World of Warcraft: Legion (7.3.5 edition)

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Official site (also wowlegion.com)

Official Blizzard press release on release date and features

Major new features:

* New Hero Class — Demon Hunter.

* Artifact Weapons — Class-specific weapons of lore

* New Continent — The Broken Isles. Lots of night elf stuff plus the Emerald Nightmare

* Boost to Level 100 — just like WoD's boost to 90; available now if you pre-order.

* Class Hall — Gathering spot for classes (horde and ally together, apparently), with class-specific (group/class?) missions

* New PvP Honor System — I don't care what they do as long as we still get to kill orcs.

... plus the usual assortment of new zones, new instances, etc. etc.

An hour and a half to go
This should be a great popcorn moment either way. (either they will do something noteworthy or revolutionary or it will be 45 minutes of Metzen hype soapbox posturing)

Given their habit of recycling initials, let's go for..

World of Warcraft: Last of the Vulturegizzards

WoW: Throw a Bone to the 3 people that like the Undead.

TheGameguru wrote:

WoW: Throw a Bone to the 3 people that like the Undead.

I'm one!

The undead starter zone is my favorite non-dwarf zone because dwarves, as everyone must admit, are The Best WoW Race.

Seriously, though, the undead story makes some sense if you play through the starting zone. Why they're Horde and not some third faction is more a gameplay thing than a lore thing. (They hate all the other races pretty much equally.)

Ok, I don't know why twitch bothers having a comment section for things like this.
Just a scrolling wall of crap.

This presentation has lots of callbacks to prior content. "Remember Black Temple?" "Remember Dalaran?" It feels like they are doubling down on current subscribers.

I love the one legendary bow that you can upgrade... to having a bow string!

It looks interesting, but I'm holding my excitement for more info.

Aristophan wrote:

This presentation has lots of callbacks to prior content. "Remember Black Temple?" "Remember Dalaran?" It feels like they are doubling down on current subscribers.

I wouldn't read too much into it, when you have this much background to work with, a new expansion that didn't involve a large amount of existing material would seem artificial. It's also following the pattern of previous expansions, they've all been callbacks to existing lore to some degree or another, Warlord of Draenor was exactly that in a massive way.

Redwing wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

This presentation has lots of callbacks to prior content. "Remember Black Temple?" "Remember Dalaran?" It feels like they are doubling down on current subscribers.

I wouldn't read too much into it, when you have this much background to work with, a new expansion that didn't involve a large amount of existing material would seem artificial. It's also following the pattern of previous expansions, they've all been callbacks to existing lore to some degree or another, Warlord of Draenor was exactly that in a massive way.

Lots of flashbacks in this MMO-Champion compilation.

My favorite: Ret Paladin - Seek out Ashbringer

I'm in!

using the rhock'delar again will be fun

Prestige levels in pvp...

i'm sooo f*cked!

Moved on down.

Reaper81 wrote:

Beta this year.

You see a release date in there anywhere? My guess is September 2016, based on past Blizzard history and the fact that there's the usual amount of new stuff here. New hero class and new PvP talent system (essentially a third spec for everyone) will require a ton of tuning.

One thing that jumps out at me: a lot more emphasis on class. The paladin class has a ton of lore associated with it, and I can't wait to see how Blizzard revives this.

Beta this year. Another year plus of WoD content? The WoD launch on live was underwhelming so I've little optimism for Broken Isles pre-expac launch.

I'm having really mixed reactions to this expansion. My thoughts are heavily filtered through the WOD experience so I'm not really trusting that even half of the stuff Blizz demo'd will make it to live. For instance, we never got the Faralon zone or Shattrath raid. Cosmetic armor "flair" disappeared, etc.

They pretty much took all the systems and raid content they've had on the drawing board for years and put it into a single expansion. Artifacts = Path of the Titans, Emerald Nightmare, Demon Hunters, etc.

There's been decent discussion about whether this is the end for WoW. I'd like them to scrub the narrative through a "Titan Reorigination" event and completely relaunch the story world.

edit: I'm also tempted to try and find some of the old posts from Bear back in BC and Wrath in which he laid out all the reasons why PvE and PvP needed to split in exactly the way Blizz just did.

Yeah, I'm ambivalent too. Certainly looks good and has a lot of potential, but I'll remain cautious on the optimism until we're closer to release and we see what has been cut.

Edit:

Also, I'm curious about this claim from Blizzard:

Everyone who has played WoW is going to be shocked.

I have a sneaking suspicion that no, I'm not going to be shocked. The only thing that might shock me is if the world of Azeroth is fully overhauled again during Legion the way it was with Cataclysm, and only because I could swear Blizzard said that they didn't really see that being worth the work again.

Meh.

I am just completely confused by all the tidbits released.
If they seemed like they could manage a new hero class a year, I would be more excited about the one new hero class, Demon Hunter. Two hero classes in 10 years? One new regular class in 10 years?

Another odd thing is demon hunters were only shown as elves (night or blood). This can't be true... Female gnome demon hunter 4life!

Only two demon hunter talent specs? Because reasons? Oh wait they couldn't imagine a healer spec for a demon hunter. So a pet spec, ranged spec, elemental spec, debuff spec are not options?

One of the dungeons was labeled a "level up" dungeon. What the hell does that mean? Scaling content? Scaling content for 60+, 40+, 90+?

Glyphs for weapons?

Warden prison, warden lore/story, resurrecting illidan, reference to my favorite Warcraft character maiev shadowsong (sp?) but... no warden class? Nelfurion, Turalyon, Alleria, etc get brought back but no Maeiv?

