WoW: 10th expansion; The War Within

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Zorachus

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The 10th expansion for World of Warcraft has been announced;

https://thewarwithin.blizzard.com/en-us/


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o03STclgxSc&t=294s

  • World of Warcraft - The War Witihin
    • Discover Xalatath leads a group of Nerubians deep within Azeroth.
    • Explore the new continent of Khaz Algar: Off the western shores of Kalimdor lies The Isle of Dorn, a new hub for both the Horde and Alliance. Begin to explore what dwells beneath the surface in the lava-fuelled forge of The Ringing Deeps, the lush Hallowfall, and the pinnacle of Nerubian society, Azj-Kahet.
    • New Playable Allied Race – the Earthen: Players will meet and unlock this Titan-forged race who have made Khaz Algar their home, with their own unique civilization and culture.
    • Expand your Warcraft fantasy with Hero Talents: A new level of class specialization customization, Hero Talents are modelled after well-known archetypes from the Warcraft universe, including Dark Ranger, Farseer, and more.
      Delves: New bite-size adventures seamlessly integrated into the world, which flexibly scale to support 1-5 players, and offer meaningful progression.
    • Warbands: A quality-of-life feature for players with multiple characters, Warbands allow banks, reputations, transmogs, and more to be shared across all player characters.
  • World of Warcraft
    • The Worldsoul Saga Storyline - Built to play out over multiple expansions
    • Next Three Expansions
      • Expansion 1 - The War Within
        • Delve into the Heart of Azeroth.
        • Engage with the Earthen and Nerubians
      • Expansion 2 - Midnight
        • Returning to the old world of Quel'thalas
        • Void has invaded Azeroth
        • Make a stand with the forces of the light to banish the shadow
      • Expansion 3 - The Last Titan
        • Return to the old world of Northrend
        • Witness return of the Titans to Azeroth at Ulduar
        • Vast conspiracy surrounding the Titans and the true nature of Azeroth
 
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3 expansions announced?
 

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A trilogy of fantasy drama!

It's been awhile since I've played WoW and I've got no idea what's going on in that trailer. Hoping MS will bundle a WoW subscription into Ultimate Game Pass, I wouldn't mind trying it out but don't want to add another subscription.
 
This will now be the first time I have skipped not one, but two expansions in WoW. I think the game is finally dead to me.

Zero interest in WoW after all of the changes over the years, and while I enjoy classic and WOTLK, its not enough anymore to be worth the money. I only play it thinking of my glory days without ever actually doing anything.
 
I do still play WoW, bit my playtime has dramatically decreased over the last couple of expansions.

I've become a very casual player. I do not raid whatsoever and just do lower key M+.

And lately I only play around new content patch time. I'll play that for several weeks or a month or so and then I put the game away and don't touch it again until another patch release.

And that's the way I've been playing the game for a few years now. and it works.
 
Yeah I dont know if I will play this one, I figured I would play dragonflight, and I really havent done anything in it at all. Once you break the routine it is hard to get back into it. I pretty much ragequit before the last patch of shadowlands after hard burning out and playing everyday. I got so tired of pointless grind and the patch reset, along with losing my guild, and everyone I knew stopped playing. I just didnt see the point of playing anymore, as I had already been playing solo for years.
 
I'm not totally sure I will play this, but I may give it a month just to check it out. I sometimes just like to solo play and soak in the atmosphere of new expansions or areas when they release. I'm not the target audience really. I just like to admire their artistry and the passion that went into them and play the main parts of the campaign. Then I just do whatever solo content I am interested in and move on.

Maybe one day the team play bug will get me and keep me subscribed. I had more school friends and people to play games with in the early Diablo and WarCraft games. I did not have so much by the time WoW came out, so I never really got heavily into it like many others...maybe not a bad thing though :D. I was a little too obsessed with DII for a little while.

It doesn't look like they're making significant engine upgrades or doing much they haven't already done before though so I'm not really excited about this to be honest. I'm interested in seeing how the end product looks closer to release though. At least they're adding some new features and QOL improvements and keeping the game alive (y).
 
