Next-Expansion
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Tom Chilton: "We are already in progress with our next expansion"
According to an interview with gameplanet.co.nz Blizzard isn't just working on Warlords of Draenor right now - they're in fact working hard on the next expansion, and have ideas for six or more future expansions they could do. We are already in progress with our next expansion. We already have zones in production for it. Our next expansion after that, we have a couple of different options that we'll be choosing between over the next several months. Beyond that, there are about six or seven different ideas for expansions that we can take elements of and say, 'You know what? Let's take that and put it in this one for our next expansion after the next one.' Or we might shift the timelines around from what we originally envisioned. There's easily 10 years worth of stuff that we can draw from – more, really. When I first heard that Warlords of Draenor will be coming out on November 13th, I wondered if that meant it would be all that Blizzard had to talk about at BlizzCon this year. Now that I've read this, I wonder if they'll have the fortitude to announce a new expansion before Warlords even comes out. As crazy as that sounds, if they're working six expansions deep, even if just conceptually, it's definitely a possibility.
Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard to make appearance at DreamHack Winter 2013
Blizzard Entertainment will be making an appearance at DreamHack Winter 2013 in Jönköping, Sweden -- and it's just been announced that Warlords of Draenor will as well. DreamHack is the world's largest digital festival and holds the official world record as the world's largest LAN party, promising an exciting time for Europeans attending the event and also an opportunity to play and see Warlords of Draenor, the new WoW expansion, firsthand. Along with Warlords, those attending will also be able to play both Hearthstone and Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. In addition, Blizzard will have several Hearthstone-themed contests for those attending, including a sound-a-like contest, a card-crafting contest, and a contest that will have players finding clues and building decks out of seven secret cards in order to challenge the Hearthstone crew. If that weren't enough, the European Community team will be on-hand to say hello, chat, mingle, and maybe even settle down to play some Diablo III. If you missed out on BlizzCon, this is the perfect opportunity to get a glimpse and some hands-on-time with the next expansion. DreamHack Winter 2013 takes place November 28 - December 1, 2013. For more information on the festival, as well as tickets and scheduling, be sure to check out DreamHack's official site.
Breakfast Topic: What will the next WoW expansion be?
What will the next WoW expansion be? With only one major content patch left in Mists of Pandaria, and BlizzCon 2013 around the corner, it won't be long before we know what's next. But what do you think is coming? Will we be venturing into the Emerald Dream alongside Malfurion, or was Anne Stickney onto something when she speculated that the Mists of Pandaria might be our Emerald Dream expansion? What about the ongoing legendary questline with Wrathion? Wrathion has been referencing the return of the Burning Legion in much of his quest text. Does that mean demons will be descending upon Azeroth in the next expansion? Will we finally get to see Sargeras? Also, you wouldn't want to forget Queen Azshara. You would think we'd have seen her and the city Nazjatar in the Cataclysm expansion, but so far she's only made minor or indirect appearances. Azshara is the perfect accompaniment to some recent fan speculation about the naga being the next possible playable race. Unfortunately, Ghostcrawler pretty much shot that down by pointing out the naga's lack of legs would make it difficult to design armor for them. And, of course, there's always ... Trolls? Wait, really? More trolls? You wouldn't think it, but in the same interview where Ghostcrawler killed our naga dreams, he said that trolls were an option the game lore could still explore in future content. Huh ... Go figure. So, what do you think the next WoW expansion will be?
The Queue: Looking to the future
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. In yesterday's edition of The Queue, there seemed to be more questions about the next expansion than the current one. Since the next expansion hasn't even been announced yet, there isn't much we can do with those, but we sure can try. Joey4 asked: weapon models to me seem to go by expansion theme, wrath had a dark cold look especially on greens and mists had the Asian theme, do you think we will see awesome looking models again like BC xpac had in the next xpac?
The Queue: Talents in the next expansion
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. The talent system has been revamped in every single expansion post-Burning Crusade. Will the next WoW expansion be any different? Gordon asked: How do you think talents are going to work from this point on? Will we have 1 talent every three expansions? Or will we get 1 per expansion, which means 1 every 5 levels?
The Queue: Hints of the next expansion
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. The television series above had a seriously depressing series finale. dark panda asked: This has probably already been requested, but with the announcement of Dinomancers in Patch 5.2, when are we going to get some Dino-Riders or Dinosaucers themed Queues? This was the best I could do. Sorry.
EVE Online posts an update to the state of Crimewatch
Criminals in EVE Online aren't just a cowardly and superstitious lot; they're a cowardly and superstitious lot with spaceships and powerful weapons. That makes the Crimewatch system even more vital to the game, as it ensures that the game imposes certain penalties for doing awful things to other players while not discouraging its usual confluence of inter-player awfulness. A new development blog outlines the changes coming to the Crimewatch system with the game's next expansion via a change to a flag system. The short version is that the game has broken down the flags into four basic categories based on player actions, each of which has a variable duration and prevents you from taking certain actions. For example, players who use weapons against another player will be flagged and will be unable to jump, dock, or switch ships in space for 60 seconds. The full breakdown of flag types and their associated penalties in different parts of space can be found in the official blog entry, well worth a look if you still want to skirt the laws in your spaceship.
Bucket list preparation for Mists of Pandaria
We may not have a release date just yet, but Mists of Pandaria is progressing quite nicely on the beta servers. I have one level 90 character already, and I'm leveling another one through just to see the changes, note any bugs I happen to still see hanging around (of which there are very few so far!) and get another look at the story behind the expansion as it plays out. It's fun, it's keeping me very busy, and sometimes I tend to forget that there's another Azeroth that I really ought to be addressing: the live one, where all my junk is at. I hate organizing things in game, which is really kind of odd because my life out here in the real world is pretty organized. I keep the house very clean and tidy. My library is organized in tidy sections by author, and my kitchen is immaculate. In fact, I get kind of annoyed when things aren't terribly organized or tidy at home. But in-game, I just can't seem to bring myself to addressing what is becoming an ever-increasing issue, and I'm really dragging my feet on getting ready for Mists. Getting ready? Yes, you heard me right -- I've found that if I want a seamless experience when I pick up an expansion and start to play, preparing beforehand is key. Plus, it gives me something to do while I'm waiting for the expansion to come out.
WRUP: Pandaren vs. Ethereals
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! On Thursday, Blizzard uploaded a curious new picture to its Facebook page. It's called "Glimpses," and it shows three ethereals in a building that looks identical to Cordell's Enchanting in Stormwind. But a glimpse of what? Patch 4.3? The next expansion? The picture set off a flurry of speculation. One intrepid soul decided to treat the names as anagrams, converting Vaultkeeper Razhid to "hide a true leak," with "remaining letters ZPRV." I tried playing around with the letters myself, and all I can seem to make out of it is "Bill is The Mole." What do you think that means? Of course, a lot of people out there are wondering whether or not ethereals will play a major part in the next expansion. So, in addition to the "What aRe yoU Playing" question, this week, we asked our columnists a very simple followup question: %Poll-67612%
Jaina Proudmoore working book title: Tides of War
We have learned from author Christie Golden's Facebook page that the working title of her newest World of Warcraft novel, which will focus on earth-shattering changes for fan favorite Jaina Proudmoore, could be titled Tides of War. Since Jaina's heritage and background (her father being Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, leader of Kul Tiras) is that of Kul Tiras, the island nation of seafaring humans, this title makes sense, especially if it heralds the return of the nation of Kul Tiras back to World of Warcraft. Christie posts: "Okay, starting on Tides of War, the Jaina (Proudmoore!) book. Am thinking if I work this right... I won't have to work weekends this time. Woot!" There is a lot of speculation going on about the next expansion, including the filing of a trademark for Mists of Pandaria, as well as Chris Metzen revealing the earth-shattering Jaina book at Comic Con last month. While Tides of War is admittedly a working title, it signals a strong naval theme that links up well with an island expansion, the island of Pandaria, and a generally water-y world we're looking at. This is all still speculation, of course.
Titles Tell Stories: How "Mists of Pandaria" breaks the mold
Mists of Pandaria was filed as a trademark by Blizzard last week, sending the WoW community into pandemonium. Love them or hate them, pandaren may be making their way to Warcraft sooner than you think. As a title, though, does Mists of Pandaria work in the same way Blizzard's past expansion titles have informed the public about their general storylines? While I was drafting The Queue a few days ago, one particular vein of questioning stood out among the rest. Blizzard has recently filed for a peculiar trademark, Mists of Pandaria, under the classification of computer software (among other things). Many people believe that Mists of Pandaria will be the name of the next expansion, heralding in an age of World of Warcraft in which the fan-favorite pandaren finally make their emergence out of the shadows and into our hearts. Others hope that the pandas stay as the joke they originated from and WoW keeps only its other 50 bipedal, anthropomorphized races and rejects the pandaren concept. Either way, it is cause for discussion. The title is an art form in the games industry. A title has to tell you everything you need to know right up front, on the box, to give players new and old alike an understanding of what the game is going to focus on, set the theme, set a tone, and even clue us in to the major plot points. The title Mists of Pandaria could or could not do those things. I've taken the liberty of writing up some words on the subject of this potential title. I could be right and could certainly be wrong, but here's some food for thought. The Queue question that got this all started for me:
Heirlooms for your main
When the news broke that patch 3.2 would bring new chest heirlooms, with a stacking +10% XP bonus, one commenter made an interesting suggestion: get heirlooms for your level 80 characters, and bank them until the next expansion. So far between chest and shoulders you've got a +20% bonus to all XP right there, and having some quality equipment always helps the leveling process. Of course, there's every chance that Blizzard will simply disable current heirlooms for characters past level 80, to prevent precisely this behavior. They've done level-based nerfing before, with items like the Riding Crop and enchants like Crusader. The whole fate of heirlooms in the next expansion seems pretty nebulous to me, actually; will we need to go back and farm Emblems of Conquest at level 90 to gear up our alts? It's too early to tell. For now I would hold on to any extra badges you might have, but when the next expansion nears, you may be able to make good use of them.
Lowered Expectations sits down with Ghostcrawler
There are two great articles over at the Lowered Expectations blog about him meeting Ghostcrawler during an event at his university. The posts are quite an interesting read and I highly recommend everyone heads over and checks them out.There's some interesting tidbits that came out of his time with the Ghost: Sindragosa will be playing a part in Patch 3.3 We shouldn't expect a hero class in every expansion Ghostcrawler was split down the middle on the Death Knight starting at level 55 Blizzard is interested in buffing up the old world levels to make them more interesting. He listed off (the top of his head): Darkshore, Stonetalon Mountains, and The Barrens. Ghostcrawler is responsible for the many varieties of fish in the game. This makes sense. Expect an expansion every 18 to 24 months Again, I highly recommend you head over to Lowered Expectations and check it the full articles. They're well written and quite informative.
