The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Sondrelk]

If Blizzard can keep this up. They started Dragonflight strong, but currently they are losing people left and right and it will hit their production.

So in response to players leaving they should put in LESS effort? That doesnt seem to really make sense.
Seems more likely to me that Blizzard figured out they had more room to make content with the removal of whatever extraneous stuff dragged previous expansions down, Torghast, islands, etc.

Edit: Ohh wait. Developers leaving. Yeah that is defintiely something that will hit them in the development pipeline.

[Dracullus]

I just hope the devs can actually manage this output without burnout. Cause we absolutely don't need another failure so soon

I think problem was mismanagement (and covid, cause it affected whole industry), not devs being lazy. For sure Ion looks way more happy/healthier now than in 2021.

And it's not like it's far more content we should expect from expansion. It's just smarter use of resources and spreading it to more patches - which gives both flexibility and feeling that game is alive.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I just hope the devs can actually manage this output without burnout. Cause we absolutely don't need another failure so soon

This part I don't think anyone can help. People are leaving(At least from my understanding) is due to being forced to go into the office, like no exceptions or anything(There might be exceptions like Muffinous or w/e since he lives in Washington now last I checked). Just a big corporate order that they can't fight and when pushed to the brink people just leave cause well Kotick is a goblin that is unworthy of any respect ever. So... I'm not sure how the burn out can be prevented. Hence the Microsoft deal being important.


Yadda yadda.

[Sondrelk]

This part I don't think anyone can help. People are leaving(At least from my understanding) is due to being forced to go into the office, like no exceptions or anything(There might be exceptions like Muffinous or w/e since he lives in Washington now last I checked). Just a big corporate order that they can't fight and when pushed to the brink people just leave cause well Kotick is a goblin that is unworthy of any respect ever. So... I'm not sure how the burn out can be prevented. Hence the Microsoft deal being important.


Yadda yadda.

One can only hope that the senior management at least listens to the sound of their wallets with the whole WFH debacle. I know that they absolutely loathe the idea of developers being comfortable on their own terms, but one would think that they would at least be willing to ignore the impulse to micromanage when it came ot actual measurable employee retention and loyalty.

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I think problem was mismanagement (and covid, cause it affected whole industry), not devs being lazy. For sure Ion looks way more happy/healthier now than in 2021.

And it's not like it's far more content we should expect from expansion. It's just smarter use of resources and spreading it to more patches - which gives both flexibility and feeling that game is alive.

People generally really underestimate the time you can lose from being behind on schedule. An expansion like Dragonflight where the developers have ample time to make adjustments to future content will naturally be a lot better than one where the developers are constnatly trying ot recoup the time lost at the beginning.

[huth]

One can only hope that the senior management at least listens to the sound of their wallets with the whole WFH debacle. I know that they absolutely loathe the idea of developers being comfortable on their own terms, but one would think that they would at least be willing to ignore the impulse to micromanage when it came ot actual measurable employee retention and loyalty.

Much worse are the managers that genuinely believe they know better, because most of the time they don't. But they'll waste everybody's time micromanaging stuff better just left alone and be utterly unwilling to even entertain the notion that any resulting problems could be their fault.

[blarp]

Patch 11 I just want to go back to the original WoW zones before TBC, and handle all the political and local turmoils there, with a fully scaling world like GW2's, so every zone remains evergreen and you can always return there and finds things to do with people.

[Makorus]

Patch 11 I just want to go back to the original WoW zones before TBC, and handle all the political and local turmoils there, with a fully scaling world like GW2's, so every zone remains evergreen and you can always return there and finds things to do with people.

The only issue with that is that it will turn WoW into a Timer simulator, like GW2 is.

[Nymrohd]

The only issue with that is that it will turn WoW into a Timer simulator, like GW2 is.

You can always do what ESO does, rotate events throughout the year that focus on different areas. That way you move the playerbase between two areas; current expac and whatever place is focused on.

[Makorus]

You can always do what ESO does, rotate events throughout the year that focus on different areas. That way you move the playerbase between two areas; current expac and whatever place is focused on.

Oh, definitely, there's ways to make it work.

It's just the short-sighted takes like "Just add WQs in every zone to make the entire world relevant xD" are gonna hurt the game more than it will help it.

[Nymrohd]

Oh, definitely, there's way to make it work.

It's just the short-sighted takes like "Just add WQs in every zone to make the entire world relevant xD" is gonna hurt the game more than it will help it.

I have honestly changed my mind and I think that if they were going to revamp the world they need to do it partially and take a hollistic approach. That means that it needs to be more than just open world content. Separate the world in blocks, update it visually, add world quests but also events. And importantly also War Mode content. Touch up a couple of dungeons in the area as well as a raid. And then in a rotation (with timewalking content) feature that block and when that block is featured, that raid becomes available in LFR/Normal/Heroic and those dungeons join M+. Evergreen content should be for everyone.

[Darkarath]

I still think that the best approach for the world revamp is making the new Azeroth in a new map, as if it were a new continent. Nonetheless, with this idea of Timewalking zones that they are talking about so much lately, I guess that they can do another Cataclysm-type revamp, meaning making old zones inaccesible, and when the Timewalking event happens, put an NPC that let us go back to how these zones were, with new events, WQs and whatever they come up with.

I guess that this would be better than adding a Bronze Dragonflight representative in each revamped zone. It would be less confusing as it would only happen at certain times and you can make players more aware of it.

[blarp]

The only issue with that is that it will turn WoW into a Timer simulator, like GW2 is.

I mean....I don't follow the timers personally, I just go do whatever activities I feel like doing, sometimes I follow trains around just to be with people.

Remember that ultimately rewards are meaingless in GW2, so there's no one forcing you to follow the boss spawn timers around.

