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Next WoW Expansion Title Leaked?
Gamespot reports that the German software ratings board may have accidentally tipped Blizzard's hand on the title of the next World of Warcraft expansion. "Spotted by German community site Gamona, a listing for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King appeared on USK yesterday, accompanied by the tag 'GC-demo,' implying Blizzard will be showing Wrath of the Lich King at this year's Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany. Responding to a request for comment, a Blizzard representative stated, 'We have not yet announced any details with regard to future expansions of World of Warcraft.'" No surprise that Northrend would be the setting for the newest expansion. A bit disappointing, really.
If they're still playing the game...
But definitely Northrend would have seemed to be a better release to come before Outland. I mean after getting an alien world to explore, a frozen continent seems like a lacklustre follow up.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Sounds more like "hyped".
Or does anything think Blizzard minds the free publicity and getting WoW-fans all over the world into a "wannahave" frenzy?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Quests whose object is... grinding.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
...has been to add free new content (remember the War Effort Event) then a paid expansion. Given that many guilds are still making their way through the long string of instances, I don't think there will be any significant new content until late this year.
In addition to Northrend, there are still several locked areas -
*The various entrances to the Emerald dream.
*Grim Batol
*Uldum
*Gilneas
*Timbermaw Hold (the big gates in Azshara)
*Something that looks like two PvP entrances in Azhara.
I just hope they bring back Captain Placeholder.
Don't be so surprised.
/played, that's more than 60 weekdays worth (or 12 weeks) of devoting every hour of free time to WoW to go from 1-70. However, that doesn't cover running the instances to get the required gear/rep to begin raiding, nor does it cover that if the character in question being leveled is an alt it is entirely possible that one will be continually interrupted by guildies needing another person to tank/dps some instance.
I work a standard 40 hour work week, and also enjoy such things as eating and sleeping. Assuming I get a decent 8 hours of sleep a night, spend 1.5 hours on food and hygene and 1 hour commuting; 5 out of 7 days of the week I have a total of 5.5 hours of free time.
Assuming 15 days
Conversely, the typical console game completion time is 40 hours, or 80 hours if it's an unlockfest. In the time it takes to level (not gear) an alt, one could potentially complete 4-7 console games.
The problem will only become worse as the level cap increases. There are a large number of group quests in Outland that will be difficult to complete for alts due to the lack of contemporaries, most having moved on to newer pastures save for the occaisional raid. If Blizzard intends on further increasing the level cap it will become prohibitive for new players or alts to successfully catch up to other players.
I'm not asking for the option to instantly spawn characters at high levels. Leveling is an excellent way to allow players to understand and master a class. However, the amount of time required to do so is too much.
I personally recommend increasing the exp received from quests by a substancial amount. This can be lessened in earlier areas where the quests are already enough to carry a player from zone to zone, but should begin to take significant effect by level 25. Multi-zoning shouldn't be a necessary measure in order to level.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
I'm not a particularly hardcore WoW player. I played it on and off for a month or two after launch, but back then, Final Fantasy XI was my game of choice. Since getting bored of FFXI at the start of this year, I've gone back to playing WoW at a much more casual level than I used to play FFXI, taking about 4 months to get my Draenei Paladin to 70 and only doing the occasional Karazhan raid since getting there. However, even I can see that the first expansion created a number of issues for the player base and I'm curious whether Blizzard has given any thought to addressing these.
The first is the idea that Penny-Arcade identified as "green is the new purple". When Burning Crusade hit, almost all of the level 60 epics, which in many cases people had been grinding for over months (or even years) were suddenly obsolete compared to random "green" items that dropped from normal mobs in the new areas. I'd never been part of the pre-expansion end-game, but by the time I was level 62, I was actually better geared than many people who had. It seems almost inevitable that the new expansion will raise the level cap again. At the moment, I'm dipping my toe in the Burning Crusade end-game... once the date for the new expansion is confirmed, any motivation I have for doing so will evaporate, if it seems at all likely that any gear I obtain will be made irrelevant after 10 minutes in Northrend. If Blizzard intend to keep up a stream of expansions, as most MMO developers seem to, then unless they find a solution to this, most of their hardcore players will just leave, as any sense of purpose to the end-game evaporates.
Next... new races or classes. Burning Crusade added two new races, but no new classes. Frankly, new races don't really give you very much, apart from a new way to level from 1-20. The addition of new classes (WoW has always been rather short on these) would be quite helpful in terms of adding a bit of variety and dispelling the slightly stagnant feel that now hovers over the game. However, this in turn brings a few issues with it. Have Blizzard now made the combined PvP and PvE balancing issues so complicated that adding new classes would be all but impossible? Part of me suspects that they have. Moreover, the lack of a flexible job system, such as FFXI's, makes it even more irritating to level up a new class from scratch.
Burning Crusade seems to have created a whole range of rather nasty economic issues as well. As soon as it appeared, people more or less stopped running the old level 60 instances. This means that crafting recipies and ingredients that dropped only in this dungeons have become increasingly rare (just look how long you have to wait and how much you have to pay to get Enchant Weapon - Crusader on a "new" server). This is particularly problematic for people trying to level up crafts through the levels where these ingredients are key. If, following the new expansion, the availability of... for instance... the primals were to plummet, the chances for new crafters to make it to the top of their professions would be slashed dramatically. Some form of incentive for people to continue running the old instances would be very helpful.
Assuming 15 days
Conversely, the typical console game completion time is 40 hours, or 80 hours if it's an unlockfest. In the time it takes to level (not gear) an alt, one could potentially complete 4-7 console games.
You know, some people would be thankful that they're actually getting value for money - that one game lasted them for longer than a month. Sure there is a subscription, but it's less than the price of a console game every month
I believe that playing the game is more fun than finishing the game, I'd rather have something that keeps me engrossed for a year than something I finish in a few weeks and never pick up again. I do play WoW, and I'm in a casual but skilled raiding group (Gruul, Kara, Maggy on farm, we're in TK now), and never did we actually run out of content.
There is more than just level 60, err, 70, err, 80. Some of the nicest content is at the lowest levels (Uldaman is still my favourite instance). If what you want is to do big raids and get epixx, then yes, you will need to be the top level, and that takes a while. But enjoy the ride, don't just power through it, it's fun.
I personally recommend increasing the exp received from quests by a substancial amount.
Have you even played TBC?