Keep trying, WoW. Trying to whip out a saga this late seems pointless. WoW is only about "muh endgame raids mythic +++++++" now.

People who wanted a semblance of story, especially player driven, have gravitated to FFXIV.
 
Zorachus said:
3 expansions announced?
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I was very surprised by this, and not necessarily in a good way. Each expansion has generally lasted 2+ years. Combined with the fact that we still have at least one full season/patch/tier of Dragonflight that has not even begun yet... If these three new expansions are each ~2-year expansions, that would mean that they just spelled out the next ~7 years worth of content, or until the end of 2030...

I find that difficult to believe. I think that what is significantly more likely is that these will be significantly shorter "mini-expansions" that last maybe one or two patches/seasons/tiers. That in and of itself is not a problem, but what is a problem is paying $50-90 (depending on which edition you buy) for 1-1.5 years worth of content instead of 2-2.5 years worth of content. That equates to a very significant price increase, and makes me feel like we are progressing to the point where we are going to be paying for a "new expansion" every single time a content patch comes out. And where the more expensive expansion editions usually just had things like cosmetic items and character boosts, now they've said that buying the $90 edition will allow you to start playing the expansion 3 days before everyone else. While most of the competitive content (raids, M+, etc) won't actually be available yet during those 3 days, it would still allow some players to get a big head-start on leveling and professions, etc.

Overall I think that what they announced at Blizzcon created more questions than answers. They really need to clarify things, because as it stands now it really feels like they are making a dramatic shift away from the long-established status-quo toward trying to squeeze as much money out of people as possible. I hope that I'm just being pessimistic.

FighterAce124 said:
I only play it thinking of my glory days without ever actually doing anything.
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Starfalcon said:
I got so tired of pointless grind and the patch reset, along with losing my guild, and everyone I knew stopped playing. I just didnt see the point of playing anymore, as I had already been playing solo for years.
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t1k said:
I just like to admire their artistry and the passion that went into them and play the main parts of the campaign. Then I just do whatever solo content I am interested in and move on.
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WoW is not really a great game for the solo player, and that's been the case for a while now. I'd strongly recommend finding a fun guild to join. The community aspect of this game is really what makes the game fun. It doesn't suprise me at all that just going around and doing the main campaign and world quests solo would not feel engaging. The story in the game really exists mainly as a backdrop for group content, not something to keep a solo player engaged for an entire expansion.

Just in my personal opinion, I'd recommend staying away from the Mythic raiding guilds as that is where you still get the hyper-competitive elitist players. Instead, go for a Normal/Heroic casual raiding guild. These guilds are usually a lot more laid-back and focused on fun and community over raw progression. In the current gearing system, there is no longer a huge gap between the gear that you get from Normal/Heroic raiding and Mythic raiding, so you can be in a fun casual guild and still get good gear.

Another thing I notice is that a lot of people seem to get overwhelmed because they play a lot of characters and/or specs. Some people simply like the diversity and all the different play styles, and that's fine. I, on the other hand, have played the same class and spec since vanilla and only having to gear one character, one spec, allows me to gear quicker and play at a high level without nearly as much time investment as others who have tons of alts. I'm not feeling burnt-out and i'm even raiding with two seperate raid groups at the moment.

NightReaver said:
Keep trying, WoW. Trying to whip out a saga this late seems pointless.
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I'm not sure that I understand that mentality. That just because something has already existed for a while, that means there is no longer any point in furthering the story anymore?

By that logic, everyone on earth should commit ritual suicide. After all, the earth has been around for billions of years, "trying to whip out a saga this late seems pointless", right?

t1k said:
It doesn't look like they're making significant engine upgrades or doing much they haven't already done before though so I'm not really excited about this to be honest.
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The next expansion is still a year away. Changes to the game engine would be something likely talked about as we get closer to the expansion pre-patch. Historically, that's when new changes to the game engine are implimented. This was just the initial expansion(s) announcment. Personally I'm still hoping for DLSS. If they can do it for Diablo 4, they should be able to do it for WoW.
 
