More World of Warcraft expansions in the works
Blizzard's newest expansion isn't even released yet, but the company has unofficially revealed that two more expansions are already planned.
The Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft is still several months away. but Blizzard has revealed that there will be at least two more expansions beyond the panda-tastic adventure. I guess 100 would be a nice round number for the max character level.
Blizzard COO Paul Sams told CVG that "the lore creators" already have a framework for expansion five and that Chris Metzen, the company's head of creative development, has even pitched a plan for number six.
"I think Mists of Pandaria is going to breathe huge life into what I believe is the best MMO out there," Sams said. "I think the number of people we have playing and the level of enthusiasm they have for the game suggests that to be the case. This is the next of many ways in which we're going to grow and improve and evolve this game."
It will be interesting to see how Blizzard's subscriber numbers react to Pandaria. The number has dwindled from more than 12 million down to about 10.3 million in November and 10.2 million in their February financial report.
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replyJohn Keefer posted a new article, More World of Warcraft expansions in the works.
Blizzard's newest expansion isn't even released yet, but the company has unofficially revealed that two more expansions are already planned.-
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They gave up on that plan.
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I don't think they gave up on it, I just think they haven't come up with the right way to add the next one yet ...
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If by "watered down" you actually mean "not incredibly overpowered (as was the case for the first few months after they were introduced), but still a very good class", then yes.
A Hero Class in WoW means that you start at level 55 and are given a unique introductory experience. That's compelling enough.-
Well, to be fair, in a bit of irony, I think the paladin was far more op at the arrival of the death knight, lol.
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You are telling me you have forgotten things like ret palliy running such a rape train they needed a hotfix? DKs were op at tanking sarth until they nurfed some of the spell mitigation. It all evened out after the first tier.
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Hero classes were a failed idea...
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Pretty disappointing they aren't adding one in Pandaria. I feel like as they keep increasing the level cap, the less likely people are to level from 1 to max. 90 is a pretty intimidating number for starting out from.
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That's like just your opinion man. BC was fucking awful. Vanilla was the high point.
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I actually think BC is as far in WoW's lifetime as people are willing to go because they still need some old-school cred.
vanilla was a thankless grind. I think that, although WotlK was pretty easy, it was the best expansion.
Catacysm's t11 was quite well-designed, I think. But it's not cool to like any of cata's content. Plus t12 took too long to come out, which soured a lot of ppls take on t11.-
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The look and feel of Northrend was definitely awesome, they nailed that. The problem was that it was attached to a gameplay model where they decided that everything had to be super fucking easy so that everybody could "enjoy everything" regardless of whether they were capable of playing video games. Odd as it sounds, I didn't necessarily mind leveling new characters back in Classic, because the game world was threatening enough that it FELT LIKE A GAME. In Wrath, leveling a character was just like, "oh, here's another 50 hours that I have to spend on something trivial so that I can participate in end game stuff".
I don't know, I wasn't a big fan of raiding back in Classic or even TBC, but I liked the outdoor world a lot better. Feels so empty if there's not really anything of consequence in it. Just an over engineered gameplay experience that feels like Disney World. Honestly, in terms of gameplay experience, single player games can do and are doing Disney World a lot better.
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The specific crafting drops in each instance felt like a nice progressive reward. The tier 5 mace comes to mind. They sort of did this with shadowmourne, but legendaries can be a bit too exclusive.
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I think you mean attunement? As far as the "gated" in term of having to kill gruel/mags then Kael/vashj, it did suck wiping on those fights with not having access to the next tier. I think that lead to a lot of stalling out in progress and people leaving to join guilds who were over the hump.
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They really need to fix endgame crafting. Having to grind mats in endgame raids in order to make anything just doesn't make sense. By the time you have the mats, odds are pretty good that you have equal or better gear.
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I fucking hated BC. There... I said it
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I guess the kung fu panda expansion makes people clamor for more
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The Emerald Dream expansion would have been epic instead of yet another lost isle with a race no one has hardly seen before. There is still lore from Warcraft 1-3 games they haven't completely resolved. I personally liked TBC and WOTLK specifically because of the tie-ins.
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I just don't know what they could really do with the ED. I mean, lore-wise it's just a copy of Azeroth without the contributions/destructions/whatever from the races. So... it'd be vanilla WoW with Icecrown (without the Frozen Throne) and no Maelstrom, and no buildings or ruins. Also, and I may be thinking wrong, but I think only Druids can enter the ED.
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Druids can enter it by dreaming. Every one else can get there by magic or portals.
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They resolved that storyline in the Stormrage book. Also who knows wtf is going on with the Emerald Dream now that Ysera is mortal
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Well, I don't think they fully resolved it. I want to say there were some hints at deathwing. But your last point is a pretty big factor. I think they have closed it off unless they come up with something entirely new. Also, it's god damn sad they decided to do it in a book rather than in game...
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Yes, but kiljaden is still out there as well (he was only sealed off) I am pretty sure there have been hints that the legion will return.
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It's hard to not play it when tons of other games are trying to imitate it, or parts of it.
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The number has dwindled from more than 11 million down to about 10.3 million in November.
