There is a new Blizzcon interview over at polygon which details why there is no new class. I don’t see how the Necromancer or Dark Ranger didn’t jump out at them, but it is what it is. Here are the quotes:
At BlizzCon, we sat down with technical director Frank Kowalkowski and senior game designer Paul Kubit. We asked them both: why no new player class in Shadowlands ?
“We’ve done this before with [Warlords of] Draenor , when we decided we were going to put a lot of effort into the characters themselves, and into the character models,” said Kowalkowski. “We did the HD character models for Warlords of Draenor . Similar to that. We’re focusing more on giving more character customization options. So with humans we’re trying to get more diverse cast of human characters you can choose from that kind of represent real world.”
Kubit also chimed in to say the team didn’t feel like a new class jumped out at them, as one had in previous expansions.
“I’ll also add that when we’re making those choices for classes and races and things like that, a lot of it’s informed by setting and story,” said Kubit. And looking at the setting of the Shadowlands, there wasn’t a class that jumped out like the Demon Hunter did in the past with Legion for example. So a lot of our focus is more on building the world of the Shadowlands.”
It’s not clear when or if World of Warcraf t will ever add another new character class, but there definitely won’t be one in Shadowlands; players will need to make do with the current roster of 12 classes for at least another two years.
Third: Dark Rangers so far have been mostly former High elves, that are under Sylvanas command and if i recall they pretty much refuse to teach anyone that wasnt an elf before dying, or more recently undead humans commanded by Nathanos
Yea I saw this. If “a lot of effort” in customization are some new tattoos and a several more options per race, I don’t think it a good substitute for a whole new class. They’ll find that out when subs start to fade out next expansion quicker than this one.
Most of the features of Shadowlands feels like it could’ve been done in a small patch; it’s sad it takes Blizzard, backed by one of the biggest and most profitable publishers in the west, can’t find out a way to get out better content quicker to such a monetized game. They make half a billion dollars a year on microtransactions alone, and have some of the slowest development cycles in the industry.
I am perfectly fine with no new classes since they are fixing the ones we have that they broke over 15 years of adding and then pruning we don’t need new classes or races all the time.
The main point here is the need to create more customization options are a lame excuse for not coming out with new, exciting content in terms of a new class.
If you think they have to be mutually exclusive, you’re just settling for less because Activision Blizzard likes to keep margins high.
Better be some darn good customization options. I’m looking forward to what they cook up, but it feels like it’s going to be real easy to disappoint me in that regard. They weren’t even comfortable enough featuring the new options in the actual features trailer.
They didn’t have to. I mean that they didn’t even mention the fact that the options were coming. You had to read the blue post or watch the deep dive panel.
The trailer as a whole felt bereft of features, which is why it has a pretty significant dislike ratio on Youtube. It feels like they didn’t know how to translate the information they went over in the deep-dive into a decent advertisement for the video. At least mentioning the customization options and showing a wildhammer dwarf, an asian human, and a sandfury troll would have gotten the message across.
I can definitely see how a unholy DK rip off or adding yet another elf only class…both which have nothing to do with the story of Shadowlands…didn’t jump out at them.
I would greatly prefer more time be spent on what we have now.
Considering Blizzard isn’t even sure of what they are doing in Shadowlands makes it pretty hard to make that statement.
If they don’t know just how much work will be put into changes, how cam we as players know and then be able to categorically say it’s nothing more than a patch.
I agree with this. Customization options only change the appearance and not the actual mechanics. And with the game being so fast-paced and pick-up and play, you don’t even get to see half of the people in your area. I usually only notice a mount that really stands out, even armor is rare. And how are you going to see someone’s tattoos with all that armor? It’s not like people actually stop to talk to each other these days.
I really hope all the races are going to get a lot of customization options and not just humans. Would be pretty disappointing if the only thing Forsaken get is some skin on their bones and a goofy Final Fantasy looking haircut.
They also said BFA would undo pruning but in reality it made it worse, so I’m not going to trust them until we see an alpha of them undoing the pruning at the least. Just like BFA, they listed just a couple of abilities that are returning.