GotNoRice said:
By that logic, everyone on earth should commit ritual suicide. After all, the earth has been around for billions of years, "trying to whip out a saga this late seems pointless", right?
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If that's how seriously you want to take WoW, be my guest lol.

WoWs "story" is pretty bankrupt by now. Sure, they can try. They'll most likely fail.
 
  • Ion mentions the Alpha likely starting in Spring 2024.
  • Delves
    • Quick adventures for 1-5 players

    • A new endgame pillar and a permanent addition to the game going forward.

    • Variety, flexibility, progression

    • Difficulty progression will be built into Delves.

    • Lessons learned from Torghast, Islands, Scenarios, and Horrific Visions.

    • This is an alternative form of content and is not meant to be another mandatory feature.

    • Unavel mysteries and seek treasure, in nooks and enclaves throughout the world.

    • All Delves end with a room full of treasure. Some will have a boss guarding it, but others may have doors or puzzles.

    • You walk into Delves without any loading screen. They are extensions of the outdoor world.

    • Seasonal structure, narrative tie-in, and NPC companions

    • Brann Bronzebeard accompanies us for season 1.

    • Power up the NPC companion with talents and tailor them to accompany your playstyle.

    • Small treasure chests contain currency, gold, etc, and can be opened at the end.

    • Larger chests require keys or other methods to open.

    • The structure of a specific Delve location can change from day to day.

    • 12 Delves are currently planned throughout the four zones. There is a secret 13th one not listed.

    • Seasonal rewards include helm transmogs and a customizable flying vehicle mount.
 
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My takeaways are that blizzard will happily drain your bank account if you allow them and the new dwarf allied race reveal was a huge flop.
 
If it's just a bunch of M+ stupidity for best items being the focus I'll pass. The last expansion kept me interested for maybe a month. It's simply the same shit over and over.
 
FighterAce124 said:
I think the game is finally dead to me.
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Same. I have the most recent, and once or twice a year I fire up my account because I (used to) love healing. Now its a freaking race to blow through everything as quick as possible and I'm a madman trying to keep everyone alive. Became too stressful. I hate timers.

Maybe at one point I'll try again, but usually it lasts a few hours before I walk.
 
To me WoW is fun nowadays if played casual. I stopped Raiding awhile back, and even used to run M+ a lot, but that became zero fun too and super stress, with people expecting top tier #1 DPS or Tanks that make no mistakes whatsoever.

Now I just do world content, like Dreamsurges and running Legacy Raids for transmog gear. And when there's a new content patch like tomorrow and 10.2 which includes a new zone, that is fun to play and run around the new area and gear up in the new season. But that only lasts fresh for so long, then it's back to snooze fest.
 
Westwood said:
Same. I have the most recent, and once or twice a year I fire up my account because I (used to) love healing. Now its a freaking race to blow through everything as quick as possible and I'm a madman trying to keep everyone alive. Became too stressful. I hate timers.
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Well, they are about to make some very significant changes to healing, starting tomorrow (10.2) and carrying over into the new expansion.

A developer post about it:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/w...-generation-in-guardians-of-the-dream/1666444
Healers have a lot of decisions and resources to manage that change depending on the type of content you are doing. At its core, we want healers to have interesting abilities and choices to make while healing, and we want you to have to manage your mana pool. We’re hoping our changes reduce the amount of overhealing and make mana matter slightly more, which should make healing across the game a more enjoyable experience.

Single target healing spells currently don’t feel like they move the health bar enough. We want these heals to be impactful and have a purpose, and hope this makes healing a Mythic+ dungeon less stressful for healers.

Group healing spells have seen a lot of modifications and increases to their total throughput over the course of Dragonflight. These spells often feel like they are rapidly increasing a raid from a damaged state to a full health state. We plan on adjusting the effectiveness of many of these spells.

