Blizzcon
Thursday, July 26th, 2007 - 7:58pm
Hey I was looking over the notes on the different press releases and so far blizzard has said they are going to announce a new project. They said its not a WoW expansion because they are already making that, it's not SC: Ghost because that project is still postponed indef., they have already announced SC2, and they said they were done with the Warcraft universe in terms of new games for a while. Go ahead and speculate what you guys think it could be.
My personal prediction is that they will be bringing another installment from the diablo universe to the PC. Either that or it's a completely new franchise. What do you think?
PSN ID: Harbinger01
Steam ID: [GWJ] CrashedHardrive
Elysium wrote:
I want to make babies with Diablo III.
I'm hoping for Diablo III - as long as they don't cop out and make it a pay-to-play MMO. I would kill them for that.
"I'm absolutely retarded. Not 100% sure why." - atom
"Dhelor + intarwebs = Great ideas." - wordsmythe
"Do I what I do: hate everyone." - Quintin_Stone
I posted about this over in MMORPG land, but I honestly think that if they announce D3, it'll be a lot like D2, only with prettier graphics, possibly built on the WoW engine.
If that's not it, then I really don't have a clue. Perhaps something new and unheard of? Maybe they're going back to Lost Vikings for a sequel!
Yea, I got nothin.
Coldstream wrote:
What no Diablo MMO? It has the storyline for it and the uber numbers of demons and dungeons.
Prederick wrote:
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis.
Ooh, you know what? I bet they could use the SC2 engine to power D3. Think about it: it's a new 3d engine, already designed to scale to various system specs, and is coded to handle massive numbers of mobs onscreen. That's pretty much Diablo right there; just change around the interface & controls (easy enough to do, especially if they planned that from the start).
As long as it wasn't a pay-to-play (unless it's like the Hellgate model of optional premium subscription) I'd be all over that.
All I really want to see is info on the next WoW expansion; if they're serious about releasing one a year, they must be very far along indeed - they've got less than half a year left to get it out.
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
I want Northrend, $#@& it all!
I know nothing of Warcraft lore, including this Northrend you speak of.
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
Everytime someone says this, I jam a fork into my eye.
I'm not really a girl. I just play one in video games.
My WotLK Beta Blog
Elysium wrote:
Why?
I've played my Pally from 1-63, absorbing whatever lore they've thrown at me. I've got a decent stable of alts, although the highest is just 29. If there's anything I don't know that I should, I'm calling bad game design on Blizzard. WoW seems (I don't know, not having played WC 1-3) to take place in a world rich in history, and that history doesn't seem to matter much in WoW. It's a richer experience for those who have played the previous games by far, but what about people like me who don't play RTSes, and just wanted an MMO? What about people like my wife, who started in order to play with me?
Games, especially multiplayer games, are not like books - you have to design them understanding that a significant percentage of your audience has not experienced the earlier works. If it weren't so, then your sales from generation to generation would only decline through attrition, and could never increase. WoW has obviously outdone the Warcraft games in terms of sales, so it has to be the full experience all by itself. I'm actually constantly frustrated that so much of the "story" of WoW is untold - you interact with important characters without even knowing it.
Also: I looked up Northrend on WoWwiki, and I have to say, I don't like playing in snowy areas. I think I'm a little too immersed in the world, and I hate the cold.
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
Northrend is where the Arthas (the Lich King) and the Scourge has been relegated. Much of the lore of the northern part of the Eastern Kingdoms owes greatly to the story of Warcraft 3, which involved the uprising of the Scourge and the subsequent destruction of Lordaeron (where the undead capitol city is located in WoW, after the Forsaken fought back against the Scourge over the course of WC3's expansion, the Frozen Throne).
Much of the lore involving the Scourge is through the Human & Undead racial quests, as well as much of the quests, instances, and lore around the Plaguelands in WoW.
Northrend has been in the works for WoW since the beginning, if design docs and such are any indication. However, I'm sure it won't all look like Dun Morogh, despite the "frozen northern continent" theme.
Besides, Fed, you play a paladin. You should be drooling at the prospect of an expansion set in the area that would make you most effective. 
Eh, I'd rather we see more aliens.
Seriously, what I most want out of the next WoW expansion are new classes, followed by new races.
