Just looking to hear some opinions: is it going to be the exact same thing like TBC only in a different zone, or is it going to be unique like the original World of Warcraft and bring back the magic to the game.

[MOD EDIT]

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.  I've never been disappointed with Blizzard product (that wasn't cancelled anyway), so I've no reason to expect anything short of the quality we expect from Blizz.

I have voted pretty much the same as TBC with different scenery, but from a personal perspective that is not a bad thing. I think one more option should have been added to say "Same as TBC with some fun twists" as that is what it is looking like at the moment, but as said above we will just have to wait and see.

I'm going to go ahead and say it'll be something new and unique.

TBC did what an expansion should do.  It's an expansion pack, not a sequel.  If you didn't enjoy WoW before TBC, then buying an expansion pack is a pretty silly thing to do anyway.

Here's what it did do right:

1) It made faction grinding much, much better than pre-TBC.  Ok, it's still a grind, but the variety of the ways to gain reputation is much improved, and some of the quests are just really fun to do.

2) It brought the Arena which, while not everyone's cup of tea, is really good fun for PvPers - (better than the BGs imo)

3) It made raiding more accessible through better designed 10 and 25 man raids.Raids reduced from 40 to 25 so it was easier to get people together, more emphasis on individual skill rather than sheer zerg.

4) Flying mounts.

5) The 'winged' dungeon approach became standard.

6) Better outdoor PvP areas.   Not as good as they could have been but then hopefully WOTLK with fix this.

7) Billions of other smaller changes that gently tweaked, rather than changed, a formula that works.

And that's the key here, World of Warcraft works - it gains subscribers, it hasn't faded away, and remains as popular as ever before.  It increased the subscriber numbers, broke sales records, got good reviews.

Look at expansions from other MMOs - have they improved the game dramatically, and if so how - through tweaks or changing the game entirely?  Have they done better than TBC?

I think it will be along the same lines as TBC but as stated above,that isnt such a bad thing. I know that Blizzard has spent alot of time focused on the PVP side because of the great amount of people that are interested in that but I also hope that the same attention has been spent on the PVE side as well. Beyond the standard fetch quests and faction grinds. WOW remains the most polished game on the market and does have a certain magical charm that all Blizzard products seem to share. We know the polish will be there lets hope it isnt just more of the same.

Its going to be more of the same, which is fine, as TBC was considered a rousing success.

Now, if the OP is tired of WOW (happens to all of us, in every game) then he's going to be disappointed because this won't really bring anything "new" in terms of game play.  Think of it as an extension of the existing style.

But what really stinks is people like the OP get accepted into the WAR beta while all I can do is gnash my teeth at my lack of luck at getting in these things.

lol agreed. I have been a member of the WAR community for a long while now and havent had chance to play it. AOC as well. Oh well soon enough I suppose.

I have to say , for me , what really made TBC change WoW in a bad way is that instead of expending it ,  they "killed" the old level 60 content (ubrs,lbrs,mc,bwl , nax etc etc) which seemed really weird for me given  the face that they worked so hard on it, and they made Azeroth a place no one hangs out after level 60, instead of combining everything into a whole. The reason I think it was a bad move is the fact that the old content was much more worked on and more creative.

I didn't get accepted into the WAR beta, my friend did and he gave me his account so I can try it out.

Originally posted by Recant

1) It made faction grinding much, much better than pre-TBC.  Ok, it's still a grind, but the variety of the ways to gain reputation is much improved, and some of the quests are just really fun to do.

Introduced a lot more factions to grind which will become useless in the next expansion. Think your gonna be able to use that AD faction you gained 55-58? Think again.

2) It brought the Arena which, while not everyone's cup of tea, is really good fun for PvPers - (better than the BGs imo)

Introduced the easiest method of gear aquisition, leading to fully epicd out characters the moment they reach level cap. Arena are so badly exploited be prepared to be rolled by veteran PVPs that outgear you in the lowest brackets. Point Selling, Win trading, their ladder system is so corrupted no PVPers accomplishments can be taken seriously. PVE progression is screwed due to this (Have fun trying to gear up a Protection speced character).

Of course they continue to push Arena, its less content they have to develop. Force you into a tiny instance and remove any sense of MMO. Arena = Guild Wars =/= MMO. Why bother trying to push network code when they  already have you trained to jump through hoops in their tiny boxes.