Raid survivability cooldowns feel like they have all entered the territory of making your raid feel nearly invulnerable when being used. While it’s a great moment for everyone to stack in a Power Word: Barrier and reduce damage taken and stack a few healing cooldowns, we think the combined power of these has escalated to a point where they make the raid slightly too sturdy.

Mana generation is a problem that’s related to all of the above. We want mana to feel like a finite resource and for the few ways you can still generate mana to be relevant, but want your spell choices during a raid fight to matter. We’re reducing the effectiveness of many mana restoration class abilities and specific items.
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Part of the issue is that the overall healing toolkit has increased significantly over the years. Each expansion has brought with it temporary abilities (aka borrowed power), but many of the most popular of those abilities ended up becoming permanent talent options over time (thus expanding the overall toolkit). It became harder and harder to design encounters that were challenging to heal because healers had so many potent tools at their disposal. By the time Dragonflight released, the developers had backed themselves into a corner, feeling that the only option remaining to challenge healers was to make damage massive and spiky. But the overwhelming feedback from healers was negative. Most healers don't enjoy healing in an environment where players are getting hit for more than half of their HP in one hit, forcing healers to heal them as quick as possible so that they don't die from getting hit a second time. Healing began to feel futile, with the only remaining option being to just go balls-out 110%-effort, overhealing everyone constantly so that they would get healed quicker when they did take damage.

So they are nerfing healing cooldowns across the board (for the most part), while boosting single-target healing and core healing spells. I'm mostly onboard with that, as I can see where they are coming from. They are also nerfing mana regeneration. I'm not personally sold on that part. It's already agonizing in M+ being basically the only spec that has to deal with a limited resource (mana), and having the other 4 players run off and pull more stuff evey time i'm trying to drink and get mana. Having one player that has to sit to drink for mana is not really compatible with the go-go-go mentality that the timer forces on everyone in M+, and these changes are going to make this much worse unless there are further changes that they have not announced yet. Perhaps they will increase mana regeneration while OUT of combat? (yeah right). But at least they are finally acknowledging that healing was in a bad spot the last two patches and are taking a serious look at it. That's a start, now we just have to hope that they get it right.
 
Westwood said:
Same. I have the most recent, and once or twice a year I fire up my account because I (used to) love healing. Now its a freaking race to blow through everything as quick as possible and I'm a madman trying to keep everyone alive. Became too stressful. I hate timers.

Maybe at one point I'll try again, but usually it lasts a few hours before I walk.
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Well that didn't last long.

Spent a couple weeks flipping between games. Chit chat on here about the game, I fired up the account. Been dubbing around with healers. meh
 
Was able to recover my pre-WOTLK account a little bit before Dragonflight launch, and was able to get a few characters up to max before it went live. I then played Dragonflight to the point where Mythic+ was required for progression, even getting in a few Vault guild raids. It was Mythic+ and raiding that confirmed to me that I just cannot do modern MMOs.
I had played SWTOR prior and it had similar problems for me. Modern MMOs seem to center around rapidly hitting 7-8 buttons buttons in a set "rotation" (that can actually change as tweaks are made to balance) all while trying to make out different colors on the ground and dealing with lots of different flashing indicators.
I guess I just miss the old days of EQ (and I feel like vanilla and TBC WoW were similar). It feels like many of the fights were difficult, but without the min/max rotation and requirements to pay attention to sparkles on the screen. I don't miss how unfriendly EQ was for solo, but I feel like in those games you had more clearly defined roles and differentiation. WoW has a healer, a tank, and then a bunch of DPS (with some differentiation of ranged vs melee). WoW's Evoker has maybe added a new wrinkle to things with the new buffing version, but I burned out and quit playing before that was introduced. EQ, you still had a tank, and healer, but hybrids added a bit of flavor and gave creative license on acheiving things. Shaman or Enchanter for slows, but if one wasnt available, there were alternatives (either less effective version that still let you get things done, or change your approach to how you approach the encounter). No mez type CC? Use root and plan around making sure it is maintained as well as the decayed effectiveness of re-roots. Now it just seems like DPS is all different flavors of sameness. Do your rotation and stand outside of bad. My EQ characters were Rogue and Monk. Monk was probably my favorite because of pulling, but even Rogue eventually could do that, when AA brought Escape. Rogue, you made sure you were in the correct position for Backstab. There were other situational things you would do during the fight, so while combat was simplified, it still felt quite complex.
TLDR: Tried to like WoW, but modern MMOs just don't seem to be my thing.
 
