. And here is my biggest wager yet!…or as I like to call them Tumors. Sorry for the “no posts in a month” stretch but I really hadn’t felt moved to post on anything as of late. But seeing how today is the first day of Blizzcon, I must post something
I’d like to sound off on my opinions of the rumors flying around about wow’s next expansion. I see as I type that I might have made a pun… I don’t like to spread rumors really on wow. Only things that have come from Blizzard and can be proving are what I like to leak. If you look way back in my first blog posts…I had a few posts about WotLK Alpha. I only did that because I saw rather believable screenshots and videos on the game. Rumors that come from forums and non wow websites however…that’s another story.
I doubt any readers will remember this story but I can recall about 3-4 years ago reading a huge “leaked patch notes” forum post about WoW’s new hero class system. Every class would (at level 60 mind you) have an option to split off into a new hybrid type class…Mages for instance would become sorcerers or wizards….or maybe arch mage. Anyway it doesn’t matter. Things were just too grandiose for even Blizzard and obviously as time went on, it was proven to be a fake. I think that might be what we’re seeing here with these rumors being posted. Yes I believe there will be a new expansion posted today at Blizzcon but I don’t think every rumor will become true.
Level cap: I don’t think that Blizzard is ready to release an expansion without increasing the level cap yet. But the rumor is that it won’t be a full 10 levels but only 5. This one I buy. We don’t always have to jump 10 levels at a time to progress. The spells and abilities are getting hard to balance as is. I think by level 85 all classes should have 1-2 more “new” abilities and call that good. And 5 new talent points shouldn’t break the talent trees too much anyway.
Azeroth Redux: Maybe…Blizzard has said they just don’t have the time or the energy to redo Azeroth for everyone. This is why we don’t have flying there yet. Yet. I could see that if they don’t spend tons and tons of time on new zones, they could remodel Azeroth for flying. This would allow them to release new zones with content patches.
Old Dungeon Redux: remake of old dungeons? Perhaps. High levels would get bored in old azeroth with nothing to raid but again this goes back to blizzard saying “we are not doing heroic versions of old instances”. Blizzard has changed their mind in the past and may yet again if they have the time.
New race/class combos: Ehhhh….why? What’s the point in this? Racials are nerfed anyway (aside from NE druid shadow meld/flight combo >:-|) and if you really wanted to all you would have to do is pay for a race change (which I believe is inevitable at this point). But it does meld with the revamp of Azeroth. Redoing zones and adding in new quest hubs (like they did with mudsprocket) will give a reason to level a new Undead hunter.
New races: What? Data mined masks? You got to be kidding me. This is another…what’s the point? We’ve had the same Halloween masks for 4+ years now. It was time for new ones. Add in that the worgen zone had been hinted at opening up for sometime it made it all too easy for people to flip out and assume we’re getting new races. But factor in that the rumor said Alliance Worgen will have to forms? Human and Shape shifted? You start to see that things are sounding too good to be true. This would mean that Blizzard would have to retro fit all the armor models to fit on these two new races. I don’t think they feel like doing that at this moment. In past we heard talk of dryads but the “retrofit the armor” topic squashed that idea. Same with murlocs but even they atleast had someone creatively mock up a character selection screen.
Huge lore upsets: I’m not going to delve into these atm but some sounded a bit too close to fan fiction to me. I mean blizzard has the right to rewrite their lore as they see fit (retcon draenei anyone?) but some of these steps are complete abandonment of characters. Doesn’t seem to fit.
So there are my votes on what I cared to chime in on. I wanted to get this out so I could get something in writing before I’m proven wrong on all accounts . And here is my biggest wager yet!
I’m betting on Cataclysm not being a new WoW expansion! DUMMM DAA DUMMMMMM! What do you want to bet it turns out to be the new WoW movie title or maybe there uber secret next Gen MMO? We’ll find out in a few hours I suppose.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Right under the wire there. That's probably the last pre-expansion announcement post anyone will manage.
yep…i'm late to all my raids too
But I wanted to toss in my pointless opinion so it could be smashed to bits in a few.
*prepares hammer*
I don't follow you on your argument against new race/class combos. Changing your race has nothing to do with this rumor. It's about classes opening up to races that can't already have them. Tauren Paladin (the one causing the most fits right now) for instance. You can't just pay for a race change and make that happen because they've already told us that race changes can only be made to a race that already fits your class. So you can't make a NElf druid become an Undead because the undead can't be druids.
I'm not one to buy into rumors much, so as far as I'm concerned I don't care what people have said. I live by the patch notes.
I was point out that the differences between what race you choose for what class you want to play has dwindled over time with the ever changing game. I'm just saying that these new combos are nothing exciting to me. I would imagine with the character recustomization they offer along with faction change, I could see them doing a pay for race change in the future.
though I havent seen any of Blizzcon I have heard of a lot about new expansions, races, and hero classes, but I never thought they'd add new class/race combinations, i mean come on, a Tauren Paladin? How does that fit into WoW with Paladins being protectors of the Alliance? Though the BEs picked up on it, but they were part of the Alliance, so it makes sense. Anyways I read on WoWwiki that Cataclysm was an idea but that that an Emerald Dream expansion was more likley. I dont mind some new combos, it can change the usually combos we see so much of, though they do need to make sense. I have wondered why Humans couldnt be hunters. either way wiill just have to wait and see.
Yeah I have trouble swallowing some of their new class/race combos. I can see that Blizzard thought Horde needed another race to be Paladins other then BE. In lore the blood elves "Stole" the secrets of the light to become "Blood Knights" and not true Paladins (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/tow… And in all of the left over races of Horde….Tauren seem to be the most "noble" in my opinion.
Night Elf mages though? The Elves who used arcane magic were the high elves who grew corrupt with its power and thus caused the great sundering of azeroth in the first place. This one seems to make the least sense to me. The Devs explained that they felt it might be cool for a few "fringe" night elves to fall back into the old ways.
When all is said and done…Blizzard isn't really bound by their own Lore…they can rewrite it as they see fit. And they just wanted to give more flavor to the classes I suppose.
I thought the same thing when I read most of what was posted on mmo-champion, and wow.com. Yet I watched on the sites JUST to see if I would be wrong…..and I was…Immediately though, I decided I was rolling a Goblin Mage. yum….
Yes I chose to post this after I read those rumors as well. And I wanted to get it in before any Official announcements so I wasn't influenced by them. My opinions still stand though. I can't see why they made some choices and I do see reason in others. I am excited about some "unleaked" info that was revealed at Blizzcon though. I plan on posting those thoughts next.