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

[Raetary]

No one is comparing neighborhoods with 1:1 scale garrisons, only the same situation where we'll be living for perhaps a year or two in an exclusively orc and human architecture. Especially the Horde lmao.

If we look at conceptual art, we can see that human houses are somewhat diversified, with towers, different roofs, even a watermill... I imagine they'll do the same for the Horde, but if we end up with just wooden houses and metal spikes everywhere... it's going to be disappointing, and that's a legitimate concern.

My first post regarding neighborhoods was about static homes, acknowledging that will be a problem if there isn't more planned

Now, i said that critiquing the mono aesthetic is valid criticism in the first post you just quoted.
And no shit, the aesthetic of the location that the neighborhood is placed in, is like a whole third of the feature

Comparing that to Garrisons, on the ground of it being "a fixed place with human/orc buildings" is disingenuous, incredibly reductive and shows a clear ignorance to what made the Garrisons the shitty prison cell feature that it was.

The Garrisons weren't simply a "fixed place with human/orc buildings" like @Wyrt just openly argued, by that logic every single in-game orc/human location since 2004 was a Garrison.
The Garrisons were a mandatory core gameplay feature of the WoD expansion, with a deeply flawed design that incentivized isolation, paired with a lackluster overall expansion with little to no content outside of them, exacerbating the problem.
Implementing more than the 2 Garrison locations like blizzard initially intended, wouldn't have made a single difference because that was the absolute last, least defining and most irrelevant issue.

Sigh. Continue to act like you don't understand.

Right back at you.

Maybe you should start reading the people you are quoting and engage with the arguments made, rather than putting words into other peoples mouths.

[Enteroctopus Magnificus]

Comparing that to Garrisons, on the ground of it being "a fixed place with human/orc buildings" is disingenuous, incredibly reductive and shows a clear ignorance to what made the Garrisons the shitty prison cell feature that it was.

You apparently have trouble with figures of speech. Do you know what hyperbole is, or are you still playing silly buggers? Nobody talks about the gameplay, only the architecture. What deaf dialogue, you admit it yourself and then you persist in saying that no one other than you knows the garrisons. What presumption.

[Joshuaj]

No one is comparing neighborhoods with 1:1 scale garrisons, only the same situation where we'll be living for perhaps a year or two in an exclusively orc and human architecture. Especially the Horde lmao.

If we look at conceptual art, we can see that human houses are somewhat diversified, with towers, different roofs, even a watermill... I imagine they'll do the same for the Horde, but if we end up with just wooden houses and metal spikes everywhere... it's going to be disappointing, and that's a legitimate concern.

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Sigh. Continue to act like you don't understand.

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I understand your logic, but the whole idea of a social neighborhood is doomed to failure, no matter how many houses you allow. People will rarely be in the same place at the same time with the same character. Private neighborhoods run counter to their social pillar, by the way, if you read the article correctly, it keeps contradicting itself.

Neighborhoods never work the way developers want them to in games that have them, because it's an idea that doesn't work. It's an exclusive system that will only work on Moonguard and one or two other servers.

Reminder these are called "CONCEPT PIECES" for a reason. I'm fairly certain Blizzard will allow you to have different types of houses in different types of Neighborhoods.

[Enteroctopus Magnificus]

Reminder these are called "CONCEPT PIECES" for a reason. I'm fairly certain Blizzard will allow you to have different types of houses in different types of Neighborhoods.

Of course, I didn't say otherwise. I'm also pretty confident that we'll have a neighborhood in Silvermoon or the eversong forest, with maybe the ghostlands and part of Zul'aman if they keep this pattern for the next neighborhoods.

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Personally I don't mind if we start with humans and orcs, but I see people being reluctant.

I'm still not sure I like this idea, but at least we'll finally have housing. And then as you have suggested several times previously, nothing prevents them in the future from creating private houses almost everywhere even if it does not really correspond to their current philosophy of avoiding too many different places to live to avoid separating people. They are only at the beginning we will see how it evolves.

[Cheezits]

I'm still not sure I like this idea, but at least we'll finally have housing. And then as you have suggested several times previously, nothing prevents them in the future from creating private houses almost everywhere even if it does not really correspond to their current philosophy of avoiding too many different places to live to avoid separating people. They are only at the beginning we will see how it evolves.

I'm fairly sure they will add a private solo house option somehwere as it's the primary (if not only) concern I've seen that isn't something addressed by the article already (like yes there will be more neighborhoods and race themes)

[Enteroctopus Magnificus]

I'm fairly sure they will add a private solo house option somehwere as it's the primary (if not only) concern I've seen that isn't something addressed by the article already (like yes there will be more neighborhoods and race themes)

I hope so. Let me live in Loch Modan ! I want a view of the lake, which should be full again.

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As much as the Horde zone seems to fill the area of mountains and sea east of Ogrimmar, the Alliance zone seems to take place in a place that already exists (the area around Hogger). Will the farms or barracks still be there, mixed in with the players' houses? Goldshire seems to be right next door too, which could be cool. But wouldn't that mean the area would be instantiated like Zidormi? Because there are tons of quests in that corner, taking into account seasonal events and some quests from previous expansions. If that's the case, new players will never see housing until they've reached maximum level, right?

[Ersula]

I think if the Stormwind neighborhood has Human, Dwarf & Gnome buildings, the Org neighborhood has Orc, Tauren, Troll & Goblin buildings and then in Midnight they add a elven neighborhood, they'd pretty much have all the aesthetic choices covered without neighborhoods becoming jarring visually. Maybe then a Forsaken/Gilneas neighborhood later.

[Worldshaper]

I'm gonna be a bit of a contrarian on the Undermine music (shocker).

It's great, and I love myself some jazz every now and then. Heck, Jeeves and Wooster is one of my all time favourites.

I appreciate the team trying something different, and I appreciate the creative effort going into these tracks.

That said... for me, the Undermine music just goes waaaaay too far from the established WoW vibe. It almost breaks the fourth wall for me. It's as if Blizzard is speaking directly to me through the monitor, going "Haha, aren't these goblins fun and quirky Worldshaper? We love ourselves some random mobster action in WoW every now and then, don't we? "

It's as if the Hearthstone team made their version of Undermine, not the WoW team.

I haven't tried the PTR so I'm sure I will be positively surprised when I log in and play. But from my comfy armchair developer perspective that I'm currently enjoying, I think this is comparable to those fantasy movies that play modern music in their trailers, with the "thun thun thun thun" beats to hype up the action.

Imagine if LotR all of a sudden featured a completely different type of music than epic orchestral music, for The Two Towers. Like, opera or something. It would take you out of it instantly.

Okay, that's the end of my rant. Yay, jazz. Nay, not in WoW.

[Ersula]

I'm gonna be a bit of a contrarian on the Undermine music (shocker).

It's great, and I love myself some jazz every now and then. Heck, Jeeves and Wooster is one of my all time favourites.

I appreciate the team trying something different, and I appreciate the creative effort going into these tracks.

That said... for me, the Undermine music just goes waaaaay too far from the established WoW vibe. It almost breaks the fourth wall for me. It's as if Blizzard is speaking directly to me through the monitor, going "Haha, aren't these goblins fun and quirky Worldshaper? We love ourselves some random mobster action in WoW every now and then, don't we? "

It's as if the Hearthstone team made their version of Undermine, not the WoW team.

I haven't tried the PTR so I'm sure I will be positively surprised when I log in and play. But from my comfy armchair developer perspective that I'm currently enjoying, I think this is comparable to those fantasy movies that play modern music in their trailers, with the "thun thun thun thun" beats to hype up the action.

Imagine if LotR all of a sudden featured a completely different type of music than epic orchestral music, for The Two Towers. Like, opera or something. It would take you out of it instantly.

Okay, that's the end of my rant. Yay, jazz. Nay, not in WoW.

WoW isn't Lord of the Rings. They're both fantasy but that's about it. You could call it the difference between classical fantasy & modern fantasy. DnD classifies the settings as Epic Fantasy versus Heroic Fantasy. (I've heard people call it Low Fantasy versus High fantasy but that is completely wrong. LoTR is a more subdued version of fantasy but its still the definition of High fantasy.)

[Cheezits]

It's as if the Hearthstone team made their version of Undermine, not the WoW team.

I disagree there. I was actually worried that WoW Undermine would resemble Mean Streets of Gadgetzan- every race ever living there, people dressed up like 1920s gangsters, etc. While the Jazz is a new thing for Goblins (outside of the Motherlode which probably inspired this turn) the music is very restrained and normal as opposed to silly wacky epic funtimes. The 11.0 Undermine itself is more or less just Bigger Bilgewater Harbor, but with a pirate district and slime district.

The hotel music and Steamwheedle music in particular is very relaxed and a lot of it is inspired by the few themes Goblins got in Cataclysm, like the Xylophones and the little honk beats.

[Khaza-R]

Really nothing can be more jarring than the Panderan inn music so I think we're good.

[enexa]

First House is free. Second costs 10k. Third 50k. Fourth 200k. Fifth 1m. And all further houses at the same price.

Exactly. One house for one account is totally free. Except the prices for more are far too low. For EU realms it should be more like 2nd 1mil, 3rd 2mil, 4th 4mil, 5th 8millions of gold. To keep housing areas lively, meaningful and to have them have a bit of an important "exclusive touch".

I want this too. One or two houses per account per faction. I have 31 max level characters, I don't need 31 houses

There's nothing wrong with having 3 or 4 houses if you want em so badly you pay for it. But there should be a cap at say 5 houses for 1 account max, otherwise we'd run into ghost town and other issues for public neighborhoods. If somebody doesn't like being in a lively space all da time (which is fine) then blizzard should prolly think about adding exclusive single plots too, at a certain price, of course.

I for one would love having that additional plot for my draenei, creating a single, small and cozy little wooden hut at a snowy mountain hill, where there's noone else around hustling. Just enjoy its meditative ambience and the mesmerizing view.