ThatITGuy said:
Was able to recover my pre-WOTLK account a little bit before Dragonflight launch, and was able to get a few characters up to max before it went live. I then played Dragonflight to the point where Mythic+ was required for progression, even getting in a few Vault guild raids. It was Mythic+ and raiding that confirmed to me that I just cannot do modern MMOs.
I had played SWTOR prior and it had similar problems for me. Modern MMOs seem to center around rapidly hitting 7-8 buttons buttons in a set "rotation" (that can actually change as tweaks are made to balance) all while trying to make out different colors on the ground and dealing with lots of different flashing indicators.
I guess I just miss the old days of EQ (and I feel like vanilla and TBC WoW were similar). It feels like many of the fights were difficult, but without the min/max rotation and requirements to pay attention to sparkles on the screen. I don't miss how unfriendly EQ was for solo, but I feel like in those games you had more clearly defined roles and differentiation. WoW has a healer, a tank, and then a bunch of DPS (with some differentiation of ranged vs melee). WoW's Evoker has maybe added a new wrinkle to things with the new buffing version, but I burned out and quit playing before that was introduced. EQ, you still had a tank, and healer, but hybrids added a bit of flavor and gave creative license on acheiving things. Shaman or Enchanter for slows, but if one wasnt available, there were alternatives (either less effective version that still let you get things done, or change your approach to how you approach the encounter). No mez type CC? Use root and plan around making sure it is maintained as well as the decayed effectiveness of re-roots. Now it just seems like DPS is all different flavors of sameness. Do your rotation and stand outside of bad. My EQ characters were Rogue and Monk. Monk was probably my favorite because of pulling, but even Rogue eventually could do that, when AA brought Escape. Rogue, you made sure you were in the correct position for Backstab. There were other situational things you would do during the fight, so while combat was simplified, it still felt quite complex.
TLDR: Tried to like WoW, but modern MMOs just don't seem to be my thing.
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I played SWTOR for about 7 years to be fair, I think its the Star Wars license and stories that got me in the door but its the raids and the friends I made raiding that kept me coming back. For whatever reason, I really liked to do the SWTOR raids and was on multiple raid teams and all of that. At one point BioWare made it where you had to grind dailies to get BiS gear and I said fuck that. I hadn't done dailies in years at that point and I noped right out of there. I went back recently and played the three years of story content I missed and the skill floor is in the fucking basement now. Even worse, the gearing system is the most convoluted bullshit I've ever seen. I like that there is a path for non-Raiders, solo players and PvP only guys to get decent gear but the way they've implemented it is a shit show to say the least. It's super grindy and its a convoluted process to boot.

Plus, the game is so easy now that you don't even really need anything special to do the general story content. Of which there was surprisingly little of after that long of an absence. I think MMO's have this weird life cycle of being too grindy when released but always feel fresh and fun. Then after awhile you realize just how much bullshit grind there is in the game and the developer introduces several quality of life improvements. At some point between content expansions and QoL improvements the game reaches a peak where its truly at its best. Its refined, fun and enjoyable. But you can only repeat the same content and level so many alts before you just get bored and move on or some other game captures your interest.

So developers then start making changes, dumbing the game down and trying to win back players but more importantly, make the game have a broader appeal to get new people in the door and open their wallets. So you come back for the new content release, grind through that in a couple weeks or so and then get back to whatever else you do when your interest in the MMO falls off. And then, when developers get super desperate to get new customers they start making sweeping changes to broaden the games' appeal and at that point whatever you liked about the game seems to be gone. This shit works for the developer in the short term but the casual players they brought in aren't the ones that will sustain the game. Eventually, content drops end up having less frequency and end up smaller and smaller.

