BlizzCon 2010: Cataclysm Equals Two Expansions' Worth of Work

[Therumancer]

[
And frankly, from a business perspective your ideas just don't make sense.

This is the only bit that is valid and then only to a point.


I think you don't get what I'm saying about Deathwing at all. Deathwing was an enemy that should have been brought out before Ulduar and Arthas if they were going to use him at all. The events of the game have already surpassed him. He is not worthy of being the next step up from what has already happened conceptually.

You are correct that from a current business perspective what I am saying does not make sense. To today's corperate mentality what is good for a property is irrelevent, it's about running everything into the ground irregardless of diminishing quality and only moving on once every bit of profit has been strip mined from it's quivering corpse.

Right now World Of Warcraft has already been successful, it's made profits in excess of what it cost to produce. If they were to shut off the servers tomorrow it would still be a huge success. The only reason why this hasn't happened, and we're seeing things like Cataclysm is that Blizzard realizes that there is enough of an installed fan base where they can make more money right now.

Taking a long term perspective like I mentioned, the "keep them wanting more" strategy would probably generate more money in the long term, but it doesn't put money into pockets with that property right now, and that is the crucial issue.

Your right from the perspective of a "what will put the most money in Activision/Blizzard's pockets in the short term" attitude, but wrong in an absolute sense of what will make more money in the long run (perhaps turning into a multi-generational franchise) and be good for the IP itself.

WoW has already made a profit as I mentioned, and a huge one. Blizzard already has other products on the market making them a ton of money. It has another MMORPG in development as I'm typing this. It's all about making a cash grab right now.

I'm really not following you. How is wanting to improve the overall quality of your game to bring an entirely new audience into the fold not an improvement for the IP as a whole?

Yeah, Algalon could have called the Titans in to unmake Azeroth. So then shouldn't he have been the final boss of WotLK, not Arthas?

If you leave side bosses out of it, there's a pretty linear progression in terms of storyline power regarding main villains. Nefarian/Kelthuzad -> Illidan -> Arthas -> Deathwing.

For all intents and purposes, Cataclysm is WoW 2.

The thing is though that Arthas is basically the primal spirit of death, which is why there must always be a Lich King.

Not really. He's just a dude that fused with a puppet of the Legion that rebelled that happened to have the power to make ghouls and ghosts and got worshipped for it. It's more like a powerful necromancer than anything else. There must be a lich king because you don't want a zombie apocalypse. It's like in the cold was, if a president dies, the nukes then have a twisted free will. You just don't want them loose.

This is the best analogy. Thanks for putting a smile on my face

Actually I think that's a pretty poor analogy to the whole thing. A better analogy to The Liche King would be death's gatekeeper, or perhaps a deity like Hel or Hades. Zombie Apogolypse goes a bit beyond what would happen if he didn't exist, it would be the primal forces of the universe unraveling.

Now yes, Arthas being chosen for this role is a bit wonky, as what he did with it, but the whole problem is that he's not just some guy which is why it took such a major production and the convergence of numerous divine-level and above entities acting in succession to engineer his downfall. This is pretty much what the game and a lot of the quests are about.

I mean I understand how you want to view things, especially seeing as it plays into what you apparently want to see for World Of Warcraft... more expansions irregardless of anything, but that analogy for defining Arthas isn't really adequete.

Deathwing does not follow a logical progression of power at this point, he's on a lower tier of power than beings that have already been confronted. Not something worthy of the 80-85 bracket.

Also this is not "World Of Warcraft 2" or anything close to it really. It's more similar to an event run by an RPG company to sell books covering areas that were already covered. Same game, same engine.

A proper World Of Warcraft 2 would involve a total relaunch of the game, total character and zone wipage, a rehaul and rebalancing of the entire class and race system, and updated technology and graphics. With the entire game starting over again from level 1 for everyone, you might see Deathwing sitting where Ragnaros was for the basic product. I do understand that this is similar to how thing are with Cataclysm, but seeing as the game structure, progression, and most importantly character levels are all still intact it doesn't work too well. It's sort of like trying to say that Acerak is somehow a greater threat and more powerful being than Iuz. A group that already took Iuz down should have no problem with Acerak power level wise. (ultra nerdism... referance to Greyhawk).

Don't get me wrong, I understand the money reasons for this. If I was in Blizzard's shoes, especially with Bobby Kotick as my boss I'd be tempted to run the cash grab too as opposed to doing right by the properties.

As someone pointed out there are 12 million subscribers. That's a massive potential cash influx. To turn your back on the huge wads of cash you can make from that right now, even with the promise of making even more money a decade later, is not something many people are going to do.

Also, try and understand where I'm coming from here. World Of Warcraft is a great game, and the whole "Warcraft" universe is a great intellectual property. However throughout history there have been many other great universes and characters in fandom, and a lot of those had their potential squandered by the people controlling the IP simply overdoing it and pushing things to the absolute limit, until they literally destroyed both their IP and fan base. What could have been an ongoing, multi-generational property wound up being destroyed for fast cash. RPGs, Comics, movie and TV franchises, I'm sure we've all got our favorite stories.

Right now there are 12 million people screaming "more Warcraft", give them what they want right now, even doing a hack job, and there is plenty of money to be made. However as you do this kind of thing your going to slowly erode that fan base. Rather than eroding it to the point where nobody cares, it's probably better to stop when demand is high, and return later when you can really do justice to the franchise with a fresh perspective.

Blizzard isn't going to cancel Cataclysm, I have no illusions about that. Too much money has already been spent on this. But ask yourself, you defend the whole concept of Cataclysm and "Deathwing" as a final boss for it, and obviously don't agree with people like me here, but do you REALLY think it's going to stop here? When this succeeds don't you think that there will be ANOTHER supplement with them reaching for another boss that doesn't quite fit into the progression they set up? If say WoW drops to 10 million subscribers or whatever, do you think they won't just continue to sell to that 10 million due to the money being made?

I have no illusions of being able to stop the cycle (though I can always hope), but the point is that I think Warcraft deserves better than to be run into the ground. Rather it deserves to end on a high note, and be remembered fondly, rather than something that used to be good but was beaten to death by doing too much too fast.

 

[John Funk]

[
And frankly, from a business perspective your ideas just don't make sense.

This is the only bit that is valid and then only to a point.


I think you don't get what I'm saying about Deathwing at all. Deathwing was an enemy that should have been brought out before Ulduar and Arthas if they were going to use him at all. The events of the game have already surpassed him. He is not worthy of being the next step up from what has already happened conceptually.

You are correct that from a current business perspective what I am saying does not make sense. To today's corperate mentality what is good for a property is irrelevent, it's about running everything into the ground irregardless of diminishing quality and only moving on once every bit of profit has been strip mined from it's quivering corpse.

Right now World Of Warcraft has already been successful, it's made profits in excess of what it cost to produce. If they were to shut off the servers tomorrow it would still be a huge success. The only reason why this hasn't happened, and we're seeing things like Cataclysm is that Blizzard realizes that there is enough of an installed fan base where they can make more money right now.

Taking a long term perspective like I mentioned, the "keep them wanting more" strategy would probably generate more money in the long term, but it doesn't put money into pockets with that property right now, and that is the crucial issue.

Your right from the perspective of a "what will put the most money in Activision/Blizzard's pockets in the short term" attitude, but wrong in an absolute sense of what will make more money in the long run (perhaps turning into a multi-generational franchise) and be good for the IP itself.

WoW has already made a profit as I mentioned, and a huge one. Blizzard already has other products on the market making them a ton of money. It has another MMORPG in development as I'm typing this. It's all about making a cash grab right now.

I'm really not following you. How is wanting to improve the overall quality of your game to bring an entirely new audience into the fold not an improvement for the IP as a whole?

