But isnt a clear frame a good thing?
They have the frame and fill it with content. What they need to achieve is to fill it in a way that feels good and exiting.
what the fel are you talking about?
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Played Df and current tw …and i just can’t wait for anniversary to go to the golden era of Tbc/Wotlk were itemization-gear-skill- raids-lore are 10x better that we currently have .
I don’t even know why they release expansion since everything is seasoned at the point expansion doesn’t matter at all…
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For being a sausage factory? Yeah. For being a video game studio? No.
In my opinion anyway.
I mean, this new approach is the Bobby Kotick recipe for Call of Duty. It’s a sausage factory that just spits out the same product every year, to the same audience, of roughly the same size, and roughly the same design.
That’s a far cry from the old Blizzard approach of “When it’s ready”, which was a lot more iterative in approach and with a lot more empowerment of design over production.
And I liked the Blizzard game experiences of the older days a lot more than I do the ones of today.
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Well maybe they are burnd out and don’t have new ideas.
They have lost a bunch of people. I hope they manage to don’t turn wow into cod
this expansion is so small i started to doing old expansions content xD
atm im doing paragon of klaaxi pandaria zone
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The Shop Within, my wallet cannot keep with it.
Jokes aside theres so many promotions and microtransactions its becoming silly at this point xD
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I think Blizzard restructured their organisation so that the General Managers are in charge of their respective products, rather than in the past where Blizzard empowered Game Directors under the Vice President of Game Design to chart the course, so to speak.
So they’re more production-oriented today than design-oriented.
But they are like Call of Duty in their setup. That was the whole battle between Morhaime and Kotick where Morhaime wanted to preserve Blizzard’s small development team where each developer had a lot of empowerment and the emphasis was on design and quality through iteration, you know “when it’s ready”.
Kotick wanted a large development team that could churn out content faster and release new products on a yearly basis, like Call of Duty.
And Kotick ultimately got his way. Blizzard have two WoW teams working on expansions in parallel now – just like Call of Duty has two studios working in parallel on Call of Duty so they can release sequels more frequently.
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I mean more frequently does not automatically mean worse but sadly right now it looks like it.
But bobby the living embodiment of gallywix kotick is gone now. Maybe it gets better
Well I was talking from a lore/narrative point of view. Because that was mostly what OP was talking about.
And sure, they seem to use the same mould for development.
That much is clear.
But a lot of what you mention are also things in past expansions and definitely not unique to DF and TWW.
100% agree. Its just downgraded DF in a new skin. The systems and zones are terrible, and blizz is insanely stingy on meaningful rewards.
We like chasing the carrot if its fun. not if we are bored, frusterated and out of breath for every little nibble we get.
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Sure. But past expansions were more different from each other.
In Warlords of Draenor you got different leveling and story for Horde and Alliance that conveys into the same story conclusion.
In Legion you have Class Order Halls that each tell a story of their own.
In Battle for Azeroth you had different leveling and story for Horde and Alliance respectively on Zandalar and Kul Tiras. The Horde storyline even splits into two.
In Shadowlands you have Covenants with 4 unique story perspectives to the same plot, each uncovering a part.
And then you get to Dragonflight and it’s just one linear storyline and leveling process, and everyone goes through it the same way, each and every time you do it it’s the same.
And then in The War Within it’s the exact same. One linear storyline and leveling process that every single character regardless of faction or race or class is being funneled through.
Going into those earlier expansions you were being served with a new journey. A new riff on how to play through a story adventure.
But The War Within is the exact same take on journey and adventure as Dragonflight was. There’s no attempt there from Blizzard to try and present something new.
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While I don’t agree with this part, because I really, REALLY DON’T want borrowed power to return, the story has felt incredibly hollowed out, adventure-wise.
No offence, but I don’t care about Anduin feeling angsty towards his connection with the Light. I don’t care that nerubians have therapists (tbh it was a fun quest, but I would’ve rather wanted something pushing the plot forward).
Xal’atath been playing games with us and then we thwart, or don’t thwart her plans, or whatever - dunno, dun care it’s GOBLIN TIME NOW.
Dragonflight felt like a 2-year long filler arc, this is starting to feel the same.
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I suppose. I think a big factor of that was the borrowed power.
But… Enough people complained and now we reap what we sowed.
I didn’t mind borrowed power. I had issues with certain borrowed power systems just not being fun, but overal it’s a great way to have stuff to do, imo.
I don’t think so. Sure, the borrowed power was always incorporated into the story and adventure, but even if you take away The Heart of Azeroth in Battle for Azeroth, you still have unique islands for each faction with their own stories and adventure.
Even if you take Legion and ignore the Artifact weapon and the Class Order Halls and pretend it’s borrowed powers, you’re still left with a stupidly impressive Suramar right in the middle of the map.
And I remember a complaint I had with Dragonflight was that Blizzard weren’t doing any borrowed powers, so surely they would have invested those extra resources elsewhere, right? Because you have to assume that making The Garrison or Class Order Halls or Covenants or two completely separate leveling experiences would require a lot of development resources, so if they weren’t doing any of that, then surely the expansion would be extra impressive in some other way. But it wasn’t. It was just less. There was just less to the game.
And then in an ever-optimistic mindset I thought that Blizzard had simply chosen to divert those resources to The War Within, so they could really come out with a juggernaut of a game. You know, that whole “DF is just a a transition.”-mentality. But then The War Within comes out, and as the OP rightly puts it: “The War Within is a worse copy of Dragonflight, everything is the same.”
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You just gave me an idea for a new suggestion to make to Blizzard: Implement toy spectacles that make enemies appear as dragons.
And yet so grindy. According to AllTheThings, I need approximately 400k more Resonant Crystals to unlock every appearance tied to them. At the current rate of acquiring them, I will finish this during The Last Titan. For Siren’s Isle I need 90k more of those Iron currencies, that will be finished almost when Midnight will be released. We need to gather 10 rare crystals to summon a rare enemy for a mount in Isle of Dorn with each crystal having a 0.05% chance of dropping. According to Rarity I’m at 7k enemies killed and I only have 1 crystal.
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I missed out on dragonflight, but to me it does not feel that way, i did play a little dragonflight tho, but i quit after i burned out because of leveling alts, and because doing m+ was morally wrong when you crash about least once a day, something that did not get fixed until 2-3 months before The War Within release and yes i am still mad about it, and i have every right to be mad about it to.
Well, I think they did invest those extra resources; but it’s all long term stuff.
Faster patch cadence. Extra features like plunderstorm and remix. Housing.
And stuff we don’t even know about, likely.
That might be disappointing in the moment, but in the long run it should pay off.
i think it will unfortunately remain more or less same till atleast these three expansions .
laying off people is not extra resources compliant . they should either hire more people or get rid of these limited time events that are full of bugs and instead focus them on current expansion
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I feel like that’s been the sentiment since Shadowlands. And every time you put your hope in the next thing, and the next thing, and…
And right now it feels like all the eggs in the basket goes toward Midnight. Because it’s got the whole hype train, doesn’t it? Void, Light, Naaru, Elves, Quel’thalas, Housing. It’s going to be amazing, right? That’s what everyone is hoping.
So let’s hope it’s not just another 4 zones, 8 dungeons, 1 raid, and 10 levels with a linear story.
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