by David Piner on Dec 30, 2006
By: David "Xerin" Piner, Byron "Messiah" Mudry, and Amber "Aurael" Weldon
World of Warcraft saw many changes in the year 2006. A steady stream of patches flowed from the dev's brains into Azeroth throughout the year. This next year is already looking to be a great year for the development of the game as well. Blizzard is starting things off early by releasing the first WoW expansion on January 16.
This expansion is granting the wishes of many players. The level cap is being raised to 70; flying mounts, arenas, the expansion of Azeroth's influence onto another planet, two new races and a new profession are all being introduced.
With the opening up of the Outlands for adventuring, comes many new instances, new quests and new factions for reputation gains (and losses). The Burning Crusade is living up to its occupation of expanding the game by leaps and bounds.
So what, in addition to the expansion, can we expect to see in 2007? There are so many things that have been dangled in front of us that we, like a mount after a carrot on a stick, can only try to catch up.
We can only hope that this new year will bring us a few of the things we desire. For example, the new movie that was promised to us in a press release on May 9 (http://www.blizzard.com/press/060509.shtml). Who will direct it? Who will star in it? And most importantly, when will it be released?
We've also heard rumors that the scourge were not sufficiently defeated in the last scourge invasion. Could hovering necropolises once again appear over the skies of major cities?
These and other questions all must lie in wait, for though we may possess an Eye of Destiny...it cannot show us what will come.
I was asked to give my opinion on what I would really like to see added into WoW this year in addition to the Burning Crusade expansion. I started to think about this and could go really crazy with it. Things like another expansion by the end of the year and hero classes immediately come to mind. However seeing the pace of change so far, I have a better chance at winning the lottery, so I lowered my expectations and focused on slightly more realistic things. So here is my wish list for patches in 2007:
I love instances more than almost any other part of the game, so it should come as no surprise that what I would like to see is more instances and raids added to the game. Wait you say, we are getting a ton with the Burning Crusade! Yes we are, however by the fall of 2007 all of those will be almost as played out as the ones we have now. Even though it seems like a long time from now, I would like to see at least a further 3 or 4 5 man instances added by the end of 2007. I would also like to see at least that many 10 or 25 man raids added to the game by the same time. Using the current model of putting instances in using 4 winged dungeons that means at least 2 more large dungeon areas between August and December of next year. I figure we will keep the new ones in the Burning Crusade busy until then. Hey, I’ll even throw in a request for a new battleground or two for you PvPers out there.
Screenshots from Shattrath city, one of the neutral cities (and main hub) in Outland. For more information, click here.
The next thing is fairly close to the first, I want more events in the game! This could be holiday special events, mini world events, large world events, or anything else they dream up. I love the fishing derby, the arena events, opening of Ahn’Qiraj, and all the others that there have been. I just wish there were more of them. One a month would be ideal! It would give players that have maxed out their characters something new to do on a regular basis.
I would also like professions to get a boost sometime over the coming year. Not just high end professions either, but low end all the way from the start. In many games a profession can make or break a character, or at least significantly add to your character. In WoW they are almost in as an afterthought. I would like that to change. I would like it to matter that you are a tailor or blacksmith or anything else in the game. Where as currently engineering is the only one that really effects how your character behaves. Also crafting is far to simplistic in the game. I think I am hoping for too much here, but you have to dream. They don’t have to go as far as the EQ2 or Ryzom crafting systems, but some complexity and skill would be nice.
The Slave Pens, one of Outland's man 5 man instances. To find more out about this instance, click here.
The last thing I want is more regular patches! Even if they only include a few things, I want to see regular patches to know that the game is being worked on. To me with the player base / subscription base and therefore income base that Blizzard has, we should be seeing significant additions on a monthly basis. They could even come in ways that I may not use (such as PvP battlegrounds, class updates for classes I don’t play, etc) but I could still see and appreciate the changes taking place. In 2006 we only saw 5 major patches over the 12 months and one happened right at the beginning of January and the other (2.0) in December, meaning that in the 10 other months of the year we only had 3 major patches (1.10, 1.11 and 1.12). That’s just not acceptable to me. I want one a month as the best case scenario and one every 6 weeks as the worse case scenario.
In 2007 we will be seeing the launch of The Burning Crusade, the first expansion for World of Warcraft. This will be a monumental moment for WoW where it’s dated engine, gameplay, and much more gets reworked and tons of additional quality content is added to the game. To find out more about the expansion, check out our Burning Crusade Portal.
The expansion will be very big and you can expect supply shortages due to the extreme demand for it. Blizzard is pretty good about getting their products on the shelf, so it won’t be like the Wii or Playstation 3 launch, but it’ll be kind of hard to get it on launch day without pre-ordering. You can probably expect exorbitant prices on eBay to take advantage of people whom live in busy areas and may not be able to get their copy on day one.
