@ragnar:

Depending on who you talk to, the story direction is either incomprehensibly deep (there are some mind-boggling 'this is where WoW's headed and everything's been building up to this' podcasts/discussions out there), or just batshit random dartboard writing.

Neither option is particularly great as the 'deep' scenario requires scrambling for tiny 'clues' from every game, book and twitter post they've made in the last 20+ years.

Already beat him back when and Demon Hunter won't be anything interesting due to homogeneity. Pass.

They said that Illidan was more demon than night elf when we killed him in the burning crusade. When demons die their souls return to the twisting nether. The twisting nether transcends all realities and timelines, all the multiverses connect to the one twisting nether. This is why Archimonde came back at the end of WoD and probably why Illidan is coming back as well.

WoD was such a huge disappointment- both story and gameplay wise, its no wonder why they lost 5 million subscribers since its launch

@scotto: Blizzard will likely not reinvent anything ever again. Most their talent that was known for breaking ground and making amazing new games with new ideas has moved on. Now they just refine the same thing into a casual, easy to pick up experience.

Look at their past few years. They are mainly focused on following the "hot game style" of the moment. Card games got bigger and bigger, so here comes Hearthstone. Oh man MOBA's are now the most played game type ever? Have Heroes of the Storm. Blizzards first new IP in 10+ years? A Team Fortress 2 re-imagining

The Blizzard that put their name on the map with fancy new ideas has moved on from this world. A lot of people like the style and simplicity of their games, so that audience is happy. But if you are looking for the next new big thing, some other developer is going to be putting that game out.

@bane122: It's more the process than anything else. I never actually managed to find the elusive guild I was describing.

This has my hyped. I AM PREPARED!

@generic_username: Ah, I see. Well, if you ever decide to try the game again I've something that might make it easier. I recently came back to it myself and learned about an in-game guild finder. It's apparently been in there for quite some time but Blizzard never really talks about it. You can set some parameters you are looking for then just scroll through a list of guilds with descriptions of what they are. I found a pretty laid back, casual guild that I've liked so far through it.

Of course, for all I know you already tried this avenue but since I just learned of it after having played off and on for four years now, I thought it worth mentioning. I hope you find it useful one day.

This really looks like The Burning Crusade x Wrath of the Lich King. Which is fine I guess, since those are the two best expansions, I just don't have the faith that they can deliver on all this shit.

The hell? Why would they limit the new class to two races, undead or bust, man! Is it a lore thing, why would they start putting lore above game play now?

Yes, it's a lore thing. Also, if you're complaining about class/race combos I take you it you didn't play WoW before Cataclysm (or ever?). Hell, even now there are only four races that can be druids, but before Cata it was only two. They added new class/race combinations for Cata, but it's still not like every race can be every class.

To be fair, TF2-esque stuff has not been the hot trend for a long time. It's only really picked up again recently because of the Gun Mettle update and the promised competitive update (which, as a long time TF2 player, I hope they make good on).

TF2 honestly could use a well-polished and designed competitor, as no other game in recent memory that has attempted the same thing really had the same pull or longevity as it has, and Valve has gotten a bit lazy in some respects when it comes to TF2 (granted, it's pretty well known at this point that Valve just views the thing as a cash cow, especially when you compare it's level of support to something like CS:GO or Dota 2). A lot of the big TF2 players have had positive things to say in relation to Overwatch (edit: many of them have been invited multiple times to play the game), and I myself am pretty curious about it.

Activison's stock is up 3 points apparently (over 10%), pretty silly.

How much would it suck to live in Azeroth?

They have the equivalent of Krakatoa meets the Golden Horde with a backdrop of World War 2 every other year. And then someone just announced it going yearly.

I'd start looking into moving my family into alternate realms.

What are you on about?

Blizzard has always been about refining existing ideas into 'easy to pick up experiences'. Starcraft drew heavily from Total Annihilation. Diablo was developed by Schaefer's company, before Blizzard picked it up and later on refined the ARPG concept in D2. It wasn't an original idea. World of Warcraft was a refinement of the Everquest model. You can draw similar parallels to almost any Blizzard game.

That's what they did in the past, and that's still what they are doing with Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone and Overwatch. It can be argued that they aren't as effective at it as in the past, but don't make the grand argument that somehow they have lost their way and will never reinvent anything ever again.

@bane122: Thanks for letting me know, that's certainly something I'll try out if/when I ever jump back in. Of course, that if/when is probably still mostly predicated on the game costing less than it does per month, but being less removed from the social aspects of the game (and thus, the actual enjoyable part of the endgame) is what will make me bother with it when they finally do announce that price drop. As it is now, their subscription costs me the same as 1-3 indie games every month, and I'd rather just get those.

I still love WoW and am still playing with a regular raid team. Kudos to Blizzard on Legion. I think it looks good.

So I think I realised why I keep meaning to go back to WoW and am really intent on it and then never follow through... I l LOVE the Warcraft universe... but I think I'm done with the MMO thing... I want Blizzard to make awesome games with cool stories rather than bolting those cool stories onto their MMO every couple of years. I played Shadow of Mordor last year and thought "man this game is really fun, but Jesus this story sucks. How fucking cool would it be if this game with the Nemesis System and all was set in the Warcraft universe?"

I read WOW: Lego. And it actually made sense.

It seems like the last one just came out. Awesome.

Man, when you have an MMO double over the level cap from release I would hope people playing are at least killing gods or something more interesting. I have a feeling that this is not the case -- correct me if I'm wrong though.

This is definitely the direction I would like to see the Warcraft universe go. I think the MMO game style is a huge hindrance to all the cool stories that could be told in the Warcraft lore.

@mayor_mccheese: Well people are killing giant god type things, but to your point, it's not quiteeeee yet double launch levels yet. Vanilla WoW had you reaching 60. So next announcement is the line of "we need something new"

@ajamafalous: I've played wow since bc, it just seems like they stopped caring about lore long ago. Plus I don't like the design of blood elves so its kind of a bummer, and aren't they corrupted high elves not night elves? So that doesn't make much sense lore wise. I'm not saying every race should be able to play as a demon hunter but maybe like 4 instead of 2?