AD BlizzCon Speculation/Spoiler Pit

Argent Dawn
261

WoTLK kinda had the downside of Blizzard toying with the idea of raid difficulty mid-expansion. We went from really creative hard-modes in Ulduar, to changing the difficulty from normal to heroic, as well as making the game appeal to a wider range of people in response to the massive popularity of the game.

MoP was nice, though I will not miss the start of the expansion and the haunting tales of having a job in the form of the insane amount of dailies. The whole Garrosh thing also leaves a bit to be desired, whatnot with the later revelations of the mishap about Stonetalon writing and the like. Expansion drought was also insane.

262

MoP will remain the only expansion since TBC I actually did high end raiding in the current tier purely because the gap between 5.4 and 6.0 was something insane like 15 months.

263

5.4 was the best patch in the game to date.
Everything was polished and balanced as much as possible.
Alting and catchup was mega easy.
Story was A+++.

264

5.1-5.2 were the golden era for me, think they had the right balance for dailies back then. A week of grinding then and then you had a big bombastic storyline.

(That and i very much enjoyed Lor’themer’s sleeper gym build being revealed when he flipped a park bench into a fountain.)

265

5.1 had the best dailies/rep progression the game ever had and it’s maddening it was never replicated 1-to-1. 5.2 had the best outdoor endgame zone.

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266

I feel i missed out so much good content for leaving during Firelands. but after running their dailies to get the mount, i was stuck afking in the capitol. queueing for heroic troll dungeons.

If the internet didn’t meme so hard on MoP i would have returned in a heart beat…

267

Anything’s better than John Wight saying ‘Venthyr, let’s party?’

I was hyped for MoP from the start because I saw pretty nature anyway. I’m very easy to be sold on. Shadowlands didn’t hype me up because the released visuals didn’t interest me at all, Dragonflight however had plenty.

Honestly it’s a WoW classic to hate on the current expansion and only few expansions later realize it was the best one. I very vividly remember this being true for WotLK (because I don’t fully remember TBC, but I’m sure it was true for TBC as well), Cataclysm, MoP, Warlords, etc. Every expansion had it. Every expansion in future will have it.

I’d say WoD was the turning point where people don’t fully agree that ‘wait a moment, the expansion was actually really good’ any more. You can also argue the same for Cataclysm because how dated it became, I guess.

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268

About a year and a half ago, I gave a shot at a WoW expansion idea, right before the Reveal of DF.

While I doubt that almost anything of it would ever be used by Blizzard themselves, at least narratively I wish they had the courage to do away with characters that have served their purpose and add new ones to continue the tale.

I also wish they would fix some of the degenerate gameplay designs from all types of content and class design.

Give it a read if you like.

269

A little TL;DR so I just skimmed to see what characters you’re getting rid of (I could only see Shaw - which lowkey feels burying your gays-y but whatever - and Thrall? But again, I skimmed pretty fast) and I sorta have a problem with that because…

…to actually do that, Blizzard needs to introduce new characters that’d serve as replacements. I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily a status quo thing (f.e. writing out Tyrande and having some new character become the new Tyrande serves very little purpose), but the way it is now Blizzard writes out characters while having no new characters to stand in. And this creates problems where… well, a lot of a race’s story is told through their main characters. When they die, there’s nobody to tell the story for that race any more.

Some races don’t have that problem, Humans lost Varian and had Anduin to replace him, then lost Anduin (temporarily, at least) and had Turalyon replace him. Even that replacement has been clunky, actually - have there been stories about how Turalyon was received or how (in)competent he’s been at leading them? I’m sure the Nobles would not like Alleria being present as well because of y’know, Void.

Orcs have had Thrall be replaced by Garrosh, and then Vol’jin replace Garrosh, and then… oh wait, it’s Sylvanas now. Aaaand she’s gone. Okay, I guess Orcs haven’t had that many as well. With Saurfang dead, who even is the notable Orc Character now, Eitrigg?

I think before Blizzard starts making away with old established characters, they need to write in new characters at least one expansion prior, so that you’d have the audience get to know the characters first. It’s why I was so hopeful after reading Elegy at the beginning, because 'oh wow, a new Night Elf character? I find her interesting, too?? Could it be, she’s – dead, apparently. :unamused: ’

I’m sure the Draenei players would’ve similarly been excited over Yrel only for her to be struck with the expansion curse. Blizzard really did build up an entirely new character that the players accompany from the beginnings to basically leadership and just drop her lmao. And I guess Horde players have it even worse, because there’s a mandatory change in Warchiefs at least every two expansions, but again - no real new characters to replace the old. There’s a council now at least (from what I remember?), so maybe the curse of being a Warchief finally ends lmao.

3 Likes
270

Warlocks being insane says hello. Wasn’t snapshotting also still a thing back then?

271

Au contraire, many of the best characters Blizzard has made have literally popped up as random characters out of nowhere. Jaina’s bodyguard Pained or Runas or Garrosh’s bodyguard all come to mind.

I don’t think establishing the history of a character is half as important for the story as the establishment of -why- a character is involved in the narrative. What do they have to gain, what do they have to lose. The higher the stakes, the better usually. History helps in that regard, but is not necessary.

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272

Blizzards problem is, they have had multiple, interesting, characters, over a slew of races appear over the many different expansions.

But they all rather off them all on the altar of keeping their precious, and sometimes heavily disliked, main characters around.

Taylor, Nazgrim, Dranosh Saurfang, Rogers are all interesting characters with a background to explain why they were how they were, but 3 got killed, 1 just up and dissappeared.

