If I wanted to play Sim City then I would go and play it.
This was exactly what I was thinking as I read.
They are terrified of committing to anything they may have to keep up in future expansions. No doubt they have their organizational experience, at least some of which will be the basis of that.
I think they would also say that they donât want to be restricted in future by forging gameplay through a system that has become tiresome all round.
Nice exposition of what it could be, but I really donât think the devs are up for it.
5 Likes
I think they shifted their design philsophies and goals, but while the current format has some good benefits and for all intents and purposes should continue.
Clearly itâs not enough, it doesnât solve the drop off problem, losing subs always after a month or a few months into the new expansion or the new patch, and there is never a guarantee the people would return either.
What happens if you get 2 bad expansions in a row? So far they seem to have 1 good , 1 bad and massive swings.
Itâs sad that nobody cares to relook at this, and have long term elements shore up
The huge popularity of allied races, is further evidence that players really love racial focus.
They identify more with race than faction, because of the very good detail and diversity/customisation it has in game.
This is to the credit of the franchise and a substantial asset of it, but sadly is something not taken further much to the disappointment of many. People love their faction yes, but theyâre more interested in their races over their faction. Faction war and focus has not been the most popular for a long time.
Race has always won that battle in the contest of the two. There is demand for this all round. Lore discussion foucs far more on race than they do character or faction despite the huge lore focus on the latter 2. The fact that people talk about race as much and sometimes more, is proof given how little focus race gets over legendary characters and the faction.
But for some reason, blizzard just isnât seeing. Or if they are, they are failing to exploit something players actually desire a lot more.
Or just wanting what someone else has⌠same with those bis corruptions.
This is how imagine it will be like.
- Racial progression
We have character progression as the bread and butter of the game, but using the ideas above, racial progression can become a thing, making racial campaigns more than interesting lore about the race.
Blizzard will have to decide what racaial progression means, and how it will tie into an expansion system. Building your capital is a long term thing not reset by the expansion, and there can be elements of racial progression that transcend character empowerment.
Meaning, while developing your capital city/zone and your race has power implications that change each expansion/reset, it has other things that donât. Like how your city looks, or the system of racial accompaniments, how powerful your races NPCs are in things like scnenarios to even how numerous they are, replacing standard faction NPCs and other perks not power related that can be added over time.
- Capital Progression.
The first opening area, is all the sanctuary you need, the expansion zones can be used for all sorts of things, new quests, guild/player housing quarters, things related to the race story, and further development of itâs zones, embassies, class halls, other features that are relevant. Take ar ce like the night elves - you have priests, highborne, druids, illidari, wardens, sentinels - kaldorei culture from befor e the sundering all to show. But those are 4-5 key areas that different parts of their city and zone can reflect. Each race has itâs key points. For blood elves that would be the paladins, the magisters, the Farstriders, exploring things like the Sun legacy and fascination, the sunwell, the wretchedâs fate once the sunwell was restored, fel elves and sanâlayn etc.
Each race has multiple facets to show, aspects both of the things it I majors in and are relevant to itâs lore, not just friendly things but enemies too. Civil isssues that arise, race looking for new allies, divisions, unifications⌠each group has itâs stale.
And itâs not just city, but the story of your race would have also kept coming, . What li like most about this is not needing to wait x expansions later befor ethey finally come back to do something about gnomes. Expansion themes can have the relevant races involved, but racial campaigns ensure that every race is always getting progression, new lore and development.
I really like the idea of having to build up your own race, itâs capital city and zone, and itâs people, develop itâs key assets etc⌠and ofc, more lore about it. The biggest advantage of a continuous story is best seen in been able to keep telling the story of and developing the race long after the huge major story event (like the Legionâs return) happened, or the Sunwellâs restoration - so it doesnât end there, but you see the people get better, recover, restore stuff, get stronger. or have a disaster for a change, then have to recover - it goes on.
The best fantasy stories always end too soon, you never find out what happens to the hobbits in middle earth or the fate of the elves in Valar etc etc, same goes for every fantasy story/series /book. once the major event is done, thatâs it. MMO media has the unique feature of being able to continuously tell a story in a way series, novels canât feasibly do. And Warcraft is a prime candidate given how popular it is and it keeps on going.
1 Like
Something that can be capitalised on. They want it, give it to them.
Races are perhaps one fot he most popular features of wow, they are pronounced and distinct in this game moreso than any⌠because blizzard made the effort to give each racial group a very unique appearance and lore , then complimented it with unique architecture, and diversity.
WoWâs races donât have 1 thing to them, and thatâs it, they have several things (hence multi classes) but they have a unique feel to them, even in groups that have variations (like different types of trolls or elves or humans - you find the sub-groups having distinction)
I say continue to use that. I identify with this characterâs race moreso than I do his faction. Maybe itâs cos elves are so different from any horde race, but blood elves are very particular and uniqe in their presentation, vibe, colouring, everything.
People love that stuff. Use it.
Sadly this. Blizzard are lazy and drag their feet as much as they can.
2 Likes
I really like this idea and I hope that Blizzard want to take it and bring something like this into the game however itâs not like there has been a change to the design philosophies and goals, standfast the BGs and levelling system there hasnât really been anything like this that has started in one expansion and been built upon in subsequent expansions. It is just not how WoW has been developed thus far. Every expansion we cry about the good stuff that has been removed for the follow on.
My only worry about this system is how we, the playerbase, will take it. Unfortunately I can see it falling into one of two camps there will be those who feel like their being âforcedâ to do this content as if they donât do it they will âfall behindâ. Then there is the other camp who will complain that because they werenât around when the system started they can never catch up so why should they bother.
We are a playerbase where if Blizz offered us all a gold bar there would be a portion who would claim it is too heavy or not shiny enough or that they didnât want a gold bar as who are Blizz to bribe them etc.
In fact some of this is already noticeable on this thread where rather than agree that this is a great idea, and I am not saying it isnât, have leapt in to criticize Blizz and flat out state a number of reasons why they think they wonât implement this and give them the ammunition for ignoring this. Rather than exhort Blizz to greater systems we immediately bash them.
2 Likes
Thatâs whatâs so catchy about this. The other systems donât last long because they are power related, and each expansion blizzard needs to reset power levels for new players, but also it makes the game interesting having new systems and interesting ways to power/do your character.
Which is why you need something extravagant, not power related that can last through multiple expansions - like building a capital city and progressing an entire race. Now both of these could have things that tie into power levels. Things that will change and feed into whatever new system each expansion or patch employs, while still having the multi-expansion spanning feature.
Sadly thereâve been more disappointment than fulfilling excitement or even anticipated ones, the company does less and less truly novel thing, instead preferring to talk up mediocre things that people donât think that much.
Consequently when new ideas come, it feels so hopeless to be excited once you realise that not every good thing you har will make it, in fact rarely any good thing you hear makes it.
I think blizzard sorta solved this by having multiple activities to be the source of resources⌠basically in this idea, if you do racial campaigns, which should be another bunch of quests and dailies like others, you will get a lot of resources for your race to progress your race and build your capital, but you will also get other thigns like gold, artefact power, prismatic pearls/coalescing visions/spare parts (whatever system is going).
This way no one feels they have to.
Furthermore, because this is cosmetic but in a cool way, unlocking racial quests, racial progression and building a cool capital - and not directly power related, (and by that I mean, building the capital zone (city and zone) is not power related - you shouldnât feel you have to do it. but doing the race campaigns is content like WQ , levelling quests etc, and doing those will benefit your characters power system.
in other words, the way I imagine, is, youâre going to have lots of resources to build your capital just by doing normal stuff (as raids/BGs, WQ etc will likely have rewards that will provide you resources, (the idea is that whatever your playstyle choice - solo, small groups, large groups/raids, pvp, world questing, ) playing wow will always contribute to progressing your capital and race.
You donât have to advance your capital or race at all, this wonât affect your characterâs power level. So you shouldnât feel forced to. Although their are certain things you can do in your capital that boosts your race that will contribute to your power level - however you donât need to have advanced your capital to access those. those will be part of the current system, and if you want to power up your character you have to do those.
Because they are power level related, there isnât a requirement to have advanced your capital or race to stage x.
This is how you make the feature both cool, and relevant to the expansion, yet at the same time something that transcends it and continues on well outside.
Building your city is the sort of visible metric you have for playing wow over a long period of time, with the race progression allowing you access to some nice perks, which can be useful and convenient, but not necessary to be the most powerful character.
2 Likes
Orcs and humans should definitely have another city outside the faction capital.
- It would be nice for orcs to have a second major city for a change, maybe bring some of that Draenor architecture, or expand on it, but without the fel stuff.
- Humans would definitely be more excited about rebuilding Lordaeron or Arathor, so thatâs a good call, besides I donât see the point of re-using Boralus or Stormwind, and Gilneas city is definitely for the worgen.
These should also have a new city. I know Suramar fits well for the lore as both the kaldorei and Shalâdorei are historically quite well tied to the city, however, A new more central night elf city would be more appropriate.
I feel a repaired version of ZinâAzshari, renamed to itâs original name, would be perfect, itâs their birth sight, first city, and it looked amazing in Warbringers, if they could build a new version of that city or rebuild the ruins, that would be amazing, the druids live in the surrounding forests, the priests have a mega temple and ofc the night elves have their most iconic and famous city
-
Whereâd to put the orcs then if not Orgrimmar?
-
How to weave the Nightborne into a New ZinâAzshari (btw, original name is Elunâdris)
Southern Barrens, the overgrowth can make it into a Nagrand look alike (almost), theorcs would love it. Alternatively, is the Cross roads into a major city.
An alternative for allied races, is actually not do a specific campaign for them but allow them to work in the core races campaign, which would have many elements that also involve them.
In the case of Nightborne and void elves, - I would give them an option. Nightborne can choose to build the night elf city, since a lot of night elf lore and campaigning can relate tot hem, or they can choose to build the blood elf cityâŚ
Void elves choose either Silvermoon or the human or night elf city.
In which case I would add parts for Nightborne in the blood elf story and for void elves in the human story
When I think of a human campaign, Iâm really not thinking of void or high elves, that fits in far more with a Quelâthalas thing. Humans have a lot of elements to their story to add elves to a major part of it.
There is more room on the night elf front, but only for the void elves because of the whole Elune black moon and shadows thing they have, plus the obvious historical ties.
Void elves fit far more strongly on something related to Queltâahals, Silvermoon etc.
Same with Nightborne, if you go to the blood elves with Nightborne, then you lose all the night elf lore that means anything to them. Arcanâdor, Suramar, the moon and stars etc, nocturnal stuff - itâs a blood wash of the Nightborne - when you think of Nightborne youâre thinking Kaldorei pre-sundering civilization, highborne and kaldorei arcane elements. This fits far better in a night elf story with highborne, Well of Eternity, Moonguard, Cathedral of Eternal night etc.
They really shouldnât. They need something like this desperately. Besides can you imagine the things they can do with cities.
Iâm looking at Boralus and Atalâdazar, and the type of quests and things that can happen here. remember when they did Suramar, the assassins creed like thing it had going on. Danger at every turn.
they could even do city invasions.
2 Likes
Love this. Suramar was also one of my favourite zones of all time.
Was sort of hoping it may have set the way for things in the future but it didnât sadly
1 Like
still waiting for surumar to be actual usable city.
2 Likes
not a bad idea.
would be nice to see world improvements overall (like old human kingdoms/quelthalas etc being rebuilt etc)
same for ashenvales cut down trees. they were cut down 15 yeras ago, they shouldâve grown by now
1 Like
Malf or Cenarius could regrow the entire forest in few moments if they wanted(Cenarius did in wc3)