New expansion excitement

[Peelyon 416]

I have a feeling that my opinion is a little skewed as I am not currently "active" in game at the moment, but I feel a little underwhelmed so far by the new expac.

 

Previously I have been extremely excited for the new content and the new expansions, but I have yet to feel any "WoW factor" (excuse the pun).

 

I can't really put my finger on it, the raid changes are debatable, stat changes are yet to be fully explained in how they will work (understandable) and although quite cool I'm not entirely convinced about the whole time travel aspect of it all.

 

This isn't meant to be a negative thread as such, I'm just not massively excited as I have been previously.

 

I only really began playing towards the end of TBC and so I didn't have chance to get all that hyped up about Wrath (although I must admit the opportunity to fight Arthas was something I looked forward to).

 

With Cata I was genuinely excited about guilds and the way they would shape social interactions (that didnt turn out that great in the end sadly) - and I was really looking forward to the whole revamp of the old world.

 

Mists - another new continent and new race / class to play with quirky editions like the farming.

 

 

Now don't get me wrong, it is becoming harder and harder to just create new continents and areas to quest / level in, and for someone who doesn't know a lot of the lore of the game in much depth there arent that many bad guys left to fight are there? (I'm happy to be proven wrong).

 

The only thing I am quite interested in so far (from a casual players point of view as thats what I have become) is the garrison.  But call me pessimistic but even this seems a little gimmicky.  I was always under the impression that Blizz had said they werent going to include player housing etc - are they now backtracking on that stance in the hope to hang on to players and encourage a few to come back?  Or is it now just with the strides in phasing (like your own farm) that has allowed them to finally implement it?

 

Sorry for the mini rant - I am hoping as time goes on there will be plenty meat to add to the bones and that they will include a few more bits and pieces here and there, but for the moment I just feel a bit underwhelmed.

 

TL:DR - I think I'm going through a grumpy period!

[Demyndra 6]

You're not alone in this feeling.  I am genuinely happy for everyone that is super stoked about the expansion and how they can't wait for "x, y, or z".  I wish I felt the same way, but as I watched the live announcement I was just like...meh.  The whole "time travel" thing, which everyone says it's not, doesn't do it for me.  Every explanation I've read about how it's not time-travel just confuses me even more.

 

There are some features I am excited about... inventory and crafting changes for example.  The main storyline/idea behind the xpac doesn't get me excited though.

[Crocky 0]

http://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1qd52f/everyone_seems_to_be_confused_on_how_this/

This explanation cleared things up and got me super- hyped.

As I understand it the only time travel is Garrosh and an ally going back Aprox 30 years. Now Garrosh is in a different time line. He lives for 30 years, changes alot of stuff, then opens the dark portal to Azeroth and our time-line close to when he initially escaped.

Our adventure in WoD is in Garrosh's time-line so all previous events in Outland and Azeroth in our time-line still happen.

Basically, wibbly wobbly, timy whimmy stuff. Don't think about it too hard

Edited November 11, 2013 by Crocky

[Storm 426]

Chris Metzen basically said during a panel that they have pretty much exhausted pre-existing Warcraft lore, but they have many more expansions planned either by a.) creating new lore or b.) using time travel to cover lore that was missed. This expansion is sort of going to be a bit of both. Garrosh going back in time is new lore, but they're using it as a means to create sort of a "prequel" so we can experience the outlands and some of the great horde clans before they were corrupted.

I'm excited about this expansion though. Honestly they are adding a lot of casual content, but I like that, and most of you should too. I play the game so much that even when I was raiding 5 nights a week I still spent another 20 hours a week in game wondering what I should do. Garrisons will be a huge time and money sink and I love it. Also while I'm still unsure about 20m mystic the changes to all other raids is amazing. Separate lockouts for everything, flex normal and heroic, and lockouts are only gear lockouts. So now I can help my friends over and over again. Call me crazy, but I love the thought of running my DK through Flex heroic 5 times a week just to meet new people and get my name out there.

[Omaric 246]

You can't ask nerds not to think too hard about time travel and its implications on the game.

 

This from Blizzard bugs me:

 

 

This isn't a time travel expansion, time travel is just a tool to explain the ongoing story. It isn't being used to massively change the current timeline. The past is fine!

 

OK, let's say I give you that it isn't a time travel expansion.  The main stage of the expansion is Draenor, I think we can all agree on that.  The Draenor we're going to is a parallel universe, connected via Dark Portal, that was never destroyed through the use of multiple dimensional portals.  So, without Garrosh using time travel, this Draenor wouldn't exist for us to visit.  Now, somebody please explain to me how that doesn't make WoD a time travel expansion.  That's like saying multiplying something by zero doesn't necessarily mean the new value will be zero.  It's zero.  Let's pretend Time Travel is zero:

 

(Orcs + Draenei + Draenor + Garrosh + Dark Portals + Reforging Gone! + Level 100! + Jaina's boobs) x Time Travel = Time Travel

 

Na'mean?

 

That said though, I'm pretty damn excited about this expansion! :D

[Storm 426]

Ya, they need to give up on trying to claim it isn't a time travel expansion. We're either going back in time to experience outlands before it was corrupted by guldan (or whatever his name is)

Or

Only Garrosh went back in time and we're intercepting him in modern times, in which case, holy crap paradoxes.

The only way to satisfy the hardcore sci-fi accuracy nerds is to just call it a time travel expansion and in the end of the expansion when we foil his plans we can just claim that we've sett he future back to the way it really was the whole time (like everything that ever happened in the caverns of time).

[Crocky 0]

I love your multiplying by zero example Omaric, it is a very good point.

But! I think equating time travel to zero is... Over the top. Lets do a multiplying by zero for Mists of Pandaria, except let's pretend zero is "The mists" ( they were just a tool for telling the story right?)

So we have:

(Pandas + Mogu + Klaxxi + Horde vs Alliance + Sexy Secondary Gems+ Trolls + Lie Shen + Sha + Garrosh) * (The Mists)=

The Mists?????

So, my point is that while in the real world equating something as important as zero(very important) to something as big as time travel is okay, in WOW time travel doesn't seem as important, so equating it to zero seems inappropriate so to speak.

I hope I didn't come across as harsh, I just wanted to bring up more friendly conversation. (Insert random smiley that I don't know how to do on mobile here)

Edited November 11, 2013 by Crocky

[Omaric 246]

Oh I completely understand what you're saying.  :D

 

I also didn't like how The Mists were introduced and I probably would have used the same logic there if I were around for the release of MoP, but alas!  I don't understand how you can say that time travel doesn't seem as important in WoW though.  You have a dragonflight that is completely dedicated to messing with time and you have another dragonflight that is completely dedicated to fixing it.  It's an integral part of the game, albeit a part of the game I wish they never would have introduced.

 

That said, being that time travel *is* so ingrained into the lore of WoW as a game (not necessarily Warcraft lore), I don't understand why Blizzard would push back to comments about the expansion being based on time travel.  If Garrosh didn't use time travel the expansion they're shooting for doesn't exist.  I'm just asking Blizz to embrace their decision making instead of side stepping the tool they choose to use so often.

[Peelyon 416]

My brain hurts

 

I just hope the expac builds up a bit of momentum in the upcoming months before the beta is announced.

 

Like I said normally I extremely excited - this seems the first expansion where they will need to "prove" to me that there will be stuff I will enjoy.

 

Im 99% sure that there will be and I understand creating new exciting content must be a constant headache for them, but for now I'm not getting that giddy childish excitement feeling I have had previously.

 

I think after an expac announcement the main things people talk about are the new features etc, so far all I've really read about and listened to are the stat changes and raid changes (if that makes sense)

[Shine 144]

I must say I pretty much like nothing about it yet.

therefore I must also say that I had the same with the announce of Cata and Mists.

 

I am only going to speak my opinion about it after they've launched the beta for it.

[kitsu 55]

i think blizz is saying its not about time travel so people dont get any crazy ideas about how youd be able to travel through time in any way except the dark portal getting you to draenor.

 

it seems like the whole thing is about giving players a look at the past, and the twist is that someone wants to use the past to alter the present. since we always win, we'll stop that and the whole thing will be like it never happened. but we will have more insight into the history of how things are to day, and we'll get to experience a place and time that would be conventionally impossible without the magic and imagination of the wow. i think its a cool way to get people involved in history.

 

its kind of like those huge murals monks spend months painting with sand and then when theyre done they just wipe the whole thing away because the emphasis is on the experience over the results. 

Edited November 11, 2013 by kitsu

[Omaric 246]

It's still based on time travel.  None of it is possible without it.

 

That said, I totally agree that getting to experience that "history" is pretty awesome.  I put quotations around it, because we aren't experiencing real Warcraft history, we're experiencing an augmented past with iconic characters that many people read about the first time they opened up their WC1/WC2 instruction booklets.

[kitsu 55]

but its more real than a list of things that happened and names of those that did the things. thats regular history. in warcrafts version of history we get to go kill them. that seems better.

[Omaric 246]

Yes, it is better, through the magic of time travel.  :D

[Deathshiver 0]

You can't ask nerds not to think too hard about time travel and its implications on the game.

 

This from Blizzard bugs me:

 

 

OK, let's say I give you that it isn't a time travel expansion.  The main stage of the expansion is Draenor, I think we can all agree on that.  The Draenor we're going to is a parallel universe, connected via Dark Portal, that was never destroyed through the use of multiple dimensional portals.  So, without Garrosh using time travel, this Draenor wouldn't exist for us to visit.  Now, somebody please explain to me how that doesn't make WoD a time travel expansion.  That's like saying multiplying something by zero doesn't necessarily mean the new value will be zero.  It's zero.  Let's pretend Time Travel is zero:

 

(Orcs + Draenei + Draenor + Garrosh + Dark Portals + Reforging Gone! + Level 100! + Jaina's boobs) x Time Travel = Time Travel

 

Na'mean?

 

That said though, I'm pretty damn excited about this expansion!

 

From what I understand of how Blizzard is portraying the expansion, you're mixing up some different concepts.

 

First, time travel implies going backwards in an otherwise linear flow of time. As such, it only actually covers the current timeline's history. We aren't actually going back in the current timeline's history, rather it appears that the modified dark portal links multiple "world lines". To try to better explain it, don't consider the game to have one timeline, but rather two timelines. One is our own history as we knew it, and the other timeline is the altered history from Garrosh. Consider that by entering the modified dark portal you don't actually jump backwards on our own timeline, but rather jump "sideways" to another timeline entirely.

--------------------------x--- < Garrosh's Timeline
                           ) We Jump Here
--------------------------x--- < Our Timeline
                          ^ Present Day

If you want to be more specific, world lines are actually created by events that define the future. Garrosh jumping backwards in time to modify the past is one such event that creates a world line through forking. It doesn't necessarily destroy the future we live in, nor does it even modify our future what-so-ever. It simply creates a second future that runs parallel to ours.

 

Feel free to do some more research on world lines if you like, but it's a little bit complicated (in fact, I'm not even sure I fully understand it yet).

[Omaric 246]

I never said that the players are going back in time, I've only ever been saying that Blizzard is using time travel as the catalyst for this expansion, which they've declined and I am trying to refute.

 

Part of what you quoted from me already agrees with your point of the new time structure where you say "To try to better explain it, don't consider the game to have one timeline, but rather two timelines."

 

 

The Draenor we're going to is a parallel universe

 

Why are people so against agreeing that time travel was used in the making of this expansion?

[Krazyito 521]

I think the reddit page that was linked earlier explained it well.

 

Garrosh went back in time.  

Stuff changed

Alternate time line (Garrosh time line)

Garrosh waited 30 years in his time line, in this time he rallied the orc clans.

After 30 years, is about the end of SoO.

Garrosh opens a red Dark Portal into our timeline, hence linking the two timelines together.

 

 

When we go to Dreanor we, the players, are not time traveling, because we are travelling to an alternate universe (Garrosh's timeline) where the orcs didn't drink the demon blood. 

 

So yes, time travel was a factor in this expansion. but the players are not time traveling at all.

[Krosys 3]

(Orcs + Draenei + Draenor + Garrosh + Dark Portals + Reforging Gone! + Level 100! + Jaina's boobs) x Time Travel = Time Travel

 

 

 

 

 

(Pandas + Mogu + Klaxxi + Horde vs Alliance + Sexy Secondary Gems+ Trolls + Lie Shen + Sha + Garrosh) * (The Mists)=

The Mists?????

 

 

 

 

#Science   

[Omaric 246]

I believe that's actually a branch of math known as "Ghetto Algebra".

[kitsu 55]

Why are people so against agreeing that time travel was used in the making of this expansion?

 

with all the changes theyre making it does seem like a wierd thing to get hung up on and not just drop all together whatever side youre on, but the crazyiest of itos clarified the concept i previously did not understand.

[Peelyon 416]

I don't even like Dr.Who....wait what?

[kitsu 55]

it does seem like "the Oncoming Storm" will be a title soon.

[kitsu 55]

after reading your thing about the garrisons again, i think a lot of games are trying to add so many little things that there are options for everyone. i doubt theyll be in any way essential to raid progression or competitive pvp. it seems like a super farm. i play with lots of people who seem to relax by doing their little farm chores every day and they like the little rewards they get from them. it may make completionist's skin crawl to see all these little things get piled in, but it's mostly there so you can pick and choose how you want to spend your playtime.

 

i am a little skeptical, but phrases like "savage warzone" and "leveling doesnt have to be a mind numbing grind" get me excited.

 

i would enjoy a diablo style leveling process where waves and waves of difficult to survive events just come at you. i like fighting way more than helping Dingus Mancloud collect 9 wood logs, or listening to Jaina's backsass for 60 out of every 90 seconds of gameplay. So I'd be delighted if they decided to put in a zone where you could just fight your way deep into trouble just to see if you could survive fighting your way out again. if you could level at a decent rate off just kills i wouldnt dread leveling so much because i like fighting when its that fun kind of danger like challenge modes or raid bosses.

[Akomagus 8]

I'm going to go watch the complete Fringe series again so I can be better prepared for this expansion....

[Ceraius 34]

I'm mostly excited about the setting and time WoD takes place in. I didn't play a whole lot in BC so I don't get the "going back to outlands" vibe some of my friends are getting from this. And as for using time travel, I'm actually all for it. There is soooo much potential in the history of Azeroth. F.e. I'd very very much like an expansion which would take place in the time when Lordaeron was still up and running. I'm not too familiar with the lore around that timeframe, so I don't know what there is to extract action from, but I've always wanted to see the old human kingdom.

 

And what goes for what Kitsu mentioned about Dingus Manclouds firewood, I'm one of those oddballs who actually enjoy quests, so it was quite a bummer for me learning there would be no dailies or very few. I know that dailies don't sit well with many, but daymn give me the chance to help Mr. Mancloud!