Yeah, Algalon could have called the Titans in to unmake Azeroth. So then shouldn't he have been the final boss of WotLK, not Arthas?

If you leave side bosses out of it, there's a pretty linear progression in terms of storyline power regarding main villains. Nefarian/Kelthuzad -> Illidan -> Arthas -> Deathwing.

For all intents and purposes, Cataclysm is WoW 2.

The thing is though that Arthas is basically the primal spirit of death, which is why there must always be a Lich King.

Not really. He's just a dude that fused with a puppet of the Legion that rebelled that happened to have the power to make ghouls and ghosts and got worshipped for it. It's more like a powerful necromancer than anything else. There must be a lich king because you don't want a zombie apocalypse. It's like in the cold was, if a president dies, the nukes then have a twisted free will. You just don't want them loose.

This is the best analogy. Thanks for putting a smile on my face

Actually I think that's a pretty poor analogy to the whole thing. A better analogy to The Liche King would be death's gatekeeper, or perhaps a deity like Hel or Hades. Zombie Apogolypse goes a bit beyond what would happen if he didn't exist, it would be the primal forces of the universe unraveling.

Now yes, Arthas being chosen for this role is a bit wonky, as what he did with it, but the whole problem is that he's not just some guy which is why it took such a major production and the convergence of numerous divine-level and above entities acting in succession to engineer his downfall. This is pretty much what the game and a lot of the quests are about.

I mean I understand how you want to view things, especially seeing as it plays into what you apparently want to see for World Of Warcraft... more expansions irregardless of anything, but that analogy for defining Arthas isn't really adequete.

Deathwing does not follow a logical progression of power at this point, he's on a lower tier of power than beings that have already been confronted. Not something worthy of the 80-85 bracket.

Also this is not "World Of Warcraft 2" or anything close to it really. It's more similar to an event run by an RPG company to sell books covering areas that were already covered. Same game, same engine.

A proper World Of Warcraft 2 would involve a total relaunch of the game, total character and zone wipage, a rehaul and rebalancing of the entire class and race system, and updated technology and graphics. With the entire game starting over again from level 1 for everyone, you might see Deathwing sitting where Ragnaros was for the basic product. I do understand that this is similar to how thing are with Cataclysm, but seeing as the game structure, progression, and most importantly character levels are all still intact it doesn't work too well. It's sort of like trying to say that Acerak is somehow a greater threat and more powerful being than Iuz. A group that already took Iuz down should have no problem with Acerak power level wise. (ultra nerdism... referance to Greyhawk).

Don't get me wrong, I understand the money reasons for this. If I was in Blizzard's shoes, especially with Bobby Kotick as my boss I'd be tempted to run the cash grab too as opposed to doing right by the properties.

As someone pointed out there are 12 million subscribers. That's a massive potential cash influx. To turn your back on the huge wads of cash you can make from that right now, even with the promise of making even more money a decade later, is not something many people are going to do.

Also, try and understand where I'm coming from here. World Of Warcraft is a great game, and the whole "Warcraft" universe is a great intellectual property. However throughout history there have been many other great universes and characters in fandom, and a lot of those had their potential squandered by the people controlling the IP simply overdoing it and pushing things to the absolute limit, until they literally destroyed both their IP and fan base. What could have been an ongoing, multi-generational property wound up being destroyed for fast cash. RPGs, Comics, movie and TV franchises, I'm sure we've all got our favorite stories.

Right now there are 12 million people screaming "more Warcraft", give them what they want right now, even doing a hack job, and there is plenty of money to be made. However as you do this kind of thing your going to slowly erode that fan base. Rather than eroding it to the point where nobody cares, it's probably better to stop when demand is high, and return later when you can really do justice to the franchise with a fresh perspective.

Blizzard isn't going to cancel Cataclysm, I have no illusions about that. Too much money has already been spent on this. But ask yourself, you defend the whole concept of Cataclysm and "Deathwing" as a final boss for it, and obviously don't agree with people like me here, but do you REALLY think it's going to stop here? When this succeeds don't you think that there will be ANOTHER supplement with them reaching for another boss that doesn't quite fit into the progression they set up? If say WoW drops to 10 million subscribers or whatever, do you think they won't just continue to sell to that 10 million due to the money being made?

I have no illusions of being able to stop the cycle (though I can always hope), but the point is that I think Warcraft deserves better than to be run into the ground. Rather it deserves to end on a high note, and be remembered fondly, rather than something that used to be good but was beaten to death by doing too much too fast.

Sorry dude, I have no desire to debate walls of text with someone who has the time to write them. But from what I'm reading in your other posts, you completely misunderstand Arthas'/the Lich King's role in the lore (there wasn't a Lich King before the Scourge was created by the Burning Legion, after all. He isn't a primal force of the universe, he's just a really powerful necromancer).

I just don't think that wanting to fix what desperately needs fixing in the game is "running it into the ground." Frankly, I think you're in the vast minority here.

Also, you seem to be continuing an argument you're having with someone else

 

[ionveau]

I don't think Blizzard is capable of being cheap. :V

With 12 million players around the world, thats a lot of bodies needed to manage a ton of servers. Not to mention maitenence, wages for said workers, etc.

I've always wondered what the monthly balance of blizzard tends to be. I have the feeling that its a lot less than those set on the idea that "Blizzard are greedy money hungry gluttons" seem to believe it is.

NONONONONO you dont understand is you have 12million people playing thats good, some MMOs have 500,000 some have 100,000 but they all pay the same for each person using the server, i think to keep a person playing for a whole month it costs them $0.12 per person a month.
How do you think free MMOs live? the cost of maintaining a server is low unless your renting one then i ask why not buy?

overall if you look at the cost of keeping the servers up i will say its
1.440.000 with the income of 180.000.000 per month

 

[Genixma]

Personally I blame Tichondrius for everything that's happened to Azeroth. The Dreadlords just HAD to cause trouble and bring Sarganes then corrupt him.

On Topic: I've never seen Cataclysm as a cop-out the only thing that really bothers me about it is that the Talent Trees are more like Talent Shrubberies now. And the Worgen Female eyes creep me out But I'm enjoying the new stuff in Cata mostly because it's not a new area so much as "Holy hell a big frickin dragon run!"

 

[Therumancer]

Sorry dude, I have no desire to debate walls of text with someone who has the time to write them. But from what I'm reading in your other posts, you completely misunderstand Arthas'/the Lich King's role in the lore (there wasn't a Lich King before the Scourge was created by the Burning Legion, after all. He isn't a primal force of the universe, he's just a really powerful necromancer).

I just don't think that wanting to fix what desperately needs fixing in the game is "running it into the ground." Frankly, I think you're in the vast minority here.

Also, you seem to be continuing an argument you're having with someone else

Your right about the length, and me getting confused due to all the message I got. Apologies.


As far as the Lore goes:

They are somewhat ambigious about whether The Lich King existed before The Burning Legion or not, all we know is that Arthas was sort of set up into defeating the last one. We also know that apparently without someone in that role, the forces of death will run mad and pretty much level creation.

It's important to note that Arthas was able to act as a global level threat on a level where there were numerous divine-class beings forced to join forces to confront him. You didn't just have a couple of Naaru or Dragon Lords teleport in and lay the smackdown on him because he was simply too powerful. He was creating minions to serve him which were roughly on the level of deities in their on right, and if you look at the levels and capabilities the stats even agree with me. Consider for example that Malygos, who pretty much *is* magic is considered to be a lesser being in the villain heirarchy, and other dragons of equal stature get involved in the final battles and are unable to confront him. You wind up having to save one of the big time green dragon lords before the Sindragosa fight for crying out loud.

Now, I do understand the hype behind Deathwing, but conceptually he's not all that. I mean think about it, he's being rated higher than an elder deity who simply by being temporarly released caused such a threat of cosmic repercussions that the overgods were pretty much ready to blow up the planet outright to deal with it.

We could argue a combination of lore and the game set up/plotlines back and forth, but if you think about it what I am saying DOES make sense. It would be like in Marvel argueing that The Kingpin Of Crime is a greater threat than Galactus, and defending game design where say in a marvel game they already run a plotline up to confronting Galactus and then desiring to continue things they create an expansion for higher levels that deals with The Kingpin and organized crime in New York where taking on Wilson Fisk is harder than the devourer of worlds. Maybe you can design it in a video game, but it's horrible writing, and at the point your considering things like that for new material it's probably a better idea to just let things die.


Also for the record I am not so much complaining about them fixing the game, so much as I am saying that they really should have ended "World Of Warcraft" with "the Lich King", and eventually redone things with a whole new "Warcraft 2" later where they could insert things like Deathwing into a logical boss lineup for the new time period. I see what Blizzard is doing as being akin to an author stretching a triology into a ten book series or whatever due to the money it was making and the following, and destroying the whole thing as a result, where if he just ended the storyline as planned, later he could perhaps do another one later, fully prepared, with market anticipation, without having to stretch things out.

As for whether I'm in a minority opinion, that's hard to say. There are a lot of people whining about World Of Warcraft out there, and like usual most of them tend to be ignored. A lot of them express the same sentiments. That said, part of my basic arguement is that just because there is a fanbase/support to keep things going for more chapters right now, does not mean it's the right choice for the franchise in the long run. As I was saying I think a "keep them wanting more" attitude would be a lot healthier here for the moment.

Cataclysm is coming out irregardless of what I think, I just think it was a bad move. Sort of like oh say "A Midsummer Night's Dream 2" or "Casablanca: Sam Plays It again!" would be a bad idea. Even though this will succeed, I fear it's going to fuel yet more expansion packs and eventually WoW will be degraded into nothing due to not backing off, giving it time, and doing it right.

Opinions vary, we'll have to agree to disagree (yet again) I'm sure.

Also apologies about the length (yet again), posts simply tend to grow on me when I have a lot to say. To be honest I type pretty fast, so they don't take me that long. I do however have a tendency to mangle the english language as a result, as I'm sure many people have noticed.

 

[Zing]

Blizzard's other, not-quite-so-Massive titles

Blizzard has titles that aren't as massive?

 

[Cadapalo]

I wouldn't consider it lazy at all. They are doing a whole lot to the game literally from the ground up and that's not an easy task. I would call it a bit unimaginative since they are not doing something to completely blow my mind buts that is okay. Still not sure if I want to go back or not since wow has gotten pretty stagnant. I might resubscribe if a friend those but not on my own.

As a side note does anyone know if or what blizzard is planning as a world even for pre-cata? Kind of like the zombie thing was for wrath.

 

[Loggymonster]

I love it when people who have no idea what programming a video game is like call out laziness. Like all the fanboys pissed that FFVII isn't being remade or mad that nintendo is being "lazy" with remakes.

 

[fu3lman]

>> Anyone calling this a cash grab has a skewed idea of what constitutes a "grab", there's enough content in either of the factions new racial starting areas to EASILY justify the expansions $40 tag. I will gladly back this up if you'd like me to.

>> People complaining about lore are also the same people who openly ***** about and superficially hate on any form of entertainment that doesn't conform to what they consider canonical (I wasn't exactly thrilled with I Am Legend either, but it was a great movie on its own.) Sometimes taking liberties actually improves things, and you'd be amazed how many of the 128 bazillion people playing WoW really don't care who Arthas' college roommate was, or how he became Zachary the Vile, and how Deathwing makes no sense because Zachary wasn't at his Barmitzvah...seriously...WoW's continuity isn't that important...or at least it's not that important to the VAST majority of the people i come in contact with in-game. RetCon my ass, tell me when it diminishes the quality of the game, because it doesn't. It's just something else to ***** about to boost your sense of superiority.

>> Almost every guildie or raidmember I've ever had idle conversations with, before Cataclysm was ever announced, about what we wished was in the game has had almost the exact same sentiment...and never seemed to stray from these few points.

- I wish there was a reason to run old content, I miss older raids, and the old dungeons.
- I wish they'd bring crowd control and real group coordination back into the game.
- I wish I could use my flying mount in Kal/EK.
- I wish there was a reason to go back the old world, I miss it.
- I wish there was some sort of guild progress/leveling.

Lo and behold, they pretty much nail EVERYTHING (some to a lesser/greater degree) we've been wanting in an expansion, and people gotta come out of the woodwork to hate.

 

[Loggymonster]

>> Anyone calling this a cash grab has a skewed idea of what constitutes a "grab", there's enough content in either of the factions new racial starting areas to EASILY justify the expansions $40 tag. I will gladly back this up if you'd like me to.

>> People complaining about lore are also the same people who openly ***** about and superficially hate on any form of entertainment that doesn't conform to what they consider canonical (I wasn't exactly thrilled with I Am Legend either, but it was a great movie on its own.) Sometimes taking liberties actually improves things, and you'd be amazed how many of the 128 bazillion people playing WoW really don't care who Arthas' college roommate was, or how he became Zachary the Vile, and how Deathwing makes no sense because Zachary wasn't at his Barmitzvah...seriously...WoW's continuity isn't that important...or at least it's not that important to the VAST majority of the people i come in contact with in-game. RetCon my ass, tell me when it diminishes the quality of the game, because it doesn't. It's just something else to ***** about to boost your sense of superiority.

>> Almost every guildie or raidmember I've ever had idle conversations with, before Cataclysm was ever announced, about what we wished was in the game has had almost the exact same sentiment...and never seemed to stray from these few points.

- I wish there was a reason to run old content, I miss older raids, and the old dungeons.
- I wish they'd bring crowd control and real group coordination back into the game.
- I wish I could use my flying mount in Kal/EK.
- I wish there was a reason to go back the old world, I miss it.
- I wish there was some sort of guild progress/leveling.

Lo and behold, they pretty much nail EVERYTHING (some to a lesser/greater degree) we've been wanting in an expansion, and people gotta come out of the woodwork to hate.

/agree
/agree
/agree

 

[Mathak]

As far as the Lore goes:

They are somewhat ambigious about whether The Lich King existed before The Burning Legion or not, all we know is that Arthas was sort of set up into defeating the last one.

Er, we pretty much know exactly when Lichie came to be - just after the 2nd War, when Ner'Zhul fled from the destruction of Draenor and got ambushed in the Twisting Nether by Kil'Jaeden. KJ tortured NZ till he agreed to serve the Legion, locked his soul inside his armour, his armour inside a crystal and then catapulted the crystal into Northrend. Bam. Lich King.

 

[Ashbax]

It's an expansion. It's sold for 40% less then a full game. Complaining about value is what people do because they are cheap. The amount of tweaks, changes and updates, along with the new 80-85 and end game content, I'd say we aren't paying enough. From what I've seen at Blizzcon, I would say we are going to be getting our monies worth... and then some. I can't wait!

Indeed, people who dont play WoW, I often see them complaining about the subscription fee, but I say its practically a steal for all the hours worth. Ive got about 2-3months of /played time, which is far more than any other game ive ever played. On all the Halo [/5] Series, ive got about 550 hours, and then ive got about 380 on CSS. Catacylsm is going to be fantastic IMO, I love the lore, the new raids, the new features (guild levelling? Ftw!) all that shizzle.

 

[Zeetchmen]

I look forward to see how much is copypasta for them to deem it "2 expansions" of work

 

[Torrasque]

If only the raids were any good, I'd still be playing.
But they're not. The raids are exactly the same as they have been, just worse... -_-

And I swear to fucking god, if I have to deal with RNG in D3, like I did in wotlk, heads will roll.