Shadowlands features, game is shitshow now because they fcked up current features with RNG and shit class design, and they are trying to repair them in 9.0

  11. #11
    Warchief Statix's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Netherlands
    Posts
    2,188
    I personally believe they can't afford to withhold content.
    Statix will suffice.

  12. #12
    It all started, quite simply, in Warlords of Draenor when they said "We want to be able to customise Garrisons for each race" and then realised that they needed "HD" (High res texture, high poly model) asset libraries for each race and just making a Human, Orc and Draenei library took the entire expansion's development.

    Legion, BfA and Shadowlands have all been about preparing one thing: Asset catalogues. Terrain is easy. Terrain textures are hard but easy to up-scale. Assets, doodads and widgets take forever to make and are the bread and butter of bringing the Old World up to modern standards. A big problem with the Cataclysm overhaul was that they themed it so heavily around the Cataclysm that it felt like less of a New World++ and rather like a New World-- because there was less diversity in the world's story.

    So, say they want 10.0 to be a big overhaul of the world experience, they want a huge sandbox for us to play in with a fresh injection of world story and higher stakes. They'd need drama from all angles; every Cosmic force would need to be at play. And you know what every good cosmic force needs? Asset libraries. Fel assets (Broken Shore and Argus), Void assets (Mac'aree, 8.3 raid and invasion assets), Death assets (Helheim, Drustvar, Maldraxxus, The Maw), Nature assets (Val'sharah, Ardenweald, Stormsong, Drustvar, Zuldazar, Nazmir) and Light / Arcane (Combined under the general theme of "Titan" stuff: Bastion, Halls of Valour, Seat of the Pantheon).

    Then you'd need HD catalogues for every race. I don't think it's a coincidence that each Allied Race corresponds to a core race. You can get away with making models that look like they're for something else but can easily be adapted (with some clever texture work) for other purposes, so I think we can approximate:

    Nelf - Ardenweald, Val'sharah, Suramar, Azsuna, Naz'jatar, Darkshore Warfront
    Dwarf - (Least developed) A bunch of stuff in WoD, some Stormheim stuff,
    Human - Garrisons, Arathi Warfront, Kul Tiras, Dalaran 2
    Gnome - Mechagon
    Draenei - Mac'aree, Army of the Light, Shadowmoon Valley 2,
    Worgen - The Cataclysm stuff holds up, Val'sharah, the Gothic Revendreath stuff, Darkshore 2/3, Drustvar, Island Expeditions

    Orc - Garrisons, Warfronts, Iron Horde and all of Draenor 2; no shortage of this stuff
    Troll - All of Zandalar
    Tauren - Highmountain
    Undead - Same as Undead forces tbh,but also Stormheim and Darkshore 2/3
    Belf - Suramar, Nazmir, Revendreath but lighter, they'll probably just fully remake Silvermoon
    Goblin - Literally every patch, I think Goblin stuff might be what the environment artists do to let off steam

    Finally, do you know what would really help the world feel alive and populated? Variety in the existing races. The ability to quickly generate NPCs derived from the sub-races of every playable race. So you'd make a bucket load of Allied races and then carry out a major overhaul of core-race customisation. Then you can quickly spin up an entire, for example, Aerie Dwarf village using a bunch of random Aerie Dwarf customisation options.

    And then there's all sorts of asset re-use at play. Look at the little base-camp flight points you can set up in BfA. There's all sorts of unique assets tied to races and cultures there that just don't have a "featured" place to work. They've clearly been building up this enormous library for several years. And I think 10.0 is going to unleash that on us and that process has probably been actively in the works since Legion. We've even had zone updates for Arathi, Darkshore, Dalaran (which would return to its rightful place) and, arguably, the Barrens (5.3) already.

    So, yes, I think Shadowlands will be a bit light on content and a bit short on duration. That's not to say it will be filler. Legion was great and definitely can't be considered filler, despite re-using tons of assets, they were able to churn out a lot of good design so that it felt fresh. BfA used tons of fresh art assets and yet failed to really deliver on any design. So it's not indicative.
    Last edited by thesmall001; 2019-12-06 at 01:00 PM.