Suraman City was basically setup as genocide. Here are these elves. They have shielded themselves for 10,000 years and have crazy magic. They are influenced recently by Guldan. Oh and they have the last artifact we need for the pillar of creation so... annihilate them? WTF

Also, what they showed was a lot of screenshots and rudimentary gameplay. This seems a long way off.

There's been decent discussion about whether this is the end for WoW. I'd like them to scrub the narrative through a "Titan Reorigination" event and completely relaunch the story world.

They could have done this with the Emerald Dream but instead we get a raid.

This looks like a weird mix of Burning Crusade and Wrath.

Also, Gul'dan is involved, which means he obviously doesn't die this expansion. It also means they may not fully resolve the alternate history storyline...

Also, thanks to their time-traveling shenanigans, I have no idea when this is set - Gul'dan finds Illidan locked away? Which means it takes place slightly before WC3, except on Azeroth.

EDIT: Oh. The setup is that after Ilidan is defeated at the Black Temple, the Wardens took his body back to Azeroth and locked it away.

AcidCat wrote:

Meh.

As much as I don't want to agree with this, I have to. It's enticing, but the expansion coming out for Star Wars: The Old Republic is much more appealing for me. And that's dropping in a couple of months.

fangblackbone wrote:

I am just completely confused by all the tidbits released.

Hence the year-long gap between announcement and release. I suspect Blizzard doesn't have a total handle on this, either.

Also, I demand glaives for my demon hunter. MAKE IT HAPPEN BLIZZARD.

Color me unimpressed. It just seems like way too much recycling. There's a new continent, but the introduction didn't really talk much about what is there. Where are the new characters? What are the new story highlights? Dalaran is back... what? Artifact weapons... what? Artifact weapons actually look like they might have interesting gameplay... artifacts... (sorry), but more than anything it looked to me like a whole lot more grinding for "artifact points" before you can do much customization. Also, despite the different looks, each talent spec is basically running around with the same weapon.

I was hungry for something really new, and I'm still hungry.

I was hungry for something really new, and I'm still hungry.

Like what?

TheGameguru wrote:
I was hungry for something really new, and I'm still hungry.

Like what?

That is the proverbial 64000$ question for MMOs in general since about the era of Wrath.

I'm looking forward to this a lot more than I was expecting to.

The weapon changes look really interesting, especially with the customization and building of it.

Right now, Blizzard's raid and dungeon team are doing some incredible work, and that doesn't look like it's changing. HFC and BRF bosses are amazingly well done... and I can't wait until we start getting into Mythic HFC.

Demon hunter... I understand exactly why they're doing 2 specs for it. Tank + 2 DPS specs have been a nightmare to balance with DKs and Warriors. If you're DPSing, you don't really have a choice between either spec because they've never close. For DK's, you're either frost or unholy depending on the current patch, and if you're the wrong spec, you're losing out on a TON of DPS. Same with Fury and Arms warriors. So it makes sense to just keep it down to 2 specs. Not only is it easier to balance, but it's also much easier for players to pick up.

Xeknos wrote:

This looks like a weird mix of Burning Crusade and Wrath.

Also, Gul'dan is involved, which means he obviously doesn't die this expansion. It also means they may not fully resolve the alternate history storyline...

Um.... about that....

He escapes after you beat Archimonde.

One of the dungeons was labeled a "level up" dungeon. What the hell does that mean? Scaling content? Scaling content for 60+, 40+, 90+?

It means it's a dungeon you're going to run as you level up from 100 to 110. This isn't anything new.

If it really is a year until release, I would put money on WoW subs dropping to about 3 mil by April.

That said, I would probably come back for this, but pretty much in the same way as I did for WoD. Couple months on and off and unsub on the offs.

So does anyone know how much of the drop has been accounted for with WoW's version of PLEX?
Or do the sub number include total subs and not just real money subs?

Accounts active via tokens are included in the sub number.

Token subs are just as real for Blizzard anyway, or more so, considering a token costs more than the sub.

Not impressed by the expansion. Story-wise it might end up as the biggest progress since Lich King expansion, that is at least something. After 2 expansions that were mostly side stories, and another that just rearranged the world a bit.
None of it really felt that exiting though. maybe they should have added more of the South Sea than just a beefed up Broken Isle.

Artifact weapons or alternate advancement should have happened a long time ago (and kinda was announced, then scrapped, a long time ago), but it will likely be good for the game even if it arrives late. Somewhat seems like a wrong choice to tie it to weapons though, since that effectively removes a gear slot - arguably the most important gear slot - from the game. Understandable why they do it, weapons are the most iconic item, but on the other hand, that also means they are taking the most iconic items away from drops.
Wonder if they might be considering to go for a mix, where the actual weapon stats on the artifacts are increased through drops from dungeons, raids etc.

cube wrote:

I'm looking forward to this a lot more than I was expecting to.

The weapon changes look really interesting, especially with the customization and building of it.

Right now, Blizzard's raid and dungeon team are doing some incredible work, and that doesn't look like it's changing. HFC and BRF bosses are amazingly well done... and I can't wait until we start getting into Mythic HFC.

Demon hunter... I understand exactly why they're doing 2 specs for it. Tank + 2 DPS specs have been a nightmare to balance with DKs and Warriors. If you're DPSing, you don't really have a choice between either spec because they've never close. For DK's, you're either frost or unholy depending on the current patch, and if you're the wrong spec, you're losing out on a TON of DPS. Same with Fury and Arms warriors. So it makes sense to just keep it down to 2 specs. Not only is it easier to balance, but it's also much easier for players to pick up.

I wouldn't be heart broken if they dropped Rogues to two specs.

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