Slashdot Mirror
BlizzCon Keynote — New WoW Expansion, Diablo 3 Details
BlizzCon kicked off this morning with a keynote address that brought some major announcements for some of their games. First, World of Warcraft's third expansion, Cataclysm, was officially revealed. It differs from the previous expansions in that they will not be creating an entirely new continent for players to explore. Instead, the two huge continents from the original game will be going through a literal cataclysm, causing some zones to be destroyed, new ones to become available, and existing ones to be entirely revamped. Big news came for Diablo III as well, with the announcement of the Monk class and a trailer showing how it plays. More details for both games as well as StarCraft II will undoubtedly become available over the next few days, but read on for more about what we already know. If you have any questions, don't forget to post them here.
Cataclysm will also be different due to the fact that the new level cap is 85 — a five-level increase, as opposed to the ten-level increases from previous expansions. That's not to say there is less content, but the idea is that each individual level will be more meaningful. There will be two new playable races for this expansion: Goblins for the Horde and Worgen for the Alliance. The disaster apparently strikes the Goblins hard, forcing from their lands and into conflict with an "unknown enemy," which the Horde helps them with. Meanwhile, the Greymane Wall has broken open, revealing the kingdom of Gilneas, the residents of which were turned into the werewolf-like Worgen, but were able to keep their human minds.
The revamped Azeroth will include updated dungeons — heroic versions of Shadowfang Keep and the Deadmines — as well as entirely new dungeons for leveling and endgame. It's not yet clear whether the old version of the damaged zones will still be around in some form, but look for an explanation in the next few days. Players will be able to use their flying mounts in the new Azeroth. The dragon Deathwing is making a return, and will serve as a major villain. In addition to the damaged zones, some will change in other ways — Desolace, which is currently a barren wasteland, will find new life from the water of the tidal waves, turning the land green. The more damaged zones will feature lots of lava and broken terrain. There will be new Battlegrounds, new Race/Class combinations (we saw a Troll Druid, Tauren Paladin, and Gnome Priest), a new profession called Archaeology, a guild leveling system, tons of new monsters and quests, as well as a new "character progression" system called "Path of the Titans."
From the Diablo III Monk trailer, you can see that the class seems to have an area-of-effect swing of his weapon, a way to reflect spells, and an attack that sprints between a bunch of enemies, hitting each of them. The monk also seems to be able to make enemies explode quite easily. And messily.
The revamped Azeroth will include updated dungeons — heroic versions of Shadowfang Keep and the Deadmines — as well as entirely new dungeons for leveling and endgame. It's not yet clear whether the old version of the damaged zones will still be around in some form, but look for an explanation in the next few days. Players will be able to use their flying mounts in the new Azeroth. The dragon Deathwing is making a return, and will serve as a major villain. In addition to the damaged zones, some will change in other ways — Desolace, which is currently a barren wasteland, will find new life from the water of the tidal waves, turning the land green. The more damaged zones will feature lots of lava and broken terrain. There will be new Battlegrounds, new Race/Class combinations (we saw a Troll Druid, Tauren Paladin, and Gnome Priest), a new profession called Archaeology, a guild leveling system, tons of new monsters and quests, as well as a new "character progression" system called "Path of the Titans."
From the Diablo III Monk trailer, you can see that the class seems to have an area-of-effect swing of his weapon, a way to reflect spells, and an attack that sprints between a bunch of enemies, hitting each of them. The monk also seems to be able to make enemies explode quite easily. And messily.
I love WoW and always will (even if I don't play it now for 6 months), but the 3D engine is getting old. It doesn't matter if you have a new PC, it will still lag when too much players are in the same zone. I'd go back, but I need some new mind blowing sound and 3D experience, after all this is why we like PC games, always delivering top technology.
Good luck WoW.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I read elsewhere that the changes to old zones are likely to be done with their 'phasing' method used in some zones of the current expansion. It kind of splits the zone into parallel versions, and what a player sees (and what other players they see)will be different depending on what quests they've done. What they've done with it so far did a great job of giving the illusion that players were making a difference in their world.