Some days I feel like doing acitvities in the human lands, other days sand lands...compared to WoW where each week you have to complete this or that activity or fall behind on rep or some crafting thing or whatever...on top of justfying paying your sub fee.

[Makorus]

I mean....I don't follow the timers personally, I just go do whatever activities I feel like doing, sometimes I follow trains around just to be with people.

Remember that ultimately rewards are meaingless in GW2, so there's no one forcing you to follow the boss spawn timers around.

Some days I feel like doing acitvities in the human lands, other days sand lands...compared to WoW where each week you have to complete this or that activity or fall behind on rep or some crafting thing or whatever...on top of justfying paying your sub fee.

Okay? You are literally explaining why it would be a terrible idea to implement that into WoW.

[Zers Editor]

Something I'd like to clear up about the people who were in charge of the narrative direction throughout the history of WoW.
Is it like this?

Classic, BC, WotLK - Metzen. All of the following expansions till Legion (7.3) are supervised by him in differing capacity.
Cataclysm - Kosak and Afrasiabi (with the former having more control)
Pandaria, WoD, Legion - Kosak
BfA pre-8.1 - Afrasiabi and Danuser
BfA post-8.1, Shadowlands, Dragonflight - Danuser

[Sondrelk]

Something I'd like to clear up about the people who were in charge of the narrative direction throughout the history of WoW.
Is it like this?

Classic, BC, WotLK - Metzen. All of the following expansions till Legion (7.3) are supervised by him in differing capacity.
Cataclysm - Kosak and Afrasiabi (with the former having more control)
Pandaria, WoD, Legion - Kosak
BfA pre-8.1 - Afrasiabi and Danuser
BfA post-8.1, Shadowlands, Dragonflight - Danuser

Really it's impossible to say for sure. We don't know how the writing or developing process for the game really works. Could eb all the terrible writing came about years before it showed up in game, and only small adjustments could be made. Could be it's made up on the spot.

We know that the development pipeline means that 11.0 is already early in development, but that could mean anything from workshopping broad ideas, all the way to model design.

And of course it's difficult to say how much the person in charge has to do with the actual story and gameplay. Could be directly involved, or could be braod strokes, or even purely managerial, leaving the issues of writing to whoever is working more closely with the relevant developers.

[Ersula]

Something I'd like to clear up about the people who were in charge of the narrative direction throughout the history of WoW.
Is it like this?

Classic, BC, WotLK - Metzen. All of the following expansions till Legion (7.3) are supervised by him in differing capacity.
Cataclysm - Kosak and Afrasiabi (with the former having more control)
Pandaria, WoD, Legion - Kosak
BfA pre-8.1 - Afrasiabi and Danuser
BfA post-8.1, Shadowlands, Dragonflight - Danuser

Afrasiabi was working on WoW when he was fired, a full year into Shadowland's development

[Nymrohd]

Something I'd like to clear up about the people who were in charge of the narrative direction throughout the history of WoW.
Is it like this?

Classic, BC, WotLK - Metzen. All of the following expansions till Legion (7.3) are supervised by him in differing capacity.
Cataclysm - Kosak and Afrasiabi (with the former having more control)
Pandaria, WoD, Legion - Kosak
BfA pre-8.1 - Afrasiabi and Danuser
BfA post-8.1, Shadowlands, Dragonflight - Danuser

Pretty sure Afrasiabi was in charge of the story at least until 8.2.5 if not for all of BfA.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

It's crazy cause TBC and Classic was terrible in terms of story development, though Wrath was pretty fucking clean, despite some issues.

Honestly, all of these guys have Ws and Ls to them. Danuser especially has a massive L with SL, despite there being some really cool settings and ideas, and a massive W with Dragonflight so far.

Shadowlands is basically the Pandemic expansion. Everything went crazy and a lot of tech companies had to endure a new situation that hasn't been dealt with(Since the Spanish Flu).

[Pheraz]

Just finnished timewalking magister's terrace (for the X time). Even though I extremly miss the old level design the TBC story was utter crap. HIgh elves are said to be almost extinct yet we fight blood elves the entire expansion under various flags. And even though I was not a fan of Sylvanas in shadowlands, Kaeltas' evil comic villain "Muaharrharr it'se me again" stand up comedian shows were never reached by sylvanas. And why the hell did Kael'jaden showed up in a super god form out of the sunwell? So random.
Dragonflight is very calm storywise but I dare to say it could get a little bit of BFA and shadowlands drama. It tends to be a bit boring...

Only some days left, finger's crossed this xpac catches up on the story, raid/dungeon and atmosphere where it already is gameplay wise, because the gameplay is very nice.

I found talis last video interesting where he speculated again about the next raid end fight. But I have a bad feeling that it will turn out much lamer than all the hype and speculation : /

[Murlocos]

Afrasiabi wasn't fired until partway into 2020, he was undoubtedly involved well into 9.0 and it's important to remember he's been there since the game launched. We know that the process is simultaneously collaborative and that a lot of smaller details typically fall down to individual devs doing their own thing. I remember Scrolls of Lore's admin interned on the WoW writing team in like summer 2012 or something and he offered a lot of insight into their functioning at the time, such as Metzen generally being absent given how many plates he juggled within Blizzard, but the site is sadly dead.

I think you can read into what particular writers care about and what their habits are from piecing together interviews and the content they're credited with over the years, though. Afrasiabi has a pretty apparent destructive, flippant approach to how he handled things. It seems like the less Metzen got involved, the more Afrasiabi liked to break apart the world and characters he largely created. Hell, looking back on Cataclysm as a whole is bizarre, a large part of it just feels like the team taking the piss out of the whole setting and tripling down on using it as a vehicle for humor (or to recycle movie scripts word for word).