The goal is to combine new gameplay with most fun parts of the past. The plan is to get people back into the world, instead of having players roam around Stormwind and Orgrimmar all the time once they reach max level. Developers want you to do what you want to do to progress your character. They really want you to feel like you have a menu of content where you can pick whatever you want to do, and you shouldn't feel forced to do something to progress your character. For example, daily quests will reward you with valor points but it will still be faster if you raid of course. Character builds are going to be entirely revamped. Talents were still too cookie cutter, so the developers want to give players more choices in their talents.
Pandaria
5 New leveling zones to explore Single, unified continent Influenced by Asian landscapes AH, Bank, and Central Questing Hub No flying until max level There's 5 leveling zones but they are very large zones, and you won't have your flying mount.
Lore of Pandaria
A long, storied history. Magically hidden since The Sundering A new land to explore.... Pandaria was discovered during the cataclysm, a naval battle between horde and alliance was taking place close to it.
Pandaren starting zone
It's a turtle! It left Pandaria 10 000 years ago and never came back. Pandarens who wanted to discover the world left on that turtle. Story focused with simple mechanics Cross faction, choose Horde/Alliance at level 10.
Creatures of Pandaria
The Jinyu are fish-like creatures and will be in a wide number of zones. The Hozu are a monkey-like race, they stand up on their legs and can walk around. They play tons of pranks on the local pandarens and are also in a lot of zones. Verming are ... new kobolds, they kinda look like evil bunnies. Mantid: Whole raids and dungeons around this race. Insect race that has been there since the beginning of ages. They have been seperated by a giant wall. They are starting to go crazy and are going through the wall Mogu: Ancient race, original race on pandaria. The mogu want the island back from the pandaren, they are really mad. You will see them in dungeons. Sha: Manifestation of the evil energies that flow through the earth. If there is any sort of battle these guys pop up.
The Jade Forest
This is where Alliance and Horde will be landing. The horde is washing up on the north side, the alliance on the south side. There will be one unified start zone and Alliance/Horde will end up meeting up in the middle. Lush rainforests and stone spires The Alliance will try to become friend with the Hozu, and the Horde with the Jinyu and will try to turn them against each other. Temple of the Jade Serpent will be the dungeon of this zone. It will be your 85-86 Dungeon, it has been taken over by Sha
Valley of the Four Winds
Two zones for the price of one! This zone is huge, the whole north side of the zone is pandaren farmlands, the south is a coastal jungle. You will get to choose between the north side and the south side when you arrive. You can go back and switch side if you want the other quests. The dungeon of this zone is Stormstout Brewery. This is where you will have your first interaction with the Mantids, they broke through the wall and are now attacking pandarens villages. This is a level 86-87 zone
New Features
The pandarens are the new race. The female model isn't done yet. At level 10, you will get to choose between horde and alliance. Pandaren Classes: Hunter, Mage, Monk, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior Racial - Epicurean - Increase the stat benefits from food by 100% Racial - Gourmand - Cooking skill increased by 15. Racial - Inner Peace - Your rested experience bonus lasts twice as long. Racial - Bouncy - You take 50% less falling damage. Racial - Quaking Palm - You touch a secret pressure point on an enemy target, putting it to sleep for 3 sec.
Monk New Class
Brewmaster - Tank spec Mistweaver - Healer, a healer who can stand up in melee and will let players experience a "new healing style" Windwalker - Melee DPS This is not a hero class, and it will start at level 1 The class is very martial-arts based Lots of monk-only animations, the healer and tanks will have different stances they can stand in, etc ... Monk Races - All of them except Goblin and Worgens
Monk Equipment
Leather Armor (Agility or Intellect) They hit a lot with hands and feet They will need weapons for some finishers: Staves, Fist Weapons They will also be able to use 1H Axe and maces, swords Healers will get off-hands, they don't want healers to use shields.
Monk Resources
Chi (energy) slowly regenerates and is only used for your Jab and Roll abilities. Jab generates Light and Dark force, which are used for everything else. Some finishing move uses dark force, some use the light force. No auto attack! Devs want you to have this street fighter feel where you punch a lot
Cataclysm Talents
Pro - The level 10 specs were really nice and gave you a role early in the game, definitely a keeper. Pro - Removing junk from the talent trees was also a very good move. Pro - Having some kind of choices for optional skills/subspecs worked out pretty well. Con - You had a risk of "skipping" important talents Con - There wasn't enough junk removed Con - There wasn't enough choices, you might have a different final talent point than another combat rogue but it just wasn't enough. The cookie cutter build still persists. Con - No enough customization, no true hybridization (Using a little bit of 2 different trees) Con - Players got grumpy
Talent System 2.0
The talent system is gone! Ok, not really, but it's greatly changed. You now have your class abilities, your spec abilities, and your talents. You still choose your spec at level 10, and you get a spec ability at level 10. You will get additional spec abilities later. There are anything that you really need to function, they will just be given to you to make sure you have all the tools you need to have.
Example - Prot Paladin
LVL 10 - Avenger's Shield LVL 20 - Hammer of the Righteous (Prot and Ret) LVL 30 - Judgement of the Just (Passive)
Talents
There is not talent points or ranks. There is one talent pree per class. You earn talents every 15 levels. You get to choose 1 out of 3 every time you get a new point, you can only pick one of them and can't go back to get the other ones. There will be no mandatory talent. There won't be any cookie cutter build or anything, it will depend on what kind of optional ability you want. You can now change talents as easily as you change glyphs. More info in the Talent Tree Panel at 2:15
PvE Scenarios
PvE Scenarios are a way to give new interesting content that doesn't make sense in a dungeon content. Scenarios are more about reusing parts of the world in interesting new ways, and introducing new types of PvE gameplay that we've never seen before like PvE battlegrounds. They are short instances for a few players, the amount of players can vary depending on the scenario, some of them can be for 3 players. You don't need the typical tank/heal/dps setup, you will just be able to enter and play your role no matter what it is. It will be a staged experience where you will try to accomplish some greater goal For example, a scenario might require you to kill 25 kobolds in stage 1, then find and return 4 goldshire children, and then kill the boss. Developers would like to do PvE battlegrounds, where you will have to slay 50 alliance/horde soldiers, destroy 6 towers and the barracks, and then defeat the enemy General. They could replace group quests. It uses the same queue system as the dungeon finder Since there is no role requirements, queues should be instant.
Challenge Mode Dungeons
Complete a dungeon in x minutes To earn Bronze, Silver, Gold medals. Gear levels are normalized, all your gear will be brought to the same level to make the competition even. You can't just get better gear to overpower it. It will reward sweet looking gear with no stats, and valor points! Challenge Mode will reward you with very unique looking gear to show off how awesome you are to your friends A new challenge dungeons UI will be added, you will be able to check your medals, your ranking, show what rewards you can unlock, etc ....
Pet Battle System
You will be able to collect, level, and battle with companion pets. It will be accessible to all players. Works with almost every pet Pet Customization, you will be able to name your pet, give them visual abilities, etc ... There will be "Wild pets", you can find them in the world and engage in battle with them. You will then be able to get that pet and add it to your Pet Journal. Pets have random stats, some of them will be very good at tanking, some will have a CC ability, etc ... Some pets will only be found during a specific season, while it's raining, or during the day or the night. Some of them will only spawn in the spring, when it's raining, in elwynn forest at night! Most pets will become tradable, even after it's leveled, etc ... Pets will be account wide Your pet journal will display info on all your pets, including stats, skills, and also drop locations and lore info for the pets you don't have yet! Winning battles earns you experience, and levels your pets. You will learn new abilities. Every pet can use 3 abilities in a battle at one time. Every time you level you will also increase the stats of your pet. You will level multiple pets to build your team. You have 3 battle slots, one for each pet in your team.