[Nymrohd]

Will people even use public neighborhoods???

[enexa]

Really nothing can be more jarring than the Panderan inn music so I think we're good.

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Joshuaj]

I'm gonna be a bit of a contrarian on the Undermine music (shocker).

It's great, and I love myself some jazz every now and then. Heck, Jeeves and Wooster is one of my all time favourites.

I appreciate the team trying something different, and I appreciate the creative effort going into these tracks.

That said... for me, the Undermine music just goes waaaaay too far from the established WoW vibe. It almost breaks the fourth wall for me. It's as if Blizzard is speaking directly to me through the monitor, going "Haha, aren't these goblins fun and quirky Worldshaper? We love ourselves some random mobster action in WoW every now and then, don't we? "

It's as if the Hearthstone team made their version of Undermine, not the WoW team.

I haven't tried the PTR so I'm sure I will be positively surprised when I log in and play. But from my comfy armchair developer perspective that I'm currently enjoying, I think this is comparable to those fantasy movies that play modern music in their trailers, with the "thun thun thun thun" beats to hype up the action.

Imagine if LotR all of a sudden featured a completely different type of music than epic orchestral music, for The Two Towers. Like, opera or something. It would take you out of it instantly.

Okay, that's the end of my rant. Yay, jazz. Nay, not in WoW.

WoW isn't LoTR. That's the first issue.

Second, THE GOBLINS OF KEZAN ARE 1950'S-1960'S NEW YORK/LAS VEGAS TROPES! WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!

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Will people even use public neighborhoods???

I'm sure a lot of folks will.

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I disagree there. I was actually worried that WoW Undermine would resemble Mean Streets of Gadgetzan- every race ever living there, people dressed up like 1920s gangsters, etc. While the Jazz is a new thing for Goblins (outside of the Motherlode which probably inspired this turn) the music is very restrained and normal as opposed to silly wacky epic funtimes. The 11.0 Undermine itself is more or less just Bigger Bilgewater Harbor, but with a pirate district and slime district.

The hotel music and Steamwheedle music in particular is very relaxed and a lot of it is inspired by the few themes Goblins got in Cataclysm, like the Xylophones and the little honk beats.

I mean, in a sense, it kinda DOES look like Gadgetzan from Hearthstone, and that's okay. Ffs, Gadgetzan is supposed to look like that in the canon.

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Really nothing can be more jarring than the Panderan inn music so I think we're good.

I like the Kazoo tho

[Sondrelk]

Will people even use public neighborhoods???

Probably lots of people. Plenty of people who only use full sets for transmog. Or mount the latest rare mount they picked up.

Private neighborhoods will probably be used by people who are either in a dedicated guild. Or people who are really dedicated to cosmetics.

[Nymrohd]

Probably lots of people. Plenty of people who only use full sets for transmog. Or mount the latest rare mount they picked up.

Private neighborhoods will probably be used by people who are either in a dedicated guild. Or people who are really dedicated to cosmetics.

Yeah as things are now, I'd want to have a house for my main in my guild's neighborhood and then probably have a second house on the guild I have set up for all my alts.

[Worldshaper]

Warcraft will be in excellent shape this coming spring and summer, though.

Can't wait for 11.1.5 ("Nightfall"), and the Emerald Dream as an expansion for Hearthstone. Then we've got 11.1.7 and 11.2 (hopefully a banger theme based on Elun'Ahir, Uldaz, or whatever lies beneath the Beledar), before the grand Midnight re-announcement in August.

Wouldn't mind if they surprised us with WoW on console at Gamescom, a revival of Heroes of the Storm, and yet another refresh of WC3 Reforged.

[Joshuaj]

I can't wait for TLT and how Azeroth connects to the greater cosmology. It is possible the First Ones have a big role to play regarding that.

[Daniri]

Will people even use public neighborhoods???

One of the reasons public neighborhoods will end up dying on their own is for something I've seen advocated in this thread: not allowing conveniences. People aren't going to long hang around in a place where they don't have access to stuff they need to do, as we've seen with capitals dying off.

The three pillars of keeping people in their houses are power, utility and immersion. They're not going to do power, they sound like they're not going to do much utility, and there aren't enough roleplaying enjoyers(even if you keep them all out of private neighborhoods).

Besides other MMOs that have gone down the same failed path, it makes me think of when they tried to promote socialization in SC2. There they had the idea of diving leagues(thousands of people) into smaller divisions(100 each), with the idea being that it would be like local sports leagues: you'd feel a stronger sense of motivation and accomplishment from competing against people you know. Maybe even develop community as a bonus. But what actually happened is that no one cared about what division they were in, and only a handful of people in each were regularly active. And even those few weren't long to stay, because they're the ones most likely to get promoted to a different league and out of the division.

Most of us aren't going to care about what neighborhood we get dropped in. Most of us aren't going to going to know or even see our neighbors. And those few who will care enough will have their eye on moving to a place where they're not the only ones. Or that they are the only ones.