Did BFA ended all the hooks from Vanilla and Warcraft 3?

[DingDongKing]

The whole cosmic thing focus is what keeps me from being engaged

Not to mention walking around the world of death only to find it's just another place where people walk, talk and work. And they take gold as a currency as well, cool

Pretty much. It's just another zone at the end of the day, which is cheap. As much as this is a broken record, they need to focus on Azeroth and bring the existing continents into the present, with new quests and storylines across the board. Otherwise it's just a load of wasted potential.

[FarmerEd]

No wonder you have such a silly question, links a picture of a map that doesn't even have zandalar on it LOL NO WONDER he thinks there's no more place to visit

It's litterally there above pandaria, it's just not named.

[Kralljin]

Also, and you will surely agree with me here, you can always just pay people more money and at least remove that factor from the problem list. Even is you hire a core team of 50 new people and pay them double the average industry salary, a project like WoW would still be immensely profitable. One store mount release basically pays all those people for more than a year. That is the amount of money we are talking about here.

Yes, but that's why companies hate increasing wages: They have to pay it every month.
It's not a one time investment, it increases the running cost of the company and that's what businesses want to avoid like the plague.

It's frankly also one of the areas where not investing, especially in video games, has hardly any effect until way later because video games (like a lot of other franchises) simply generate revenue based on the name.
Let's be real, the WoW team has produced largely trash in the last 8(!) years outside of Legion and still made quite some profit - you'd think management would attempt to rectify issues that have snuk themselves into the company over a decade ago?

It's also where the value can be difficult to quantify because how much worth an employee is cannot be seen until months / years later.
When then have had an army of applicants that are willing to work for piss poor wages and work extra hours for something such as intagible as "prestige", you have a hard time convincing management to only pick applicant that may have the necessary skills but only work for far higher wage.

Why raise quality with hiring more competent staff at higher wages when you can keep the same staff that you can treat like shit by just releasing store mounts?
If you're smart about it, you bait more casual players into a 6 month subs, if they only play for a month or two but still take the 6 month sub, those people paid more than buying the sub and mount seperately - then put the mount onto the store later on to catch a few players who haven't taken the offer.

[Gaidax]

I mean, they just went on and sucked Jailer out of their thumbs as some ultimate orchestrator of everything in Warcraft.

You bet they can and will do so again.

Other than that there are many small quests and such that can be spun off into some bigger story, as a whole WoW is seeded with this stuff. Like heck they made whole Pandaria out of what amounts to a joke character in WIII.

But then, I don't even think they need it - they have so many potential storylines seeded, they could make half a dozen expansions of out them.

[Nerovar]

Every single quest is a potential hook to continue.

That goes as well for every single character, every single place, every single object. All of it.

The very notion that you could ever be "done" wrapping up all the lore is absurd imo.

If you think we're going to revisit any characters introduced in Shadowlands side stories you haven't been paying attention for the last 17 years.

OT: I think BfA was probably the last sweeping blow in terms of old lore and none of those ends had any resemblance of a satisfying conclusion which hold true for most loose ends from back in the days, I suppose. It seems like they're pretty much done with down to earth Azeroth stories since the only thing they've been setting up is new cosmic shit that's mostly disconnected from any previous stories we're familiar with.

[Nagawithlegs]

Jailer kind of represents the end of Warcraft 3 storylines. He will die with Arthas and Sylvanas and the cast can move on from Warcraft 3 now that all the villains behind it are gone (Old Gods, Jailer and Sargeras).

I don't think more cosmic planes are next, but it will be Azeroth with NEW storylines that aren't so tied to Warcraft 3/Vanilla. Think the Light invading Azeroth. They are wiping the slate clean so they can do new stories that aren't anchored to ancient plotlines.

[Alanar]

I feel like Dragon Isles is probably the only place left that could be big enough to make one expansion that's also located in Azeroth, besides "the other side of Azeroth" speculation, ofc.

Other than that I can only think about a few islands here and there such as:

Tel'Abim



Plunder Isle

I always imagined plunder isle being this island with huge pirate castle/town. Surrounded by cliffs and wild sea. With an underground dock etc etc.

Makes me think of pokemon first movie where they go to island of mewtwo if any one remembers that movie or have even seen it.

[Accendor]

Yes, but that's why companies hate increasing wages: They have to pay it every month.
It's not a one time investment, it increases the running cost of the company and that's what businesses want to avoid like the plague.

It's frankly also one of the areas where not investing, especially in video games, has hardly any effect until way later because video games (like a lot of other franchises) simply generate revenue based on the name.
Let's be real, the WoW team has produced largely trash in the last 8(!) years outside of Legion and still made quite some profit - you'd think management would attempt to rectify issues that have snuk themselves into the company over a decade ago?

It's also where the value can be difficult to quantify because how much worth an employee is cannot be seen until months / years later.
When then have had an army of applicants that are willing to work for piss poor wages and work extra hours for something such as intagible as "prestige", you have a hard time convincing management to only pick applicant that may have the necessary skills but only work for far higher wage.

Why raise quality with hiring more competent staff at higher wages when you can keep the same staff that you can treat like shit by just releasing store mounts?
If you're smart about it, you bait more casual players into a 6 month subs, if they only play for a month or two but still take the 6 month sub, those people paid more than buying the sub and mount seperately - then put the mount onto the store later on to catch a few players who haven't taken the offer.

I disagree with you only on the 8 years part. 4-6 years ago Overwatch and Hearthstone were HUGE. The decline started actually way later.

However, once again, I am not sure what we two are arguing about. I share your opinion on everything, except about the exact dates. However, our discussion does not really have anything to do with the post that started all this, which was claiming Blizzard started wasting potential expansions because they could not get new awesome hires at that time. I am just arguing that this exact argument for that point in time is bullshit, thats all

[Alanar]

I find it hard to believe that lore is so important to so many people that their decision to actively play WoW every day hinges on whether the new expansion is somehow connected to a strategy game from 20 years ago that most players of modern times probably don't even know it existed. As cute as the notion is, the game is an mmorpg and most people are in it for the gameplay and content, not the ridiculous story which is just an excuse for more content patches.

It is because warcraft excisted before there was an mmo of that. Which theme was all based on story and its characters. So I think it started there.. that is why so many people were asking for Arthas to show up or Azshara etc etc.

Sure your words has some truth in it.. that its 20 years back, but if we had none of that.. we would care even less about the story, but shadowlands changed that entirely because we never heard of the jailer or any of the eternals etc, it was only the shadowlands that we have heard of but not alot. I think they dient quite hit that storymark this expansion and hence we see the complaining about the sparse lore or story this expansion as a hot debate. So when you say people dont care about it is obviously not entirely true. Sadly the systems or gameplay lacked as well this time arround.

[Empower]

I think they ended most of the major ones. I was surprised they killed of kel'thuzard so quickly. He has more lore in heroes of the storm then he does in shadowlands.

[Kralljin]

I disagree with you only on the 8 years part. 4-6 years ago Overwatch and Hearthstone were HUGE. The decline started actually way later.

I said WoW Team, not Blizzard as a whole.

But even OW is frankly pretty questionable in the grand scheme of things, considering its progenitor, Titan, burned through a lot of Blizzard talent and became a huge money sink from which later OW arose.
Bear in mind, Blizzard has been working on Titan since 2007 / 2008.

Despite the success of OW, it certainly feels like a phyrric victory to me.

[Gaidax]

I think they ended most of the major ones. I was surprised they killed of kel'thuzard so quickly. He has more lore in heroes of the storm then he does in shadowlands.

What, you wanted another telenovella in 3 expansions like Sylvanas got?

I'd rather have him contained in one expansion instead of yet another 2 expansions of nonsense and character butchering.

[Empower]

What, you wanted another telenovella in 3 expansions like Sylvanas got?

I'd rather have him contained in one expansion instead of yet another 2 expansions of nonsense and character butchering.

I guess I kind of wanted a story that addressed the character... kel'thuzard's story in essence is selling ones soul to the devil. Lore wise he took up necromancy to fight the horde and wasn't really aware of just what he was doing till it was to late.

I'm not saying make a epic around him but actually portraying the character properly rather then a crackling villian would of been nice.

[Falkeshall]

Loved Kel'Thuzad but surely his story has been done, done again... then prequel'd and done *again*.

[Adamas102]

"Hey, we have a save way to basically create tons of money for another 10 years to come while completely dominating a whole genre, let throw it all in the bin instead."

I don't want to sound to aggressive here, but your whole post not only does not make sense at all, it is also not how IT companies operate at all. And I can guarantee you, that you will always find fresh talent if you are Blizzard. Also if you believe they have never upgraded their developing tools since release, I don't know what to tell you. Obv. that is not true and while yes, the graphic engine might be outdated and there are certainly issues that need to improved (and maybe can not be improved without effectively creating WoW 2.0), it still does not make any sense to burn those zones and stories that way.
Worst case either go for WoW 2 (if you REALLY think the development of WoW 1 has no future and you plan to end it either way) or go for Warcraft 4.

I don't want to be TOO aggressive here, but you obviously didn't read and/or fully understand my post.

First off, since neither of us are on the board of Activision Blizzard this is obviously total speculation on both our parts. My theory is based on two things that are pretty hard to refute: that as a video game ages you will struggle to retain players AND struggle to bring in new ones. While we no longer know the actual sub numbers, the decade that we did showed that WoW passed its apex long ago. The numbers did show a cyclical pattern where new content boosted subs, but the overall trend was still downward. So your two options are to front load your more well known content to try to maximize participation from the players you still have, or make a gamble on the long game and hope you have a good sized player base that is willing to play your 25+ year old game.

Having a long term plan is great, but Blizzard has no idea what the world will look like in 10 years time. They don't know what today's 8 year olds are going to want to be playing when they go off to college. They don't know what other games might release over that time that could compete in the MMO genre. You're essentially hoping that your currently 30-40 year old player base is going to still have the same gaming habits as they have more kids and get deeper into their careers. Betting on the long game only makes sense if you also plan to cut back on costs in order to mitigate the inevitable decline in players. So yeah, as I said in my first post WoW could be profitable for years to come, but I'd wager the resources put into it aren't going to be anywhere near what was dedicated to it in its heyday.

As for talent, students graduating from college next year will have been about 9 years old during the WotLK peak. In several more years those will be students for whom WoW is a game from before they were even born. We're quickly getting to the point where almost no young people getting into the industry are going to have any connection to WoW. While Blizzard is still a big name in the industry, it has been a long time since they produced anything groundbreaking, instead feeling comfortable milking their IP's to the point of just re-releasing their old titles. Continuing that trend is NOT how you attract top tier talent. The company just isn't what it was 20 years ago.

To your last point, WoW 2 would, IMO, be a terrible way to go. Replacing your current MMO with a new one using the same IP is just going to split your Warcraft MMO fanbase. While I'm interested in playing it, I'm a bit disappointed that Diablo 4 is coming since I would have preferred seeing an MMO in that setting. I personally wouldn't mind a Warcraft 4, but the RTS is also an older genre that I don't think fares as well nowadays. WoW was a pretty big risk they took with the IP. I'd hope that if Blizzard truly had the talent it used to have they could come up with something else new and exciting for their IPs.

EDIT: reading some of your other responses you definitely misunderstood what I said. I wasn't suggesting that it was Blizzard's lack of talent that led to them rushing out those particular locations as patches instead of expansions. What I was saying was that they made a conscious effort to front load that content rather than leaving it for later if they knew they'd be cutting back on development resources for the game over the long haul.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Is there still discussion/debate as to another side of Azeroth we haven't seen yet?

- - - Updated - - -

I think they ended most of the major ones. I was surprised they killed of kel'thuzard so quickly. He has more lore in heroes of the storm then he does in shadowlands.

When we killed off Kel'Thuzad, then again, and then again.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Is there still discussion/debate as to another side of Azeroth we haven't seen yet?

Blizzard could always pull it out of their proverbial rectum, they've retconned stuff before so the chance always exists if they want a new continent where they can start over. Obviously it makes no sense what so ever, given how the storylines of MoP and BfA should have had us go crazy over uncharted land to exploit.

- - - Updated - - -

I guess I kind of wanted a story that addressed the character... kel'thuzard's story in essence is selling ones soul to the devil. Lore wise he took up necromancy to fight the horde and wasn't really aware of just what he was doing till it was to late.

I'm not saying make a epic around him but actually portraying the character properly rather then a crackling villian would of been nice.

I'm kinda glad we didn't see much of him. While his original story was Faustian in nature, he hasn't shown anything of that initial conflict since .. well the RTS games really. He was just flat out evil and hungry for power since WoW started especially. There wasn't much to tell and we already killed him twice before. That bone has been sucked more than dry, it's good to not dwell too long on it. But they should have definitely given Kael something to do in the encounter, that was another story telling failire, which sadly is also par for the course these days.

[Linkedblade]

I feel like Dragon Isles is probably the only place left that could be big enough to make one expansion that's also located in Azeroth, besides "the other side of Azeroth" speculation, ofc.

Other than that I can only think about a few islands here and there such as:

Tel'Abim

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/VrPZb7p.jpg[IMG]

Plunder Isle

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/xGsxDdc.jpg[iMG]

Don't forget undermine or what's left of it

[Schizoide]

Possible expansions:
- The moon (elune vs the void)
- Non-elemental planes (fear, despair, hatred, etc)
- A new continent based on Aztec/Mayan looks
- Void vs Naaru, battling in alternate universes like we saw in Draenor briefly
- Underworld, vast caverns underneath existing zones

[Cosmic Janitor]

- A new continent based on Aztec/Mayan looks

I take it you missed BfA?