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
I second that, and also note that I'd love to see a true expansion of level 1-70 (or whatever the cap may be raised to) content. I always point back to it as an example, but it's a good one: The Ruins of Kunark, EQ's first expansion, still remains one of the best expansions I've ever seen for an MMO. Solid content for players of all level ranges, even though a lot of it was geared towards the higher end players to extend their enjoyment of the game. Echoes of Faydwer for EQ2 is another with the same design principle.
I'd even be happy with new talent trees for all the existing classes if they don't want to come up with several new classes.
As for the other rumored title, Diablo 3, my desires for that are pretty simple. Give me Diablo 2's gameplay again, just refined and with more content. I don't want a revolutionary title for Diablo 3, just a reasonably evolutionary title. I don't want a new experience, I want an experience that recaptures everything I loved about the first two games and then some.
I'll take my new experiences elsewhere and try them out.
At least with Hellgate: London, it looks like I'm getting a new take on Diablo that may just be awesome fun.
What I'd like to see is a new areas to level from 20-58.
Also, Fed, did you ever stop in the game to read the hundreds of books in various libraries and instances you end up in through the course of the game?
(@)
You much like myself probably never read a single bit of quest text
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
Quest... text?
What is this you speak of?
Skriss: lvl 70 undead mage - Bloodhoof
Kyrator: lvl 63 night elf rogue - Blackhand
Thadryn: lvl 70 draenei mage - Blackhand
Things like this are why Mord wants to jam a fork in his eye. A great deal of the draw for a lot of the initial group that got into WoW was the Warcraft world itself. These people, whom I count myself among, just without the eye stabbing tendencies, enjoy the lore. They're the reasoning behind all the retcon complaints, the 'Blizzard destroyed the lore' rants and so forth.
All in all, I'm fine with the fact that there are people out there who are in it for the loot, the challenge(well, if they're here for that, then I feel bad for them), and getting noticed by everyone who follows high end raiding. It's their choice to do what they do. I just think that if you haven't played some of the old RTS games, then you're doing yourself an injustice; they're some of the better RTS games made.
Coldstream wrote:
I should have tacked a smiley on mine, I actually read the stuff. While I like the lore aspects, I also try not to become invested in it. I fully realize that Blizzard owns it and will twist it until it fits whatever the current goals of the product are.
Skriss: lvl 70 undead mage - Bloodhoof
Kyrator: lvl 63 night elf rogue - Blackhand
Thadryn: lvl 70 draenei mage - Blackhand
I sit here reading this while reading The Demon Soul, book two of the War of the Ancients trilogy.
Actually I'll just stab your eye instead of mine.
XBox Live|Tshirts|xfire | Last.fm
I suppose I should have prefixed that with my thoughts aren't for you so much as people with that mindset. Folks that ignore quest text make me stabby, especially when they can't be arsed to read the log to figure out what they're doing when the quest text details it practically step by step.
As to the lore, I don't feel like Blizzard has ever really crapped on it at all. There's a few things that could have been done differently, but I find it unrealistic to expect them to plan out everything they're going to do from the start to the finish of the IP. A good example of this is Azeroth itself. Originally, Azeroth was nothing more than Stormwind, Lordaeron, Quel'thalas, Black Morass, Blackrock Spire and Ironforge. STV didn't exist, the Plaguelands didn't exist, and Kalimdor? Not even a gleam in the eye of Metzen and Samwise.
Ultimately, I think that the lore is going to expand and evolve; what we thought it was isn't going to stay the same. Overall, it's like a mystery novel really. What you think is happening isn't really what's going on.
Coldstream wrote:
Moondragon - I didn't read any of the books; I consider that design decision to extremely stupid. Who wants to stop in the middle of playing a game to read a poorly-written short story? In the middle of an instance run in Scarlet Monastery or Stratholme, while the rest of the group waits? More on this when I get to Edwin.
GG - I would say I've read half of the quest text, probably. The problem is, so much of it is completely uninteresting that they reinforce the act of skipping it. My wife actually reads it far less than myself, and says she hates games that force you to go around talking to people.
Edwin - I've actually wanted to get a better handle on WoW lore (since it's not in the game, to a large degree) and have looked into the books, because although I hate the idea of stopping my gameplay to read an in-game book, I do love reading. What book would you suggest starting with, and can you assure me that it's not just fan-fiction in book form?
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
My thoughts, too. Probably why i tend to read the quest notes for LOTRO more, even though it mostly seems to be about pies.
"The real toy is imagination, it turn sticks into sword, chairs & blankets into forts and kids into heroes." - RedJen
XBox Live / PSN: jonnypolite | twitter
Lol looks like I seemed to have inadvertedly bridged a gap between the console forum and mmorpg forum. Yeah I agree that they will probably keep D3 in the same style of gameplay as before and this of course means free online through b.net. In all honesty though they have the makings of a great MMO on their hands with D3. Storyline, characters, I mean the skill point system screams similarity with the talent point system of WoW. I for one will love the game in either case and both styles would be a great addition to blizzards aresenal of great games.
The Gaming Chronicles
PSN ID: Harbinger01
Steam ID: [GWJ] CrashedHardrive
Elysium wrote:
That's probably because they simply lifted wholesale the design of three skill trees per class with a variety of skills to place points in, and dropped it into WoW with some tweaking & refining of the design (and making them "talents", enhancements to level-gained abilities, rather than outright skills).
Blizzard cannibalizes their previous games for new ones all the time, and that's fine with me, because they usually result in good designs.
WoW Lore:
The Wars -
http://www.wowwiki.com/First_War
http://www.wowwiki.com/Second_War
http://www.wowwiki.com/Third_War
The Games -
http://www.wowwiki.com/Warcraft:_Orcs_%26_Humans
http://www.wowwiki.com/Warcraft_II:_Tides_of_Darkness
http://www.wowwiki.com/Warcraft_III:_Reign_of_Chaos
http://www.wowwiki.com/Warcraft_III:_The_Frozen_Throne
The 'You Need to Know These' People -
http://www.wowwiki.com/Titan
http://www.wowwiki.com/Old_Gods
http://www.wowwiki.com/Dragon
http://www.wowwiki.com/Medivh
http://www.wowwiki.com/Sargeras
http://www.wowwiki.com/Kil'jaeden
http://www.wowwiki.com/Archimonde
http://www.wowwiki.com/Arthas
http://www.wowwiki.com/Thrall
http://www.wowwiki.com/Ner'zhul
http://www.wowwiki.com/Malfurion_Stormrage
http://www.wowwiki.com/Illidan_Stormrage
The Places -
http://www.wowwiki.com/Northrend
http://www.wowwiki.com/Draenor
Forgot Gul'dan, Ogrim Doomhammer, King Llane, The Alliance Expedition, Utherlightbringer, Warchief Blackhand, so look all them up too.
I'm not really a girl. I just play one in video games.
My WotLK Beta Blog
Elysium wrote:
Many things to consider.
If you want a summary go here.
Here is the order of books I would read. This is in chronological order of story telling.
I got this from the official timeline.
Warcraft I introduced the basic conflict between the orcs and humans, as well as the characters of Medivh, Llane, Garona and Lothar.
Warcraft II expanded the world beyond the Kingdom of Azeroth (later known as Stormwind by the time of WoW), to include Khaz Modan and Lordaeron. The dwarves, high elves, trolls, goblins, and the Burning Legion were introduced, as well as a host of new characters.
Warcraft III expanded the world yet again, introducing the continents of Kalimdor and Northrend, a detailed backstory chronicling the creation of the world of Azeroth, and several races, including the night elves, the tauren, and the Scourge.
World of Warcraft has continued this trend, allowing the players to experience nigh all of the colossal world as no more than one of the many little players.
The manuals for all the games included a lot of backstory too and you can find transcripts here. There are also three new books coming out soon.
XBox Live|Tshirts|xfire | Last.fm
Mord, Edwin, you guys are my heroes of Azeroth!
And here is a good thing to understand some changes:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Retcon
I'm not really a girl. I just play one in video games.
My WotLK Beta Blog
Elysium wrote:
I've accidentally read a lot of the lore on WoWWiki.
McChuck wrote:
I'd have to reinstall to be 100% sure but i think they shown they'd change their lore just on popular opinion. Seems like they put stuff into WoW that was introduced from the DOTA(defense of the ancients) mod.
Gamer Tag: Rantyr
I don't recall where I saw this at, but there was an interview with Metzen, who is the head of Blizzard's "Lore" dept. He's basically in charge of putting the storyline for WoW, and Warcraft in general. He's the guy that shoehorns changes in. I think that if something was put forth that could fit, and sounded good, even if it took retcon to do it, then he'd do it. Popular demand has been shown time and time again to have no effect on development of Blizzard games in any way, shape or form.
Coldstream wrote: