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World of Warcraft: Expansion Announcement Coming at Gamescom
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Blizzard has just announced that a World of Warcraft expansion will indeed be announced at this year's Gamescom, ending speculation about what the special press event was going to reveal.
Join us Thursday, August 6 at 9 a.m. PDT for a special World of Warcraft event streamed live from gamescom 2015 in Cologne, Germany—where we’ll be unveiling the next chapter of the World of Warcraft saga. . . .
Tune in again Sunday, August 9 at 8:00 a.m. PDT for a World of Warcraft developer chat before the show ends, and find out more about what’s in store.
Stay tuned to our dedicated gamescom page for further details on the live stream. Those who are able to join us in person at gamescom can visit us at the Blizzard booth in hall 7.1. We hope to see you there!
Read more on the World of Warcraft site.
See what we think will be coming next in our latest World of Warcraft column.
Comments
that was a very interesting bit of damage control and desperation. Especially as this would have been the big ticket item for Blizzcon.
I think they actually are a bit worried.
This have been a good conversation
This is only an announcement that it's in the works, and a title. It will GUARANTEED be THE big ticket item at this year's Blizzcon.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ok desperate might have been a tad bit to strong of a word. But i think that maybe the buzz for Blizzcon have been a bit to low even with the movie. So they decide to jumpstart the PR machine a bit early with this.
I expect the usual expansion reveal at blizzcon with feature slides and all.
Will be a good year.
This have been a good conversation
everytime i think of WoW coming out with expansions or updates I allways think of this video.
Well, just as you predicted.
Not very surprising though since the last one wont get any more major patches so I guess they had little choice but announce it or lose loads of players.
^This.
- Albert Einstein
Well iirc it is a 3-ish year cycle with a year-ish to formulate the theme and stuff and 2 years of active development. (i think it was said at a Blizzcon or maybe on a CE disk) so in essence this expansion have had around 2 years in development and should be ready come next year.
But i agree, they seem to cut it a bit to tight seeing how much of WoD that was underdeveloped.
This have been a good conversation
Hopefully they've learned from the mistakes of WoD and the mainly legit complaints that even Blizzard MVPs and popular Pro WoW channels had. Their official acknowledgements of mishandling many things in WoD in interviews gave some ray of hope, but that was devastated by another interview whereby they kind've back tracked on such, further proving how split their development team is without actual leadership in their "we decide as a team" philosophy.
Only supporting your expansion for half its life cycle is no longer okay (12-15 months of drought; we had about 20 months of drought without real content that wasn't paid for by the expansion up to 6.2, which... only gave content that was supposed to be a part of 6.0 to begin with or something that was promised during WoD).
Other games are providing 3+ new dungeons every 3 months, a continuous narrative, side narratives, dozens of new, large systems (such as marriage, housing, chocobo racing, triple triad, monster hunting, The Hunt, treasure hunting, etc.), new PvP maps, new events, guild events, crafting updates (huge ones, at that), new classes, new areas, etc. all in simple patches. Even MMORPG did an article explaining this and wondering what is going on with WoW's development team.
They supposedly have double the team of MoP, yet they didn't even come close to giving 10% of the content MoP did. Presumably to get faster expansions out. But why can another game do 18 month expansions while updating so stupendously every three months without relent?
There is even a post on WoW's main forums of people saying they don't want yearly expansions (with some 700+ thumbs up the last time I checked) if it means them not properly supporting the expansion they paid for and support through subscription fees.
I'm genuinely expecting them to learn how to manage their game better next time around. Have proper storyline every month with dozens of quests. New dungeons monthly. New lands and systems each patch. Etc. To actually show effort and given even 10% of what other MMOs on the market are currently giving despite their lower budgets. They could even have a team that's dedicated to updating an old area in the world and putting new story in it every month. The first of every month, a new area is completely updated and has a storyline with favorite characters to further capitalize on fandom to keep people interested in the story and keep them as customers while promoting the movie that will come out.
My question is what would constitute a good expansion? My offerings would be:
- Large continent, Player level extended by 10 (genuine 10 so it lasts twice as long, not 10 levels at double xp con)
- New class
- expand on skills and get balancing off the critical path for good gameplay, stop the fucking about with stats every 2 minutes and refactor so imperfect balance is ok e.g totally seperate pvp and pve.
- housing, not garrisons.
- make old zones relevant ( how about rewriting time and restore PRE Cata with updated models - that would be awsome for old players)
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
my top MMOs: UO,DAOC,WoW,GW2
most of my posts are just my opinions they are not facts,it is the same for you too.
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
So, Azshara and nagas then ?
They need to announce that the next expansion is the final/wrap up of the entire Burning Legion/Old God storylines and the end of World of Warcraft.
And then release WoW 2.
Anything else is going to fall and deaf ears to me.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
It really can't be.
I mean, the movie takes us back to the original (Warcraft 1) invasion of Azeroth by the Orcs...
Warlords of Draenor took us back to before the invasion and the corruption of the Orcs by the Burning Legion.
So the new expansion would be... well the Orcs are invading Azeroth for the first time.. again.. anyway?
I mean, yeah it'd be KIND of cool to go back to an Azeroth before the events of Warcraft 1,2,3 but... at the same time, we've been there and done that.
Blizzard's really churning them out!
Then again, who knows when the expansion gets there.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/