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World of Warcraft's Next Expansion: Legion
Today at Gamescom in Germany, Blizzard unveiled the next expansion for World of Warcraft, called Legion. The expansion will raise the level cap to 110 and bring adventurers to a new continent: the Broken Isles. This will include several new zones and be the source of a new demonic invasion. The story will delve deeply into the game world's history and let players use customizable 'artifact' weapons. To fight the invasion, Blizzard is introducing a new class, Demon Hunter, who will start out at a high level and can perform tank- and damage-centric roles.
The PVP system will be getting revamped, and they're introducing Class-specific halls and followers. The expansion will contain the requisite new raids and world bosses, of course. Small dungeons will be getting increased focus in Legion. As with the previous expansion, players will be given a free level boost for one character to the current level cap in order to get started on the new content right away. Blizzard has posted an cinematic teaser, and the full announcement trailer on YouTube. A beta test will start sometime later this year, but no release date has been announced. MMO-Champion has a post full of details known about the expansion.
The PVP system will be getting revamped, and they're introducing Class-specific halls and followers. The expansion will contain the requisite new raids and world bosses, of course. Small dungeons will be getting increased focus in Legion. As with the previous expansion, players will be given a free level boost for one character to the current level cap in order to get started on the new content right away. Blizzard has posted an cinematic teaser, and the full announcement trailer on YouTube. A beta test will start sometime later this year, but no release date has been announced. MMO-Champion has a post full of details known about the expansion.
I have hated the Flintstones look of WOW graphics since just about day one. It still looks like the Flintstones today after years of expansions, patches, and "new" stuff.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
This has been an issue since day 1 of vanilla, but has devolved into a playstyle that as a PvE person I really don't like, and reading posts, I don't think the PvPers really like either. I really don't think hardcore PvE and hardcore PvP can coexist because the fundamental gameplay mechanics that make PvE interesting do not exist in PvP, and vice versa. PvE is algorithmic, strategic and if done right, very complex. PvP on the other hand is highly dynamic and tactical. It's pretty much the difference between watching stunt men mock-fight in a movie versus watching UFC. Both require a lot of skill and a lot of training and superficially look similar, but when the rubber meets the road don't translate well.
There's all sorts of things they CAN do to make the game interesting again, but in my opinion a PvE only game and a PvP only game would end up being far better than their best effort. Unfortunately you're either WoW or you're cloning WoW, nobody has the cajones to do something new. I guess until WoW dies the true death.
I tried an MMO game once .. not 100% sure of which one, I think there was supposed to be some space involved, but I never saw it ... since I'm not a wizard at FPS combat (which is a massive understatement) and I wanted to look around to see what the game was all about and what it had and explore the world and see stuff ... after 30 minutes of constantly getting killed, respawning in the same place, and getting killed again ... well, I disconnected and have never connected to an MMO in the first place.
I had heard there might be an interesting world to explore, some potential to do some interesting role-playing, and see neat an interesting things. In reality, I don't think I ever got past the first 50 feet or so of the starting point before getting killed. Repeatedly, pointlessly, from all angles.
That wasn't a fucking game. Not to me it wasn't.
That pretty much cemented for me that I will never play any form of online game ever again. The rest of the idiots basically preclude any new players from finding any enjoyment in it.
And since I wasn't interested in engaging in combat, but exploring the virtual world, there was literally no redeeming quality to the game for me.
Honestly, now if I want to game, I'll play some Skyrim and ignore the plot and major quests for the most part. If there's a massive open roamer where you can explore and not really do anything with the combat system, it might be cool.
But then I doubt anybody else would play it, because apparently killing off weaker characters is somehow entertaining to far too many people.
If MMO means getting constantly killed by every asshole who does that for fun, I don't want to have anything to do with it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
As someone who has played quite a bit of SWTOR, there's some good, some bad and some ugly.
The good:
Full voice acting (seriously, I'm not kidding, every insignificant idiot NPC got something to say. And I mean say).
Mass-Effect-esque Dialogue system (makes you really feel like you can, ya know, have some kind of impact, even if you cannot)
Every class is a pet class. Seriously, you run around with a "companion" no matter the class. I.e. no longer "leveling a tank sucks for it takes ages to kill anything". Whip out your DD buddy and you're golden. Leveling a healer? Whip out that DD guy and keep him alive. Leveling a DD? Shove your tank buddy ahead of you.
Low/no downtime during questing. No sitting down and regenerating. 2-3 seconds of out of battle and you're back to nominal.
A different, unique storyline for every class (4 mainclassses) per side. Some good (that agent story is just awesome), some bad (the jedi councilor story is a snorefest).
Rather short ways to walk (at least 'til you get a ride... at least if you're a subscriber. See "the ugly" below) with pretty good direction indicators telling you just where to go in case you don't want to find out for yourself.
Streamlined raids. It's a mixed blessing, but let's face it, who really liked the trash groups between bosses? They moved away from the extremes of the last raid batch (where you basically went from boss to boss with a token group of trashies in between), but trash packs of the current raids is still nothing that occupies you for more than 5 minutes between bosses).
Customizeable armor. The stats of your stuff (at least in high level) reside on "parts" that can be put into or taken out of your armor. I.e. you can buy something that you like the look of, then rip out the "stat parts" of your raid gear and stuff it into the clothing you like. Yes, that means you can raid sensibly in Leia's slave outfit...
The bad:
It's basically WoW in Space. Same setup, same stat-optimizing, same triad of tank/healer/dd. You might consider that a good thing if you're just looking for WoW in space and don't want to get into anything unfamiliar, but personally, I was a bit disappointed. And of course pretty much all "the bad" from WoW applies, like...
Usual tank shortage. With the usual moronic fix of "fast pass dungeons" for groups of DDs.
Melee vs range DD problem. I.e. as a melee, don't count on being useful in a raid (especially with the current raids where movement is king and slowing effects are the staple of boss features).
But it does have its unique crapshots, too...
Anemic group sizes. 4 people standard group, 8 people raid, 16 people "double size raid". Yes, that makes the tank shortage even worse, why do you ask?
No plugin support. Seriously, this is 2015 and there is NO support for any kind of scripting. Of course people found a way around this and managed to get some damage-meter going, but more despite EAs efforts. Not because of them.
Crafting bonus depends on the companions you have. So some classes are better at crafting certain items than others. So far that would be ok, if it wasn't for some things only being sensibly craftable on either Imperial or Republican side.
Answers you give in dialogues affect how much your companions like you. The more they like you, the more efficient they are in crafting and mission running (that's how you craft and harvest certain raw materials, companions do that, not you). In other words, your "freedom" to play your character is essentially limited by what your companions want to hear you say (making that Mass-Effect dialogue system a bit absurd).
The ugly: ... don't.
Completely shot f2p model. Seriously, pay for a sub or just forget it altogether. The f2p is at best a lecture in frustration, at worst a reason to toss the game after a week. I don't even want to get into detail, just
The item shop. So far at least there are no items that actually net you a "stat" advantage (nothing you could buy from the real-money shop offer
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Try the Secret World.
It's a strange game. It can be played as pretty much online single-player game... until dungeons. In fact, it's designed around soloing, at least as far as the initial PvE is concerned.
Then you have huge raid instances and lairs, that pretty much require belonging to a "cabal" (guild/clan/whatnot).
There's also some real "SRS business" PvP but thankfully you can just skip it altogether.
Story, presentation, and characterization is awesome, though.
10/10, would let non-copyright-infringing Cthulhu eat my face again.