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The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsSurprises may loom in Wrath
by Amanda Miller 
Jan 25th 2008 at 9:00AM
In the near future, World of Warcraft will be facing some hefty competition from the MMO world, from games such as Warhammer Online. Relmstein has asserted that "Lake Wintergrasp, one hero class, and ten more levels...can't hold up the expansion". Compared to what the competition will have to offer, if Blizzard doesn't up their ante, the launch of Wrath of the Lich King could get lost in the mix.
Of course, the expansion will also be including a new profession called inscription, as well as siege weapons, new NPC races, changeable hairstyles, new dances, and other interesting details.
Askander, a commenter, pointed out that pre-BC, Blizzard withheld the announcement about the "Shaman/Paladin faction swap" until late in the game, surprising many players. While some players may remain cautiously skeptical, Tigole has been on the forums hinting of bigger things to come.
What do you think? Does Blizzard have some dynamic plans in the works that they're not sharing for the upcoming expansion, or will they launch with only the announced features? Do you think they have underestimated their competition, or have grown distracted with development of their upcoming MMO and Starcraft 2?
Wrath did make Yahoo!'s list of the most anticipated games of 2008, and was the only expansion listed. Can Wrath live up to our expectations without added features?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Expansions, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Lizardking63 Jan 25th 2008 10:46AM
One big change that I think would keep people or get some back would be to allow cross faction transfers. Allow people the chance to go from Horde to Alliance or Alliance to Horde...would it really be that hard?
Ryan Jan 25th 2008 11:09AM
I would love to see this, alliance need more Tauren.
Xeren Jan 25th 2008 1:59PM
I agree, although, i think that the alliance on the outside, horde on the inside people (probably most of the alliance readers of wowinsider, including me) would make a mad rush to the horde, and then the alliance would be left with nothing but the most annoying, uninformed, "noobish" of alliance players. BG's would be even worse, population ratios would shift from 2:1 to 1:5.
It would be madness! I still want it though :)
Varus Jan 25th 2008 10:51AM
I thought that was already confirmed by a blue forum post.
There will be another "gear equalizer", so all your Outlands gear shall be replaced by Northrend greens at the start zones.
Why on earth should they give you freebie factions? Of course all new factions will have to start from 0. Argent Dawn will be active in Northrend, but I bet none of the Azeroth AD rep is usable there.
Grind, grind, grind :-)
I'm sure they've saved some surprises and I'm sure they'll save some just for couple of days before launch, they've done this before and they know how a game/expansion is released.
Varus Jan 25th 2008 10:52AM
Hum, that was actually reply to #19 on page one. Strange.
TeragX Jan 25th 2008 10:57AM
Im thinking we are going to get another hero class before the game releases, as well as atleast an announcement about new races, as said before this new content is great but BC had so much more to offer, new races, new zones, new profession, faction specific class swap, and the whole lot. I would hope they give us a new race with this expansion, but another hero class would work just as well.
Todd Jan 25th 2008 11:02AM
C'mon, when can we mount dragons and have whole air battles against the Blue Dragonflight?
Jack Kelly Jan 25th 2008 11:19AM
*Some* kind of mounted combat would be cool.
I asked on the forums quite a long time ago if there'd be a "surprise" or two coming our way but alas, got no real reply.
I agree that there does need to be something bigger than what they've already announced with all of the big-name games on the horizon.
Expect more Warhammer delays though. End of the year maybe.
Richard Jan 25th 2008 11:11AM
What I'd like to see:
1. A PvP BG that incorporates flying mounts.
2. Way more than changeable hairstyles, a la CoH/V. Why not let people have the ability to "dye" the color of their gear so they don't look like they stepped out of clown school?
3. More cross-faction cooperation... maybe a zone where both Horde and Alliance have to work together to complete a goal, down a world boss or something?
4. More world bosses, for that matter... there were way more in the original game than in TBC.
5. Some focus on the "lost" areas of the game: Grim Batol, Uldum, the Emerald Dream... maybe have the Red Dragonflight in GB offer "bounties" or quests for killing Blue Dragonflight mobs in Northrend?
Dave Jan 25th 2008 12:49PM
The dragonflights aren't at war...
black isn't friendly to anyone anymore, but that's just due to deathwing going insane. Green is corrupted, but that's just a few and definitely not all the dragons. Blue is fine, Red is fine, Bronze is fine.
Now, not all of them appreciate non-dragons at all... which is a completely different thing. They're the guardians of Azeroth and for the most part they've all got good reasons to hate most of the player races and especially most of the NPC races that are currently screwing up the planet. The corrupted/enslaved/etc dragons are an anomaly compared to the general dragon population, but all the dragons are friendly with each other except for the Black dragonflight. (who used to be the protector/earth dragons, but now they're just pretty much evil destruction dragons...)
Xeren Jan 25th 2008 2:13PM
I heard a while ago on one of the Wow podcasts, either the Instance or World of Warcast, that the way that Blizz built the armor models in the game would make it a gigantic hassle to allow people to change their color- they would have to go back and update every single piece of armor to do so.
Not sure if this is a "making the old world flying mountable" big task or not, but that's what i've heard.
Richard Jan 25th 2008 2:30PM
@Xeren:
Blizzard has proven time and time again that stuff that "can't be done" is actually doable, but they don't want to put the programming hours into it.
Why don't they really want flying mounts in Azeroth? Because all of the off-limits areas are so poorly rendered or literally just flat spaces that it would be embarrassing for them... so instead of re-rendering areas that are effectively useless, they just say, "no, can't do it" and leave it at that.
It's literally a beancounting thing: They decide if X hours of programming time at Y dollars per hour is better spent creating fully customizable gearsets or working on the latest and greatest instance/zone/expansion. And shipping new product which means more sales will always win. Boatloads of profit or not, they still have a budget over there and a finite number of hours in which to code things.
It sucks, as ultimately a lot of things go unfinished or forgotten.
But it was just my personal wish-list, feasible or not.
Xeren Jan 25th 2008 2:55PM
Yeah, I understood all that, that's why i said that blizz said it would be a hassle to do, not impossible. They just don't think it's worth their time.
My whole post was about the amount of effort required to do it, which is why i made reference to the flying mount thing, which is also a matter of effort.
Not to be a jerk, but did you read my post at all?
meltface Jan 25th 2008 11:14AM
What I would like to see at the very least is to be able to mail soulbound items to your alts. Even if you can't use them if you could just get them out of your main bank it would helpful. I have pvp marks, hala tokens, other various rep items, old gear I can't bear to part with, etc. No way I'm going to ditch my current current gear I've worked so hard for and have been wearing for so long and I already don't have enough bank space. Larger bags even by just a couple of slots would be nice too. A third profession would be awesome especially if they continue to force us to take one in particular for good gear, ie Frozen Shadoweave Set.
bloodlight Jan 25th 2008 7:35PM
Of course tahye caould actually make an effort at making true Balence in PVP. In one on one play, with two toons of = level, an in equal level gear, the fight should come dow to the skill of the player, not a My class alwasy win, your class always looses sytem that we have now,
In addition severly penalise high level players that think it is fun to stiomp on toon 20 levels below them and them camp on the corpse. for example, whenyou initiate combat level asre checked, and if you are more that 5 levels higher than the opponent you get a 10% debiff to all stats, damage healing and armour per level beyond those first 5. so at 15 levels you would have 100% debuff. Make the debuf last for an hour. Ganking of lowbies for fun would end real qick
hoviboy Jan 25th 2008 12:05PM
grim batol, tol barad, uldum, naxxramas v.2, stormwind vault, nazjatar.
emerald dream.
Brian Jan 25th 2008 12:09PM
Seeing as they haven't said how characters will change from 70-80 there could indeed be some interesting changes. I mean aside form the obvious BC brought 3 summonable elementals to Mages and Shamans. A new demon for Warlocks and a big change for hunters was Misdirect which changed a lot of how we pulled.
Then there will be bound to be new mounts. Hell you might even see a faster land mount than the current epic one. Remember our beloved space-goats?
Death Knights will be huge and they will hold off Warhammer. Both Warhammer and Warcraft were Tolkien derivatives when they began ad since then they have gone their own way. Around the time of WH 2nd edition it was a very cartoony game but GW ditched that, whereas Blizz and warcraft carried on with it. There are so many models that have very similar looks to Citadel and Marauder miniatures.
WotLK also has one very important factor, we already have characters at max level who can look Uber with less effort than starting a new game at level one. What WH will gain from is the impending exploding payers who will no doubt get frustrated by the next 10 levels and beginning to raid again. Many people burnt out last time and if there is a good alternative they may try it. But also bear in mind that Wow has 2 factions so it is very easy to burn out on one faction and begin again on the other.
I don't think WoW has anything to worry about. And due to it's being around at such a high level for so long it would take a lot for people to jump ship. In sufficient numbers. If WoW dropped a million players that would seem significant but even then they'd still have 9 million. To start a game on WoW's level would take a massive outlay.
The best thing any company could do for a new MMO would be to keep it simple and keep it bug free. If a company can say "we didn't shrink your shoulder pads/weapon/ head/butt with our new patch" then they will be doing well.
The big thing WoW needs to avoid is becoming overly complicated. If they were to add a big surprise beyond skills and talents it should be a pay service for starting your character at 50 like the DKs so if your buddy is rolling a DK you can start a new alt with him at the same level at the same time.
Dave Jan 25th 2008 12:35PM
the CM's have already said that the development team thinks mounts are too fast as-is, so I wouldn't hold my breath for a faster than epic ground mount.
we'll get new ones, but not faster ones.
Jesse Jan 25th 2008 12:14PM
I think people have a tendency to ascribe too much "goodness" to the MMO's that are on the horizon. Nothing before WoW was able to get even a tenth of WoW's subscription base (except maybe Lineage in South Korea??) and it seems reasonable be skeptical that any of the "new" MMO's will repeat that singular success.
With that in mind, I don't think the expansion needs more than 10 more levels, a hero class, and tons more content (not including the content to be released in 2.4) in order to fend off new MMO suitors. Age of Conan and Warhammer may siphon off a few hundred thousand players but that is still a drop in the bucket to Blizzard.
So far there seems there is only so far to go when designing an MMO, such that it will take a technology advancement (eg. true virtual reality) to supplant WoW from the MMO throne.
Every month it is the FOTM to pick an upcoming MMO that will "kill" WoW. The picks keep coming, but WoW remains triumphant.
Rich Jan 25th 2008 12:27PM
I do certainly hope there is more they are holding back. So far the stuff released on WotLK is blah at best. Its more of the same, sure there is some neat things there but its not really anything new or interesting. People will disagree but unless there is something new and cool they are holding back, WotLK is not for me.