Expect to see a lot of complaining in both general chat and the forums on how certain quests, NPCs, or any other mechanic is annoying someone. Expect people to beg for quest info that is already given in the quest introduction and expect a lot of bickering in Outland’s general chat. There will be cries of nerfs and imbalance, but all of it’ll be false or not containing the full truth, unless of course it’s some kind of bug.
Pictures of Eversong Woods, the Blood Elf starting zone, showing the quality of The Burning Crusade. TFor more information on the Blood Elf starting zone, click here.
Speaking of bugs, I’d probably go ahead and say that you can expect bugs. The beta test is comprehensive, I’ve seen it myself. However, it’s not enough when something will probably be poked and prodded by over 5 million people. Expect mini-patches, servers going up and down, and probably an overall rocky start. Not that I don’t hope for a smooth launch of the expansion… it’s just that with this much content you can’t possible expect it to be perfect.
I’d probably also expect to see lots of patches following the launch. We already know a few instances won’t be included and instead will come in future patches. There will be things that need to be fixed up and probably a few balance changes needed.
I’d expect a rush of Blood Elves and Draenei, but I wouldn’t expect a lot of people to keep up with it. You’re going to see people roll a Blood Elf or Draenei alt then quit to join their comrades in Outland. Newer players and those truly looking for a fresh start will be the ones to populate the world with these new characters.
There will be, of course, a lot of guild related drama. Previous “elite” raiding guilds will bicker among each other while they sort out which 25-30 they are keeping and who they’re going to ask to leave. You’ll see casual raiding guilds unaffected by this as they probably rotate people out or just run the 10 man heroic instances instead. There is a lot of options when it comes to instances in the expansion so even small ten man guilds will be able to go out and get some good loot.
Nagrand is one of the new zones in Outland that displays a unique amount of color and vibrant displays of nature, even for a planet that is being held together by the twisting nethe. To find out more, click here.
You’ll probably see a new phenomenon where guilds will ally and work together on instances. For instance, two 15 man guilds may get together to run 25 man instances. This will lead to a more personal guild experience. Smaller guilds are always more fun just because you know who EVERYONE is and not just who the popular ones are.
One final thing, expect a lot of people to be fooled that they need 5,000 gold to buy a flying mount. That’s untrue, you only need 1,000. Expect a lot of people to be brainwashed into assuming that 1,000 gold is hard to get in TBC… it’s not. You’ll easily have that 1,000 gold by the time you’re level seventy so there is no reason at all to fear you’ll be locked away from instances because you don’t have a flying mount. There may even be quests for flying mounts or teleporters, although that is just speculation with nothing concrete in.
It’s possible to see another expansion in 2007, although unlikely. Blizzard has made a claim that they aim to release an expansion each and every year. Given that, we’ll probably see something in 2008. However, that doesn’t mean information/betas/etc. isn’t done in 2007.
For the next expansion, expect less hype then The Burning Crusade receives. TBC is unique in that it’s the first expansion. That’s always big news, but the next one (assuming it really does come in about a years time) will be like “been there, done that, but I’m excited though!”
Evidence that flying mounts will not be costing an arm and a leg. If you notice, for the first tier (normal speed) flying mount you will only need 1,000 gold. You'll end up with 2,000 to 3,000 gold at level 70 so this should be no problem at all.
As for the content, anyone could make hundreds of guesses and probably get them all wrong. We know there is a lot of lore to work with and that Arthas is still probably several patches away from defeat. Given that, we can probably expect something involving other planets. There are other planets in The Burning Crusade, although their portals are currently locked in the beta (meaning we have no solid 100% information on them). That could mean we could easily visit the stars in some form of intergalactic ship created with magic.
Whatever the expansion does contain, we do know it’ll be done well… if The Burning Crusade is an example of the quality Blizzard is aiming for. It may be difficult to believe from simple text on a website, but The Burning Crusade is a major improvement of Azeroth. The quality of the content is absolutely amazing and shows Blizzard commitment to offering one of the best online gaming experiences available.
There are a few things you surely will need to expect. First would be the bitterness from the vocal majority over the expansion and pretty much any random thing from it. Next, you’ll be expecting lots of patches adding more content and bug fixes. You should probably also expect information on the next upcoming expansion to become available.
That’s a pretty vague conclusion, but we really don’t know much past The Burning Crusade’s launch. Speculation from experience within the MMORPG industry can only take us so far, but we do know that whatever it is… it’ll be fun. Blizzard makes a fun game and whatever they plan will be to make it even more fun.
So here is a happy and successful 2007! May it bring you lots of phat loots.
Comments or questions? Email us (Xerin@TenTonHammer.com) or post on our forums!