Sure, game developers will try some tactics to illicit that "fear of missing out" or "FOMO" in the player base but most of what they do seems to only drive players further away. I've seen this with not only SWTOR, but Age of Conan and even Destiny 2. Eventually, these games all started to feel like jobs and while I cherish fond memories of playing them in days past, the games themselves in their present state hold no interest for me.
 
Dan_D said:
I played SWTOR for about 7 years to be fair, I think its the Star Wars license and stories that got me in the door but its the raids and the friends I made raiding that kept me coming back. For whatever reason, I really liked to do the SWTOR raids and was on multiple raid teams and all of that. At one point BioWare made it where you had to grind dailies to get BiS gear and I said fuck that. I hadn't done dailies in years at that point and I noped right out of there. I went back recently and played the three years of story content I missed and the skill floor is in the fucking basement now. Even worse, the gearing system is the most convoluted bullshit I've ever seen. I like that there is a path for non-Raiders, solo players and PvP only guys to get decent gear but the way they've implemented it is a shit show to say the least. It's super grindy and its a convoluted process to boot.

Plus, the game is so easy now that you don't even really need anything special to do the general story content. Of which there was surprisingly little of after that long of an absence. I think MMO's have this weird life cycle of being too grindy when released but always feel fresh and fun. Then after awhile you realize just how much bullshit grind there is in the game and the developer introduces several quality of life improvements. At some point between content expansions and QoL improvements the game reaches a peak where its truly at its best. Its refined, fun and enjoyable. But you can only repeat the same content and level so many alts before you just get bored and move on or some other game captures your interest.

So developers then start making changes, dumbing the game down and trying to win back players but more importantly, make the game have a broader appeal to get new people in the door and open their wallets. So you come back for the new content release, grind through that in a couple weeks or so and then get back to whatever else you do when your interest in the MMO falls off. And then, when developers get super desperate to get new customers they start making sweeping changes to broaden the games' appeal and at that point whatever you liked about the game seems to be gone. This shit works for the developer in the short term but the casual players they brought in aren't the ones that will sustain the game. Eventually, content drops end up having less frequency and end up smaller and smaller.

Sure, game developers will try some tactics to illicit that "fear of missing out" or "FOMO" in the player base but most of what they do seems to only drive players further away. I've seen this with not only SWTOR, but Age of Conan and even Destiny 2. Eventually, these games all started to feel like jobs and while I cherish fond memories of playing them in days past, the games themselves in their present state hold no interest for me.
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I played SWTOR for 2-3 years, up until about 2 years ago. I had one of every class, and a few duplicates for advanced class specailization. I actually enjoyed tanking quite a bit in SWTOR, but DPS ( and even tanking to a minor extent) was still a bunch of carpal tunnel inducing 7-8 button rotations while watching for sparklies. It may be low-skill, but to do top end stuff you have to be topping DPS charts by hitting your rotation. I will say that stuff like Dxun was much more fun than pretty much anything in WoW, with a lot of unique mechanics beyond watch for sparklies. It still just feels like classes / roles are shallow. Why sage vs shadow vs gunslinger vs scoundrel? Other than needing at least one class that can do a burn, there didnt seem to be a lot of difference in dps beyond range vs melee and the different animations.
I agree on the FOMO and forced dailies per character. It definitely serves to burn you out quicker unless you only ever play 1 character.
 
ThatITGuy said:
It may be low-skill, but to do top end stuff you have to be topping DPS charts by hitting your rotation.
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Oh, I know. I was doing it.
ThatITGuy said:
I agree on the FOMO and forced dailies per character. It definitely serves to burn you out quicker unless you only ever play 1 character.
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As I said, it feels like a fucking job at some point.
 
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