3) It made raiding more accessible through better designed 10 and 25 man raids.Raids reduced from 40 to 25 so it was easier to get people together, more emphasis on individual skill rather than sheer zerg.

I didnt really care for TBC raiding, I'd much rather prefer 40 man. Too many boss battles where one person can easily wipe the entire raid. Lag spike, wiped raid. Of course I expect to be flamed on this point, "oh your just a terribad who coasts on his guild" and thats just an assumption youll make having no basis on my skill level.

4) Flying mounts.

Further crippled world PVP. Doesnt really add anything at all to the game besides yet another grind.

5) The 'winged' dungeon approach became standard.

Who said you were supposed to finish BRD, BRS, Strat in one sitting? In my 3 years of playing not once did anyone run the entire Strat instance in one sitting.

6) Better outdoor PvP areas.   Not as good as they could have been but then hopefully WOTLK with fix this.

No one really did these until they added daily quests. Why? Arena rewards infinitely better with less effort required.

And that's the key here, World of Warcraft works - it gains subscribers, it hasn't faded away, and remains as popular as ever before.  It increased the subscriber numbers, broke sales records, got good reviews.

Sub numbers dont mean shit. When someone spouts off Lineage numbers everyone here dismisses them as we know the majority of accounts are owned by an internet cafe in an Asian country. Same thing for the majority of WOW subs, owned by inet cafes who buy 50-100 copies whether anyone  is playing or not.

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Originally posted by protoroc
Sub numbers dont mean shit. When someone spouts off Lineage numbers everyone here dismisses them as we know the majority of accounts are owned by an internet cafe in an Asian country. Same thing for the majority of WOW subs, owned by inet cafes who buy 50-100 copies whether anyone  is playing or not.
 

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Just a side note on that comment, sub numbers do count for a lot as it means people are willing to part with their cash in order to play the game. Blizz do actually report relevant numbers too as they report live accounts for their western subs and live players that month for their eastern customers. You are also wrong about the way that it works in the east as it is licensed through The9 and people pay to play by the hour, but only active players in any particular month are counted towards active sub numbers.

WotLK won't change the basics of WOW in any way, so if you don't like it the way it is now you are very unlikely to like it after the release, but i am looking forward to it from a personal point of view.

Originally posted by jason_webb

 

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Originally posted by protoroc
Sub numbers dont mean shit. When someone spouts off Lineage numbers everyone here dismisses them as we know the majority of accounts are owned by an internet cafe in an Asian country. Same thing for the majority of WOW subs, owned by inet cafes who buy 50-100 copies whether anyone  is playing or not.
 

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Just a side note on that comment, sub numbers do count for a lot as it means people are willing to part with their cash in order to play the game. Blizz do actually report relevant numbers too as they report live accounts for their western subs and live players that month for their eastern customers. You are also wrong about the way that it works in the east as it is licensed through The9 and people pay to play by the hour, but only active players in any particular month are counted towards active sub numbers.

WotLK won't change the basics of WOW in any way, so if you don't like it the way it is now you are very unlikely to like it after the release, but i am looking forward to it from a personal point of view.

 Ofc it won't change the basics, but stuff can change in WoW for the better or for the worse , IE -- once there was world pvp , now there isn't, once there was 40 man raidss , now there isn't..and there more stuff like this...those things really change the game imo

The same like the first addon and the original game, first grind for faction then farm armor. And million wowers will shout "Hurray, its the revelation!"

Originally posted by kakarotrage

Just looking to hear some opinions: is it going to be the exact same thing like TBC only in a different zone, or is it going to be unique like the original World of Warcraft and bring back the magic to the game.

[MOD EDIT]

The magic of world of warcraft was not in the game, was in you, you played it feeling the magic. You know what, lots of people joined wow when tbc came out and sure they had the magic you talk about. It's not the game, it's you, always with any game.

Originally posted by protoroc

Introduced a lot more factions to grind which will become useless in the next expansion. Think your gonna be able to use that AD faction you gained 55-58? Think again.

You don't use the items you gained at 55-58 either.  It's called "new content".

Introduced the easiest method of gear aquisition, leading to fully epicd out characters the moment they reach level cap. Arena are so badly exploited be prepared to be rolled by veteran PVPs that outgear you in the lowest brackets. Point Selling, Win trading, their ladder system is so corrupted no PVPers accomplishments can be taken seriously. PVE progression is screwed due to this (Have fun trying to gear up a Protection speced character).