  13. #13
    All we had for shadowlands so far was a couple of trailers at blizzcon, don't you think its kind of early to be considering this?
    Never underestimate the unknown, or some shit. *shrugs i unno*

  14. #14
    Yeah, from a business perspective this makes NO sense. Why would they give you a shitty product only to give you a nice one later. If the previous expansion is crap, its more likely you won't buy the next one. They need to keep as many people happy as long as they can to not lose profits and to maintain them.

    But how i see shadowlands is that they are not trying to add a lot of new stuff to shadowlands, but rather repair the shit they added previously that failed. Making shadowlands a good expansion to keep building from. But there is no way they are half assing shadowlands because they wanna give a better 10

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Ange View Post
    Yes with the steady rise of regular players and more and more sub+shop money, I am sure they change the direction of the game, because of some non-players/non-subs.

    Just move and add developers to a running project, what could go wrong. You know, 2x the amount of DEVs is 2x faster and more changes late into the project, the better outcome. Thats how software development works! :>

    Shadowlands is WoW 2.0, targeting NEW players and NOT the crybabys that are never happy, nor paying subs to the game. Blizzard basicly told everyone at blizzcon, that the game stays as it is in its core and everything else is targeted at new players.

    They said it, they wrote it, it is not really that hard to get. You dont have to shake your mirror ball to see the future, the WoW dev team was transparent in what they will do in the next years to come.
    Well right now I can't imagine being a new player to wow. It's literally all over the place, it's disgusting.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Laqweeta View Post
    Well right now I can't imagine being a new player to wow. It's literally all over the place, it's disgusting.
    Which is why they are streamlining things for SL in regards to the new player experience.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by glowpipe View Post
    Yeah, from a business perspective this makes NO sense. Why would they give you a shitty product only to give you a nice one later. If the previous expansion is crap, its more likely you won't buy the next one. They need to keep as many people happy as long as they can to not lose profits and to maintain them.

    But how i see shadowlands is that they are not trying to add a lot of new stuff to shadowlands, but rather repair the shit they added previously that failed. Making shadowlands a good expansion to keep building from. But there is no way they are half assing shadowlands because they wanna give a better 10
    This is classinc people have no clue how businesses work and are basing their opinions on feels alone.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Seranthor View Post
    Didn't you say these same things about BfA, and Legion?
    He says a lot of things. Not sure there is a filtering process.

  17. #17
    I don't think they ever held back on it or created a filler expansion on purpose. It's just how some of them turned out unfortunately. Cataclysm and WoD in particular, they probably spent a lot more time on the revamp and garrisons than anticipated and by the time they realized it, it was too late to scrap them and add something else or to add something extra.

    And as someone mentioned above, it's not as simple as doubling the number of developers and it'll move faster, it's just not how development works, same as if you take 2 pregnant women, they won't deliver 1 baby in 4.5 months.
    Last edited by kranur; 2019-12-06 at 01:22 PM.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by styil View Post
    Do you believe that perhaps Blizzard is simply holding back on Shadowlands to reignite us for 10.0? As we know, Blizzard works two expansions ahead, so it wouldn't be a surprise if Blizzard has moved a greater than usual number of developers to 10.0 instead of Shadowlands.

    Shadowlands' content offering has been modest at best, and insulting at worst. It feels like a maintenance expansion going through the hoops with no real passion or enthusiasm. Do you think this is intentional to go all out for 10.0?
    Have they been holding back since MoP then?

  19. #19
    Herald of the Titans Aoyi's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    US
    Posts
    2,777
    Do you think maybe you're just bored of WoW? Instead of looking at what Blizzard offers and wondering if it might be better in 3 years instead of 1, maybe you should just move on. This is Blizzard. This is WoW. If what they are offering you doesn't interest you, take a break. Play some other games. In 2 years when they show off 10.0, see if you like it more then and if not, don't worry about it. You don't have to play WoW.

  20. #20
    We havnt really seen anything about Shadowlands yet - Except from the zones and main Characters.
    Therefore, I am still very optimistic about it.

    Thinking that blizzard would hold back features for 3 years, is quite a big leap - As someone said, the game can die pretty fast.. And a decline in income for 3 years is massive.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •