For the first few expansions, there was something of a pattern. We got new races in BC (though we shouldn't forget how big of an impact Blood Elf Paladins and Draenei Shaman had on the game,) a new Hero class in Wrath of the Lich King, new races in Cataclysm (plus new race/class combos,) and then things started to deviate a little. Rather than simply adding a new class, Mists brought us the Monk and a single new race - the Pandaren.
Of course, having blown their new class and new race, Warlords of Draenor focused instead on revamping the old vanilla/BC models. Arguably, re-doing six existing races is an effort equal or greater to that of creating one or two new ones from scratch.
Still, I think it's enough of a deviation that we shouldn't simply predict things based on patterns. There's a chance that expansion six, like expansion five, will not have either new "new toon incentive."
That said, I think that races and classes are the most effective way of drumming up excitement for a new expansion - classes in particular. Races are far easier to implement, as they just require some new art work (though racial abilities can require some tricky balancing.) Story-wise it clearly behooves the designers to work them into the game in a fairly crowded fantasy universe, but Blizzard clearly doesn't mind letting certain playable races kind of join the team and then fade into the background (*cough* Worgen.) The bright side of this attitude is that it means races can be more or less indefinitely added to the game, as they require very little follow-up.
Classes, on the other hand, are a real commitment. Just because we beat Arthas and left Northrend doesn't mean that they don't have to worry about Death Knights anymore.
Still, classes are by far a more exciting thing to add to the game. It's great for us altoholics, and it changes up the metagame in interesting ways. It is, of course, difficult to come up with new mechanical concepts, and sometimes you might worry that a class niche is already partially filled by an existing one. Before Monks, I always kind of thought of Discipline Priests as the Monk variety (albeit a more Western-style Christian variety, rather than the Shao Lin Chinese style martial-artist.) The Demon Hunter - a class that has always been pretty central to discussions of new classes - is kind of a cross between Warlocks and Rogues, leading some to speculate that it would be easier to simply say that Demon Hunters are actually under the umbrella of one of those classes or the other.
If we do get a new class, I think it's likely we'll get a Hero Class, like the Death Knight, unlike the regular start-at-one Monk. Indeed, we might even see the removal of level restrictions to start said class, given that we're now in the era of level boosts. I'd think a new hero class would start at level 100, or perhaps at level 97 or something to allow them to level up a bit in a special starting experience that would then pop them out at the same level as the others heading to the new content.
Death Knights started at level 55 in order to let them skip the Old World, but they were still expected to go through Burning Crusade content. I think partially this is just because there was a different philosophy back then - BC was seen as recent enough that people would likely not be sick of it yet (and given how slow leveling was in the BC era, most players would have only gotten a couple of characters up to Outland anyway.)
But these days, partially just due to the natural accumulation of alts at the level cap due to the age of the game, they're unlikely to make a new hero class character go through Draenor again.
There are certainly existing, established races that Blizzard could make playable. Ogres are probably the oldest and most obvious ones. Blizzard has said in the past they'd like to do playable Naga (I'd like to see how they solve pants, shoes, and mounts.) Ethereals, Arrakoa, Furbolgs - the list goes on.
Of course, there's also the possibility that they'll just not have either. Personally I think that would be a bad decision. I think part of the reason that Warlords has felt especially light on content is that there hasn't been any reason to do anything that isn't in Draenor. There's no incentive now that there wasn't during Mists to go back to the old world and level a low-level toon again. In contrast, I remember that when Wrath came out, I was pretty evenly splitting my time between leveling my Paladin up through Northrend and my Death Knight through Outland. In Cataclysm, I was taking the Paladin again through the new zones while my Worgen Warrior was fighting his way through the shattered old world. In Mists... you get the idea.
Warlords of Draenor, on the other hand, was just a series of "take another character into Tanaan, make sure that he gets far enough that he start accruing garrison resources."
I know that a lot of players just want to get to the endgame as quickly as possible, but I think one of the game's strengths is just how much content there is to work through before getting there. There's something refreshing and kind of low-stakes about taking a level forty character into Eastern Plaguelands - not worrying about getting that new trinket or shield. Warlords didn't give us any reason to do that again (and arguably encouraged us not to with the character boost.)
I don't have any problem with people who do want to skip ahead, but having a new perspective to see the world is fun, and I hope we get one in expansion six.
No comments:
Post a Comment