Speculating on the Blizzcon Schedule

Well, Blizzard released the schedule for Blizzcon. Let's take a look and speculate wildly!

I'm going to focus on WoW stuff here, as I get a sense that it'll be the big franchise this time around. Unfortunately for Diablo fans, it doesn't look like there's anything going on with them (something a Blizz representative already posted about earlier.)

It's an odd-numbered year, so we're due for a WoW expansion announcement. I believe these have all been announced at Blizzcon except for Legion, which I think they pushed earlier to Gamescom because Warlords had basically finished in early summer, releasing it's 6.2 patch without any third raid tier coming.

There are six separate panels (not counting the Blizzcon opening ceremony, where the announcements proper are generally unveiled.) These are What's Next, Voices of Blizzard: The Powerful Women of Warcraft (which is apparently going to be a panel for voice actors, specifically the women,) a Deep Systems Dive, and then on the second day The Art of Warcraft, World of Warcraft Q&A, and a Boss Design Workshop.

A "What's Next" panel is usually about new expansions (though not always.) I'm curious about the systems deep dive, which I'd guess means we're going to see some very different new gameplay features coming with expansion seven. Many have speculated for a while now that the next expansion could be a nautical adventure, and some have speculated that the Vindicaar might be a dry run for ships we might command from like a Garrison or Class Hall.

While I'd be happy for them to simply give the spotlight to the female voice actors and characters of WoW (even though I get the sense that the creators of the franchise began as a real boys' club, there are quite a few memorable women in the Warcraft cosmos who aren't defined by their relationships with men, much to Blizz's credit) I also wonder if this could be pointing to an expansion where a number of women play very prominent roles. The theoretical nautical expansion would likely involve both Jaina and Azshara as key figures, and if it also ties into N'Zoth and general Old-God-ness, I could see Alleria also playing a big role in bridging the expansions.

Again, the Gameplay Deep Dive suggests to me some big system changes. I think that most specs are pretty good where they are in terms of gameplay - maybe some tweaks to the new (or essentially new) specs like Havoc, Vengeance, Survival, and Outlaw, but I don't think we need yet another overhaul. But plenty of other systems could see changes, and I never put it past Blizzard to do something wildly unexpected. One key thing I could see them looking at is level scaling - using that tech to allow players of wildly different levels to play together or maybe even doing a level squish along with an almost inevitable stat squish.

Art of Warcraft will probably showcase art for the new expansion. Meanwhile, the Q&A will be whatever it is. I'm curious about the Boss Design Workshop, but I imagine this will be less about unveiling new stuff than just talking about their philosophy and showing the steps it takes to come up with boss mechanics.

I'm sure we'll find out about new Heroes for Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch and new expansions for Hearthstone. But it looks like there's not a ton for the other franchises. As someone who favors WoW over the other Blizzard stuff, though, I think this Blizzcon's for me.