It makes sense that they would do this with the old-world areas rather than just replace them; low-level characters still need places to hunt and quest.
What is means is that Blizzard recognizes that people don't like to wait to do end game content. While I expect the time requirement between levels to be higher I fully expect that they merely compressed eight to ten levels into five. It also is probably a method to bring back WOW from the rampant gear inflation it is suffering. Both expansions seriously ramped gear up to major importance over the previous. It is nearly monty hall in effect.
The level of 85 also makes it possible to increment levels between expansions. They can slowly add a level or two requiring play to reach newer raids and gear. Right now the problem is that all top end gear is level 80. This means each new raid just expands on level 80 gear making the game solely revolving around gear. The problem is that "why hate gear X at level 80 when gear Y is there as well?" It invalidates similarly level gear and the content that provides it. Will they do this? Who knows, but they have headroom to act should they choose.
Plus redoing the old world allows the overcome one major problem people had with it, no flying.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
No, I don't think that I have.
I've played an engineer in WoW since the first day I created my toon.
Engineering items fall into a few categories. (Note: I haven't played in a few months, so it is entirely possible that some of these -might- have been addressed... but I rather doubt it.)
Vanity: The Hog, and similar items. To be honest, I wouldn't trade my Hog for any other land mount out there, but it doesn't offer anything that other land mounts don't. Admittedly, I liked it better when I could fall from any distance on without anything happening... But hey.
Single user items: Aka, the teleporters. I used them all the time when I was in the appropriate areas / level range, but they don't make the profession, in and of itself, worthwhile.
Explosives: Largely bloody worthless.
Scopes: Useful, but so flooded on the market that you don't really have to worry about making one yourself; just hit up the AH.
Item "enchants": Never used. Seriously, there's no point to them, everyone would rather have a real enchant to their items rather than something with a short use, long cooldown, and questionable utility (especially in raid). Boots? Enchant. Cloak? Enchant. Belt? Put the belt buckle on there and socket a gem. Etc.
Helms: Most engineers would greatly prefer if they could make them for non-engineers. It would actually be a moneymaker.
The problems with engineering could be solved in a few ways:
1) Recycling: Let engineers turn gray/white items into metal scrap which functions similar to ore, but you can't get gems from it.
2) Let them make items for non-engineers: Engineering is the only profession where the majority of the actual items (not parts) can't be used by non-engineers.
3) Give engineers a bonus on mechanical mounts. Bonus speed / damage. It wouldn't even have to be much of a bonus. Say, skill/75 as a percentage.
4) Give engineers something that actually makes them useful on a raid... other than repair bots. Yes, I recognize that there are certain things that are useful with single bosses (the Shadow Reflector for Twin Emps was one), but I'm looking for something with the more constant utility that enchantment or alchemy (flasks) provides.
5) Lower the failure rate. Engineering doesn't work like that; it's actually genuinely reliable.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Some of the nice effects:
- Good gear: Your T8-grade gear, which many seem to have access to now, will make great leveling gear. I'd be surprised if you couldn't do l85 dungeons in a lot of them. (except as a tank, I imagine)
- Alternate rewards: While leveling, they can give rewards in terms of things other than gear and XP. They could give Marks of Whatever to let you BUY good gear (rather than receiving 15 different pieces of crap that you sell to a vendor), or give you plain money, or consumables, etc. (That reminds me ... make flasks for leveling. ;)) They could give you things/points/etc that would help you on this mysterious alternate leveling system, which I suspect will reflect role (healer, tank, melee dps, ranged dps) rather than class.
Talent trees, and the role of individual talents, seem to be changing, so I expect it won't be as simple as taking your current talents and adding 5 points to them. (In some cases, that makes for effects like "5% more damage", but other times it's something powerful like being able to get two powerful cooldowns or talented abilities which were previously separated by a lack of points.