Well, another Blizzcon has gone by and some news came from one of my favorite game developers…
No release date for Diablo III, but it seems the release is close, so crossing my fingers the game is as good as it looks (and to be honest, to see if it has aged well… It’s been almost 10 years since I’ve played Diablo, and I’ve played WoW in the meantime, that takes a lot of the Diablo ideas ten steps forward, so let’s see how it feels nowadays…)
No release date aswell for “Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm”, and I can’t wait to play it… think it’s the most excited I’ve been for the release of an RTS ever! The DOTA thing they’re going to release doesn’t excite me that much, but I’ve never been a big fan of DOTA-type games, to be honest. It seems they’re trying to do something special with the genre, though…
And the big news… “Mists of Pandaria”, the new expansion for WoW has been announced (also without a release date)… This was expected, and to be honest I’m more or less disappointed with it.
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New race: the Pandarens… Really? Pandas? Kung-Fu Pandas? That was the best they could come up with? What’s next? The Shrek Race?! Besides, for a 7-year player, adding a new race really doesn’t add anything to the game at this point…
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New class: Monk… Again, same rationale as above… introducing another class for a 7-year old player is useless… I won’t stop playing my character to play a new one; I know there are some players that actually do it, but I wonder what percentage of players that actually is, and how significant it is for Blizzard… It seems to me that alt-oholics aren’t as committed to the game as hardcore raiders, and those won’t change characters that easily… On the other hand, that might be precisely what Blizzard has in mind: add new content for less-committed players because committed players won’t drop the game that easily.
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5 new levels. Same as Cataclysm, probably last a bit longer (because of the additional time it takes to level up). So its good enough, I think.
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Pet battle system: Seriously? World of Pokemon? Was this something people actually wanted?!
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New continent: This was expected, and the setting seems great. Oriental-based stuff is new in WoW, so it seems like a very good choice (allows for new visuals, new music, new lore)
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Challenge Mode Dungeons: The concept seems interesting, but I think again it lacks interest for end-game players… But it’s probably good for more casual players (because of the gear normalization, a raider won’t get an edge, so it’s really just a skill contest, albeit raiders and pvpers tend to be better players because of the general playtime)~
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New talent system. On Cataclysm, Blizzard changed the whole talent system, which required players to relearn their classes… now they’re changing it again, replacing the tree-system for a “choose your main orientation” – in the case of mages, fire, arcane or frost – with some new spells/buffs every 15 levels… Their idea was to diminish the amount of cookie-cutter specs around, and make player specs be more diversified and play-styles more different… but it seems to me (unless I’m missing something) that this will lead to basically people choosing their main spec and then some cosmetic choices (a bit like minor glyphs) that don’t actually change the gameplay style (at least by looking to the current proposition). I think they’re trying to limit something that can’t be limited: the endless search for the perfect spec, the best combination of stats/spec/glyphs that make the player perform best… They’re trying to limit this so that all players play differently, but I think their fighting a losing battle… If they want that kind of behaviors from the players, they’ll have to invest in better AI for the bosses and such, and make players have to improvise more…
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Account-achievements: this is a good idea for people that have alts…
Now for my main complaint: no epic-ness!
There’s no "”big menace” (the whole “focus on the war between the Alliance and Horde” seems like a cop-out, since I couldn’t care in the littlest – most of that war seems to be driven by petty interests and 1000 year old history… Maybe players in PvP realms feel it, but most players in PvE realms couldn’t care less). The game has some new lore coming in because of the damn pandas (they were enslaved by some guys, so there’s some bosses there), but no epic threat… Come on, we’ve fought Elemental Lords, Elder Gods (and other demi-Gods), a Lich King, armies of undead, several bad-ass dragons (including one that ripped apart the damn world!), and now we’re kicking the ass of some guys that enslaved pandas?! Seems like anti-climatic…
Of course, this might all be a part of Blizzard’s plan to do a weak-ass expansion while “Star Wars: the Old Republic”, “Diablo III” and “Starcraft II” roll out, so they don’t “waste” good content, but it seems like a dangerous game… I’m almost considering quitting the game, and I’ve spent almost 7 years of my life playing it!
There’s more information coming out in the next months, so I might change my mind about a lot of things, but I can’t stop looking at this as the decline of World of Warcraft… still, it was 7 years, it was a very good run! 