REALLY ?! going from 11MILLION to 10.3MILLION is dwindling ?? I'm so tired of this angle from people. "wow is struggling to keep it's clients, people are upset, they're all going to leave to the next big MMO X Y or Z, wow is dying."
if wow is dying, it's the healthiest death ever observed by humanity.-
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The term is almost always used when describing something effectively on life support. Using it in conjunction with the industry leader that still eclipses its competition by a factor of five seems off, regardless of its definition.
The SWTOR logic goes like this -- it took WoW ~2 years to hit 2 mil, and SWTOR hit that number in 2 months. Therefore, it's on track to beat WoW. Ignore the fact that the mmo market has changed, substantially, since WoW's release, and 80% of the servers are fucking ghost towns because SWTOR has about the same number of servers with less than a fifth of the population.-
i'm not really sure why you're telling me this SWTOR stuff; you're the one that brought it up and it doesn't appear to have anything to do with this subthread.
i don't agree that "dwindle" is almost always used when describing something that's on life support. i think you and Disarray are being a little oversensitive to a statement that doesn't imply what you're saying it implies-
I'm actually confusing this with the GW2 discussion a bit. A few of those articles painted a picture that WoW's collapse has left a giant hole in the mmo market that GW2 is slated to take over.
My point with the SWTOR stuff is people are using specific rhetoric to paint an unrealized picture of the current mmo market. They've been doing this for the past couple years, largely because people like to see giants fall.
This site does the same shit. The article it's links puts the term subscribers in quotes, even though their definition of subscriber is consistent -- people who have paid Blizzard money in the past month to play WoW. There's too much ridiculous sensationalism in gaming journalism, imo, and this site is no different.-
If it was down like, 2 or 3 million subscribers I would consider that a giant hole to fill, 700,000 is ok, but nothing to be particularly proud about.
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True, American numbers are such a weird metric nowadays.
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The reason "worldwide" is important is because each individual region is going to spike for 1-3 months around a major release. If you stack up releases in the same 1-3 month timeframe, then you're likely going to hit a peak in your worldwide statistic but that peak is going to be followed by a decline back down to your baseline (routine) numbers. If you space those releases out, then the subscriber profile will look like it has a higher baseline subscriber count, because there's always a region or two at or near its peak.
You're always going to have a decent sized group of transients. My only point is sufficient information isn't available to estimate the per-region transient vs. stable population to determine an accurate picture of what's going on.-
Yeah, there is definitely value in that, I just find that American numbers aren't as good an indicator as they used to be for world wide entertainment consumption trends. (particularly with movies, but also more and more for game releases and subscription based content).
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Dwindle refers to an gradual decline. I disagree with your assertion that it implies life support. I have never used it to imply that. 10.2 million subscribers is far from life support, although I wish there was a way to accurately find the number of ACTIVE players.
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I actually didn't know that. In my mind dwindle has always meant "on the verge of disappearing entirely".
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dwin·dle/ˈdwindl/
Verb: Diminish gradually in size, amount, or strength: "dwindling resources".
Synonyms: diminish - wane - decrease - lessen - decline - abate
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would "slowly dwindled" help the misguided preconception?
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I agree it's not a huge number or anywhere close to a mass exodus that people call it. But, that is still a substantial amount of income loss to blizz. Who knows what their operating cost/overhead or profit margin is (they likely still print money). That lost revenue adds several million dollars per month and shouldn't be taken lightly.
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Yep, merging realms is a sign that the population is shrinking, but an MMO can continue to be profitable even off of very small subscription numbers, and it will take a very long time for WoW's numbers to come back down to earth. Besides, from the player's perspective, the only thing that matters is that there's at least one healthy server to play on.
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I wonder if they will do something creative to avoid the negative appearance of merging. I could seem them doing something like a phase in swotor and merging all servers on a battle group. Swapping phases would just be an xfer since they've automated that to 5min process anyway. Improvements could make it take a few seconds and I am sure they will give it some goofy cool down. I can just see them doing something like this. However, they make a lot of money from xfers and that would be a hit to give up.
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AFTER 10 YEARS WE FINALLY GET PANDAS !!!!! Glad I quit 2 years ago hahahahahaha
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hahahahaha
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lololololololol
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Blouses.
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HAHAHA LMFAO!!! I GIVE THIS JOKE A 10/10 AND FIVE STARS
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Your post wasn't labeled with enough pandas in the background to be a legit ign post.
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Actually a Koala bear would have made a better race.
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At least they fucking reproduce
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bamboo you asshole
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hahahahahhahah lolololololololololololololololol
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BAHAHAH! what are we laughing at here?
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More like World of Warcrap hahahahahahahahaha
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I think it was pretty obvious when the game first came out, that an expansion to hit level 100, was just a matter of time.
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I really like the way Rift has done their endgame. You hit 50, but there's still tons of room to continue gaining xp and using it to get incrementally stronger. I'm not sure if they have plans for a "proper"expansion at some point though.
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Rift helped me kick my WoW habit for awhile.
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WARLOCKS CAN TANK!?!?! WAAAAAAY COOL! I know there was like two or three fights in BC where you needed a Warlock to tank, but to make them an actual tank is pretty badass.
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