Of course they continue to push Arena, its less content they have to develop. Force you into a tiny instance and remove any sense of MMO. Arena = Guild Wars =/= MMO. Why bother trying to push network code when they  already have you trained to jump through hoops in their tiny boxes.

Not true : PvP gear doesn't help you with PvE content beyond the most basic, for most classes anyway.  IIRC PvP gear doesn't have +defense, or spirit.  You are much, much better off with PvE gear in PvE instances than PvP gear.

Gearing up a prot specced character is fecking easy because 1) they're rarer than most, especially on PvP servers, and so high in demand, 2) they're always needed for instances, especially heroic and raid instances, which REQUIRE prot spec -which give you prot gear.

Also not true:  You can't sell points, you can only sell teams.  All this means is that you can access the higher ranked items - but you still need the points for them, and the ONLY way to get points is from playing games.  OK, it's cheating a bit, but the problem is massively exaggerated and to dedicated PvPers it makes NO difference whatsoever because you're already in a full PvP gear set and the victory comes down to skill and teamwork.

Who cares if someone gets the current season's weapon if they're shit anyway?

I didnt really care for TBC raiding, I'd much rather prefer 40 man. Too many boss battles where one person can easily wipe the entire raid. Lag spike, wiped raid. Of course I expect to be flamed on this point, "oh your just a terribad who coasts on his guild" and thats just an assumption youll make having no basis on my skill level.

This point really makes no sense, it might be your personal preference but the number of people doesn't really affect close battles.  You can have close battles in 5 man encounters.  25 is as good as number as any.

Further crippled world PVP. Doesnt really add anything at all to the game besides yet another grind.

Personal preference.  I think flying mounts are great.  As for world PvP, this is so easy.  You find a place where people are hunting elementals for primals, or the daily quests, and you fight them.  If you control the area you control the motes/primals and you make lots of money. 

Who said you were supposed to finish BRD, BRS, Strat in one sitting? In my 3 years of playing not once did anyone run the entire Strat instance in one sitting.

6) That's the point of having winged dungeons.

No one really did these until they added daily quests. Why? Arena rewards infinitely better with less effort required.

They do them, they're done every day.

Sub numbers dont mean shit. When someone spouts off Lineage numbers everyone here dismisses them as we know the majority of accounts are owned by an internet cafe in an Asian country. Same thing for the majority of WOW subs, owned by inet cafes who buy 50-100 copies whether anyone  is playing or not.

I said sub numbers and review scores.  If the game sold loads and got review scores of 75% you might have a point, but considering it's made top10 PC game lists everywhere in all kind of publications and is generally the best scored MMORPG ever, I think it's safe to say that WoW is doing something right.

BUT YOU DON'T LIKE WOW SO THEY MUST BE WRONG, RIGHT?

Something like that huh?

 

Originally posted by Kilmar

The same like the first addon and the original game, first grind for faction then farm armor. And million wowers will shout "Hurray, its the revelation!"

And the raid content that WoW has been introducing has been really good, compared to VG's static APW.

Originally posted by Kilmar

The same like the first addon and the original game, first grind for faction then farm armor. And million wowers will shout "Hurray, its the revelation!"

I could go back and quote dozens of your gems that add absolutely nothing to the discussion, you're just heckling.  I've ignored every single one of these until now, but because I'm bored at work, you've gotten the attention you crave.

I could easily go into Vanguard forums and do the same, but I don't and you know why?  Because I'm not a troll.  I played the game, and I found myself agreeing with all of the review scores it got, which was dissapointing because I was really looking forward to it, but what's the point of me telling Vanguard players how much it sucks?

What's the point at all?

I believe it's going to be exactly like Burning Crusade but probably worse.  All epics are going to be obselete with equipment off bears in WOTLK.  Endgame will still be the same as it was before.  PVP will still be unbalanced.  Storyline is going to be even more retarded than it is already.    Oh yeah, and all races can be Death Knights...ummm...wtf!?  Also, Frost Mourn is going to be a Bind on Pick Up.

It will be the Burning Crusade: Refrigerator Version. Also everyone will play a Bard and all your 70 gear will become obsolete within a week.

Oops, not Bard, Death Knight

Only thing I'm looking forward to is destructable buildings, but wtf c'mon Blizz, it's about time. Too bad you're too late.