Elves on the other hand don’t usually have this problem, with replacements(and extra) for Malfurion and Tyrande standing at the ready, same goes for Lor’themar Theron, etc

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273

Everybody was insane :).

274

Runas :pensive:

His really was a perfect, if sad, arc. Started out thinking he was going to be an annoying side character, growing attached to him as he got more depth, and then…

Well played, arc-writer. -sigh-

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275

Well, I did mention Yrel - she was a character with no previous introduction. They can do that, but a lot of players felt that the pacing of her going up the ranks and then standing next to Very Established Characters was weird. So I’d prefer those random characters to have a bit of introduction before they get more story, just so that everyone can familiarize with them. It’s also… quite easy to do, as you can make those characters sort of blanket characters at first and develop them further once the actual story gets told.

Elves kinda have that problem too, because f.e. Night Elves main stories only revolve around Malfurion and Tyrande. But hey, at least we do have characters to replace. Do Tauren have anyone to replace Baine - Highmountain notwhitstanding? Goblins and Gnomes have like, one main character.

Honestly, I’d just say that every race in WoW right now needs more characters, just even as supporting characters so you don’t have the same names doing Main Story Quests for every expansion. Thrall being a Green Jesus, Anduin-Jaina or Khadgar being the human mainstays, and so on. I get why some might stay (Magni during BfA) because of some special connection, but then you also get instances where those same names take the place of other characters, who would have had a better reason to be part of the story.

Like, with 10.2, why is… Shandris teaming up with Lilian Voss? Apparently Lilian Voss tried to mend some relationships between the risen Night Elves and living Night Elves, but still. We couldn’t have paired Shandris with anyone else? And the ‘apparently’ bit is also… people from Reddit saying it. Is that even true, was this mentioned in some book or interview?

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276

Because druids or green dracthyr would make too much sense to go to the Dream. Like, Scalecommander Veridia would be a perfect bridge between dragons, Dream denizens and everyone else, but she’s still hanging in the Forbidden Reach as far as I know.

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277

Which is also a good indicator how do you know if a character is meant to leave you a lasting impact or have purpose for the narrative, or whether they are there just as a pretty face or to advance the plot conveniently from one place to another. An empty vessel, if you will.

If they develop in a way that makes no narrative sense in the span of a very short time, chances are they are going to be discarded as soon as they have outlived their usefulness.

278

Delaryn Summermoon couls’ve easily be paired with Shandris to mend some broken rifts…

Makes more sense, aswell…

Night Elves got Shandris, Jarod, Maiev, Broll, and a bunch more.

Also they introduced those brother Mage/Sister Watcher in the heritage quest, which could evolve into interesting characters aswell!

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279

Everything was insane because spec talents weren’t a thing, just general talents and glyphs. Because of this, pretty much every class cancelled itself out, leading to insane Dragon Ball Z gameplay, as everyone had their full roster of abilities pre-Warlords of Draenor and Legion prune.

Exactly, but I think it extends even beyond just characters!

One of the reasons I personally hate Battle for Azeroth and other expansions is how they did the very same thing but with lore zones. Many speak of Teldrassil’s burning and the razing and subsequent scorched earth blighting of Lordaeron as a storyline that ‘spawned a lot of good storylines’, and while I do agree that some of the stories that spawned from it are pretty good, all of said stories are fan-made.

When it comes to canon? Nothing spawned from it whatsoever, for years at a time in some cases.

It once got so ridiculous that we didn’t even know the state of Lordaeron was from mid 2018 to late 2022, leading to many theorizing that the absolutely not to be taken seriously mission tables were the truth; and conveniently so, only their main’s factions’ mission table, leading to the Schrödinger’s Lordaeron fan lore where either the Horde held the entirety of the Lordaeronian continent with the exception of Stromgarde, or the Alliance held the entirety of the Lordaeronian continent with the exception for Quel’thalas. Exploring Eastern Kingdoms didn’t help either, as it was disproved several times not even a year or two after its inception once Lordaeron actually received some updates.

It is seriously disheartening how so much media followed HBO’s Game of Thrones steps and decided that loss for the sake of loss was the way to go to tell any story, without realizing that maybe, just maybe, shooting your own foot with a shotgun for the Vine isn’t a particularly smart idea for long-term storytelling.

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280

One big distinction that should also be mentioned is that, despite everybody being Gokus, abilities themselves were not necessarily gokus the same way they are/have been since Legion.

Take Anti magic shell, for example. I think there might have been literally 1 glyph and maybe 1 talent option in the entire tree that modified it, but it was strong in the setting it was. It for all intents and purposes made you immune to magic damage and effects for those seconds- Whereas in the current expansion, you can talent to modify it becoming stronger, having shorter cd etc (even heal you as BDK), to the point that it completely nullifies some specs and caster. Funnily enough, there is currently so much damage in the game that you can actually break it.

Another one: Divine shield and Blessing of protection used to reduce your damage by 50% and make you unable to do melee attacks respectively. Now they just kind of let you have the cake and eat it too. Or with grounding (used to be also spell reflect until SL) reflecting alls pells instead of 1.

MoP may have given classes individually very strong abilities, but they were one dimensional in their use. Second wind didn’t also make you take less damage or increase your movement speed. Spirit bond didn’t make you take reduced damage as a hunter. And so forth.

That meant that, while technically you had more tools in your arsenal than you do even now in DF, you had to be careful to know when to use them and which ones to use, whereas Legion onwards cooldowns are just that: They fix everything for you for a brief moment.

In short, classes are defined by their abilities, not the other way around as it used to be.

1 Like