Pet Battle System - Battle
PvE and PvP Battles It will be turn based. A simple combat system. Fight with a team of 3 pets Queuing system, you will be able to find a fight pretty fast depending on the level of your pets.
Pet Battle System - Customization
You will finally be able to name your pets, and see that name in battle. Items for your pets, you will have an item slot for your pet and might be able to socket gems in those items, etc ... Individual builds of abilities and different teams. Masters and Masters abilities, there will be different NPC pet masters in the world who will let you earn abilities when you beat them. For example, beating the master of mechanical pets will get you a new ability for your pet!
Dungeons
9 new dungeons in the new expansion 6 dungeons will be on Pandaria Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery (Wings 1 and 2) will be back in Heroic Mode
Raids 3 new Epic raids!
They will feature two enemy races, the Mogu and the Mantid. Raid Finder, Normal, and Heroic difficulties will be available for all raids from day 1. World raid bosses will return! More info will be available at the Raids & Dungeons Panel today.
Questing
Increased focus on max level content, it will reward you with Valor Points. Incentives for dungeons/raiders to run quests and do outdoor/daily kind of stuff. For example finishing a quest might give you a buff for the day, and maybe that buff will let you roll on a loot that only appears to people with that buff. More quest choices, and a lot less linear No flying until max level, it's much easier to keep people on the ground and create interesting quests when you know people won't just fly away and drop on the boss. Faction improvements, there will be group of factions and they will let you work for all factions from that group to get your rewards. This way you don't have to grind a single faction anymore.
PvP New Battlegrounds (Not final yet)
Stranglethorn Diamond Mines - Payload style gameplay. Valley of Power - Murderball Azshara Crater - DOTA New Arena - Tol'vir Proving Grounds
STV Diamond Mine
Goblin Mine below northern STV Payload style gameplay Escort mine cars to depot Multiple tracks, you will get a lot of options and you will be able to decide which way you want the cart to go. First to x resources wins
Valley of Power
Located in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms Murderball style gameplay Holding the object earns points Multiple point zones, depending on where you're hiding you will earn more/less points Object deals damage to holder Damage increases over time.
Tol'vir Proving Grounds - Arena
Located in Uldum Simple layout based on Nagrand arena Sense of place in the world Just a simple square with 4 pillars/statues, etc ...
Achievements
Allow achievements to be shared among all characters on the same Battle.net account, things such as the raid achievements and the ones which are difficult to get. Allows to include new achievements such as "get all the professions to the maximum level"
Major Class Changes Resilience
Devs like the way Resilience works in PvP, and how it gives a nice goal for players looking to progress/upgrade their gear in PvP Resilience is a pretty huge barrier for people who want to start PvPing. Resilience will become a base stat, and will increase a little every time you level.
Ranged Weapons
Hunter minimum range is gone! Hunter melee weapon is gone! Ranged slot for all other characters are gone. Relics are gone. Rogues and warriors can now throw their melee weapon Wands become main hand weapons
Warlock
Unique resource for each spec. Affliction will keep Soul Shards, they are currently not interesting enough but devs have cool ideas for them. Demonology will get Demonic Fury, you build up Demonic Fury and you metamorphosize when you max your Demonic Fury. More skills will be added to Demon Form, etc ... Destruction will get Infernal Embers. The destruction warlock who keeps getting casting fire spells get hotter and hotter and will eventually deal insane amount of damage, you can build it up pretty quickly and unleash your big spell.
Shaman
Buff totems are gone. It just wasn't very interesting to be the buff bitch of the group. All totems are now utility New totem examples: Earthgrab totem - roots Repulsion totem - repels Bulwark Totem - absorbs
Druid
They always felt like they had 4 specs, so now they do. Feral - Cat (melee dps) Guardian - bear (tanking) Some overlap between the two All druids can still go cat or bear form.
All classes
Spell books cleaned up, got rid of more junk, the goal is to clean up action bars a little more without removing the fun things. Rotations will be improved Spells will be automatically learned, you won't have to go to your trainer anymore. You will get a new spell at level 87, level 90 new talent point. Talent trees should be fun, and you should have more choice than just a cookie cutter build.
They just need to make sure they have content for the hardcore players to set them apart from the common man. I'm just waiting on their Dungeons and Raids panel to see how they're going to deal with that.
But that is not possible. My guild wanted so much to see AQ and Naxxramas. It kept us alive and working. When the raid you're trying to beat is accessible to everyone in different difficulty levels, it's just not exciting anymore. Before, you only heard it from the better guilds, or from Youtube or Warcraftmovies.com clips. You wondered so much and wanted to be there.
Hard modes were a mistake. Making four versions (10/25, Normal/Heroic) was a mistake. Removing attunements was a mistake. There is no top tier raiding anymore, because there is no low and mid point raiding. The vast majority is between low and mid, and very small percentage of raiders are at what is considered the top raiding. And again, they don't see anything new or get any different loot, at least in a substantive manner.
They just need to make sure they have content for the hardcore players to set them apart from the common man. I'm just waiting on their Dungeons and Raids panel to see how they're going to deal with that.
But that is not possible. My guild wanted so much to see AQ and Naxxramas. It kept us alive and working. When the raid you're trying to beat is accessible to everyone in different difficulty levels, it's just not exciting anymore. Before, you only heard it from the better guilds, or from Youtube or Warcraftmovies.com clips. You wondered so much and wanted to be there.
Hard modes were a mistake. Making four versions (10/25, Normal/Heroic) was a mistake. Removing attunements was a mistake. There is no top tier raiding anymore, because there is no low and mid point raiding. The vast majority is between low and mid, and very small percentage of raiders are at what is considered the top raiding. And again, they don't see anything new or get any different loot, at least in a substantive manner.
I don't agree with hard modes being a mistake. Hard modes as they did them after Ulduar were a mistake, but Ulduar nailed the concept of fun, engaging hard modes.
If they give titles, extra bosses, mounts and shiny loot for hard modes, that would be enough distinction for me. It's a noncompetitive game after all, I have no problems with Joe Average killing Deathwing, I know I worked hard for my heroic mode kill and got some shiny stuff for it to show off (if that's what you're in to).
Just another awful instalment of a game rapidly losing subscribers. I fail to see how anyone can watch this, look at themselves in the mirror and go back to playing wow :/
They just need to make sure they have content for the hardcore players to set them apart from the common man. I'm just waiting on their Dungeons and Raids panel to see how they're going to deal with that.
But that is not possible. My guild wanted so much to see AQ and Naxxramas. It kept us alive and working. When the raid you're trying to beat is accessible to everyone in different difficulty levels, it's just not exciting anymore. Before, you only heard it from the better guilds, or from Youtube or Warcraftmovies.com clips. You wondered so much and wanted to be there.
Hard modes were a mistake. Making four versions (10/25, Normal/Heroic) was a mistake. Removing attunements was a mistake. There is no top tier raiding anymore, because there is no low and mid point raiding. The vast majority is between low and mid, and very small percentage of raiders are at what is considered the top raiding. And again, they don't see anything new or get any different loot, at least in a substantive manner.
I don't agree with hard modes being a mistake. Hard modes as they did them after Ulduar were a mistake, but Ulduar nailed the concept of fun, engaging hard modes.
If they give titles, extra bosses, mounts and shiny loot for hard modes, that would be enough distinction for me. It's a noncompetitive game after all, I have no problems with Joe Average killing Deathwing, I know I worked hard for my heroic mode kill and got some shiny stuff for it to show off (if that's what you're in to).
The point is that, no amount of stupid mounts or titles can feel better than knowing you're the only or top 3 guild in your realm to beat a raid. If there is a community, whole realm is aware of it. When Method killed Nefarian for the first time, I was there playing Scholomance. We heard about it and we were impressed, we wanted to do the same one day.
I agree about Ulduar hardmodes though, but I still think they should be used specifically in certain bosses or raids, not as a all raids wide system.
Honestly it looks pretty good. I won't go back to WoW (I quit back in TBC) because MMO's arent for me, but there's a reason wow is the biggest game ever.
I know why everyone hates on the pandas...because the brewmaster was so godly back in FT.
Before the trailer played he was all like "This one is about WAR" and then they showed peaceful Asianish scenes and Pandas.
Might play it with some friends though, especially if the heroics are nice early on like it was in Cata before all the nerfs and proper gear. It will most likely become boring after month or two though.
They just need to make sure they have content for the hardcore players to set them apart from the common man. I'm just waiting on their Dungeons and Raids panel to see how they're going to deal with that.
But that is not possible. My guild wanted so much to see AQ and Naxxramas. It kept us alive and working. When the raid you're trying to beat is accessible to everyone in different difficulty levels, it's just not exciting anymore. Before, you only heard it from the better guilds, or from Youtube or Warcraftmovies.com clips. You wondered so much and wanted to be there.
Hard modes were a mistake. Making four versions (10/25, Normal/Heroic) was a mistake. Removing attunements was a mistake. There is no top tier raiding anymore, because there is no low and mid point raiding. The vast majority is between low and mid, and very small percentage of raiders are at what is considered the top raiding. And again, they don't see anything new or get any different loot, at least in a substantive manner.
I don't agree with hard modes being a mistake. Hard modes as they did them after Ulduar were a mistake, but Ulduar nailed the concept of fun, engaging hard modes.
If they give titles, extra bosses, mounts and shiny loot for hard modes, that would be enough distinction for me. It's a noncompetitive game after all, I have no problems with Joe Average killing Deathwing, I know I worked hard for my heroic mode kill and got some shiny stuff for it to show off (if that's what you're in to).
the problem with this idea, while sounding good in theory is that in reality it doesnt work out that way. when the experience as a whole was more special, it kept people interested and excited about 'that place youve only heard of'. it kept them playing and trying to improve and find a guild who could take them to the top. and with attunements that just required the previous raid to be done it stopped people from just going in there at random. the only way to see these places was to earn youre right to be there.
it sounds elitest and harsh but in reality it worked out that it drove the people down the ladder from the top to try and catch up to rival guilds and push to do better.
now you have people who have no internal drive just killing normal modes then quitting, if the game doesnt force them to care they wont.
I miss the old method of having hard bosses with out a hardmode. Hard modes are boring for the most part, it would be better if it offered something other than one or two new abilities and a reskinned version of the normal mode items. Cata will probably be my last expansion.
They just need to make sure they have content for the hardcore players to set them apart from the common man. I'm just waiting on their Dungeons and Raids panel to see how they're going to deal with that.
But that is not possible. My guild wanted so much to see AQ and Naxxramas. It kept us alive and working. When the raid you're trying to beat is accessible to everyone in different difficulty levels, it's just not exciting anymore. Before, you only heard it from the better guilds, or from Youtube or Warcraftmovies.com clips. You wondered so much and wanted to be there.
Hard modes were a mistake. Making four versions (10/25, Normal/Heroic) was a mistake. Removing attunements was a mistake. There is no top tier raiding anymore, because there is no low and mid point raiding. The vast majority is between low and mid, and very small percentage of raiders are at what is considered the top raiding. And again, they don't see anything new or get any different loot, at least in a substantive manner.
I don't agree with hard modes being a mistake. Hard modes as they did them after Ulduar were a mistake, but Ulduar nailed the concept of fun, engaging hard modes.
If they give titles, extra bosses, mounts and shiny loot for hard modes, that would be enough distinction for me. It's a noncompetitive game after all, I have no problems with Joe Average killing Deathwing, I know I worked hard for my heroic mode kill and got some shiny stuff for it to show off (if that's what you're in to).
the problem with this idea, while sounding good in theory is that in reality it doesnt work out that way. when the experience as a whole was more special, it kept people interested and excited about 'that place youve only heard of'. it kept them playing and trying to improve and find a guild who could take them to the top. and with attunements that just required the previous raid to be done it stopped people from just going in there at random. the only way to see these places was to earn youre right to be there.
it sounds elitest and harsh but in reality it worked out that it drove the people down the ladder from the top to try and catch up to rival guilds and push to do better.
now you have people who have no internal drive just killing normal modes then quitting, if the game doesnt force them to care they wont.
Exactly what I'm trying to say. Elitist, harsh or whatever, it's better for the game to be elitist if the whole experience is miles better.
Heh, I had a feeling this would be the talent system they adopted after Ghostcrawler, ages ago back in the Cataclysm Beta/SC2 release era, said that he thought the mutually exclusive choice system they implemented in the SC2 campaign was the most engaging system when it comes to choice.
The way they've implemented it is pretty interesting. Each of the 3 choices in each tier are arguably similar enough to one another to make it a real choice. It's not 'instant damage nuke' vs 'instant heal' vs 'crowd control'. It's 'AOE stun' vs 'AOE root' vs 'AOE knockback'.
As much as I think Cata failed horribly compared to other expansions, after listening to all the changes they're doing I have faith that this one will be much better than cata and fix most of the things wrong with it.
I can't but just frown, WoW died a long time ago. Leveled to 82 in Cata as a casual comback and it just didn't captivate me. Reverting to the first statement, that WoW died for me even before TBC.
On October 22 2011 07:36 Bibdy wrote: Heh, I had a feeling this would be the talent system they adopted after Ghostcrawler, ages ago back in the Cataclysm Beta/SC2 release era, said that he thought the mutually exclusive choice system they implemented in the SC2 campaign was the most engaging system when it comes to choice.
The way they've implemented it is pretty interesting. Each of the 3 choices in each tier are arguably similar enough to one another to make it a real choice. It's not 'instant damage nuke' vs 'instant heal' vs 'crowd control'. It's 'AOE stun' vs 'AOE root' vs 'AOE knockback'.
the problem is it wont work, its the same "sounds good when you dont think about it" logic they have always used.
some talents will always be better than others
end of story.
the wow developers haver never been good enough to make a single choice in the history of the game come down to personal preference, why do you think they will be able to now?
ill give them a chance but at the same time, i dont actually believe they can do it.
On October 22 2011 07:56 DannyJ wrote: Although it's a painful stretch to keep a stale game going, i must say i love the look of that new continent.
i think it looks horrible, this oriental look + fucking pandas just sounds like a joke, i cant believe people who are in to ogres and evil wizards hear the words "kong fu panda, in azeroth" and are lapping it up
it sounds like the dev team is trying to get away with the stupidest thing they can, just to see what people say about it
On October 22 2011 07:56 DannyJ wrote: Although it's a painful stretch to keep a stale game going, i must say i love the look of that new continent.
i think it looks horrible, this oriental look + fucking pandas just sounds like a joke, i cant believe people who are in to ogres and evil wizards hear the words "kong fu panda, in azeroth" and are lapping it up
it sounds like the dev team is trying to get away with the stupidest thing they can, just to see what people say about it
There's a difference between aesthetic appeal and overall concept / theme. It looks great but is of course massively lame. I don't see why people bother bitching about WoW. What do you expect them to do? They have to change stuff up to keep people buying time so obviously like 7 years in things are going to reach a point of ghastliness.
i like the sound of challenge mode, i like the idea of scenarios i like valor points from all content so people dont have to be where they dont want to be.
why dont they extend the same idea to arena, why are arena players still forced to farm gold and honor points (fml having to play with 14 retards)
challenge mode is something i personally have wanted for years on that game. its a way to keep content fun, when you can measure your own performance and compete like that.
just seeing them finally develop this kind of thing means they can still come up with really strong good ideas, fucking pandas is just stupid
EPT
