I think the reaction has taught them the shadowlands period was a mistake in this regard. You go to the afterlife which as you say should be treated like a high fantasy "brand new plane of existence" but the quests are like "Foreman such and such needs you to gather 8 logs and fight these bugs because the afterlife has problems with infastructure, supply and demand and dont get us started on the doping gladiators or vampires with an alcohol problem!".
Its basically outland 2 and both landmasses of floating islands in a void are about as alien as the other. Does Revendreth feels more higher plane than places like Auchindun or Shadowmoon Valley? not really. They pulled back the curtain on death itself and now the biggest threat of dying is if you go to the afterlife with a gorm problem or one with a need to keep up appearances at parties.
Its just too ironically grounded and functions no different from the world of the living. Whats the thematic difference between venthyr jonesing for their anima fix and the wretches of suramar? the entire expansion right down to Tha-not as the Lichier King is "same shit different day online".
They should properly fix their expansions and not just cut and run every time they fuck up and then be rewarded with another big infusion of profit from an expansion release. If they don't fix shitterlands, I'm not coming back when they announce their next year long (or more) pay-to-enter public beta.
You're getting exactly what you deserve.
I mean they are both obviously in different leagues, N'zoth is just a parasite we've dubbed Old Gods. The janitor was once the central figure of the machinations of death itself. Much like Sargeras, that is quite a different level and I could see Blizzard's desire to create a new almost omnipotent threat.
That being said, fuck the jailer. His writing is so pathetic, no sane person would give a toss about his mustache twirrling team rocket plans in the future. There is also the issue that we can't just let him do his thing for now, as the story clearly went for urgency with his last escape. That is not something we can just ignore while they slowly build him up for the next 5 years.
You are welcome, Metzen. I hope you won't fuck up my underground expansion idea.
I mean if they're able to have Sargeras' first appearance in WoW be in a Legion cutscene, a lore figure who is frankly of more importance than both the Jailer and N'zoth, where he then immediately gets invalidated because of the outcome of a fight he wasn't even a part of and we don't get any form of interaction with him at all, including still as yet unresolved elephants in Silithus, I doubt they would have any qualms about introducing some hyped up First Ones laser that just so happens to be conveniently in the same location the Jailer has set off to which activates when we kill some rando called 'The Librarian' as the Final boss of the tomb raid or whatever and happens to just disintegrate the Jailer before he can snap reality.
Meanwhile Bob Jenkins back on Azeroth somehow summons both the Void and Light Crusade causing the next expansion to just happen.
Apples to Oranges.
N'zoth was name dropped over a decade ago and remained a looming threat, he didn't become an actual threat until 8.3.
Zovaal has been present in SL since the introduction, he's far from a looming threat especially now, as according to the Primus, he's basically one step away from destroying reality.
Well, we all know that Blizzard absolutely upped the power ceiling since SL.
By that standard, even Arthas is a small fish, yet we all know how the community and Blizzard dances around this golden egg.
Honestly, the problems with SL are not so much the setting and content but the way the game is designed.
Getting it right is actually pretty easy. Don't make unecessary stupid systems. Fix the looting system to have more player agency (heck, return of bonus rolls would already be something). Keep improving classes (new talent tier?). Add new class. Add housing or races or customizations. Flying achievable since the .0 patch. Imediate hit expansion.
It's that easy. The WoW players left over are hardly demanding. They just want to have fun and not deal with "dick in the salad" as Belular says.
WoW devs just have to control their overdesigning urges. Make a game to be enjoyable, not frustrating. Don't force, invite. Have the player experience in mind, not the exec one, not the mau's. No mobile inspired design. Focus on revenue from a sucessful product, not a controlled descent.
Just, a fun game. Player retention increase through a fun experience people want to come back to. I don't even care if you sell more stuff in the shop, as long as the base product is enjoyable, people will want to buy/support the game.
Last edited by Swnem; 2021-09-26 at 04:17 PM.
I think they should stop supporting live WoW and try something new, tbh. Keep the servers going and maybe develop some scaling tools (to make the world have more options) and do what you need to give anyone remaining something to do ... but it's definitely time to move on.
That is... very, very unlikely. It would mean no 9.3 and only something like 8-9 months of 9.2, because 9.2 will never be out before feb 2022.
For a final patch that has never happened in the last ~12 years. Its very, very unlikely.
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No, the setting is pretty much a huge problem as well. It is not the only problem, but definitely high on the list.
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I'm like 99% sure you have no idea how businesses work and why this decision at this time would make absolutely no sense.
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Cynical people would say he did not even become an actual threat in 8.3....
It doesn't matter if they release 9.3, 10.0 or 9.1.8; Numbers mean nothing, as long as they deliver quality content it doesn't matter what expansion we are in. Sadly, people doesn't realize this and just judge every expansion in the first 4 weeks then complaint for 2 years how "bad the game is right now" (despite not playing) just to buy the next expansion collector's edition to start the cycle again. The whole playerbase is more problematic than the game itself.
Also KEK at FFXIV praisers / wow doomers, this is the golden era of ffxiv (which btw is ending because most content creators and players motivated to try the game because of wow bad state already quited) and it barely surpases wow in its worst time.
Last edited by Baleful; 2021-09-26 at 08:22 PM.
I dunno, logically what expansion we are playing doesnt matter for gameplay in the sense that the raids like Sanctum would have been equally as good if it was Dragon themed instead, but practically I think there is a lot of merit in that some expansion themes are just flat out bad ideas, as well as expansions potentially ending up "tainted" in the players mind.
It doesnt always make a whole lot of sense, but that tends to be the case for consumer products.
The world revamp dream will never die!
I don't think it is.
If they had glued the zones together rather than just make them isolated islands you need to go through Oribos to get to, the setting would have been better received.
I think the problem i didn't mention was the story. Yes, they opened a can of worms they shouldn't have. Also, yes, it would be simpler to just expand some island in Azeroth and make shadowlands just a raid.
next wow saver thing asap.