In this thread, please discuss any topics covered in the World of Warcraft: What’s Next panel at BlizzCon.
Some initial thoughts!
General:
- Looking forward to seeing Anduin, Thrall, Magni and Alleria again
- The Arathi armor sets looks amazing!
- Same goes for Hollowfall, looking forward to this zone and the Arathi!
- Dragonflying and continuation of the zone techniques from DF
- The information on Delves and the new evergreen feature looks promising
Hype:
- Hero talents
- Warbands
- All the new assets. There are so many assets here that obviously can be used for potential Kalimdor/EK zone updates. It also makes the expansion, and their zones seem more connected to the existing world.
Not as hype:
- I don’t really see why we keep having leveling dungeons. Alright, fine for the first character but after that they should really just add all 8 dungeons to the pool in order to have a more diverse leveling experience for alts.
- No 2024 roadmap (yet)
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The trailer with Anduin got me right in the feels. . . I’ve been wondering about him this whole xpac. I’ve been missing some of the key figures that are absent this xpac. But I really do like the idea of over arcing storyline that isn’t tied to just one expansion. . some need longer to tell and unfold slower while other elements will be dealt with more rapidly. I’m looking forward to see how the story moves forward.
Now a lot of things that have happened are making sense. The giant sword, the BFA gift of N’zoth that there was some promise of something happening if you kept it (but nothing seemed to happen, I hope that is still to come, but I could be wrong about that), The cryptic last words of the Jailer. The reason there are three eyed fish in Zaralek cavern? Xal’atath’s comments about meeting again.
I am so glad to see the continuation of dragon riding and with other mounts. I know some don’t like it, but I personally love it, it’s one of the most fun things they have put in the game in a long time. I hope it brings even more customizations for the DF mounts. It’s so fun to see everyone’s different riff on a mount.
Warbands. . . That looks amazing and huge quality of life changes.
The new zones looks inviting, can’t wait to get into it with the Nerubians and meet the new races of Earthen and Arathi.
Delves look like they might really fill what has been a huge need in the game. I’m really excited about trying that out.
Hero talents look awesome!
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Oh man, I am super excited for all of the quality of life changes. Those evolved nerubians look badass 
Gorgeous designs.
I am most excited for the Hero Talents: this felt like the crown jewel of the What’s Next event. Massively optimistic that it will provide enough variety that there is not one mega optimized meta for each class/spec.
It feels like GW2 with the base class and sub classes (with new names, respectively), but executed way better from the promo. Stoked to live out some new class fantasies within each class via Hero Talents.
As I always say here: Customization is a net positive and will always make someone happy. This is a big win via impacting everyone’s ability to customize.
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I follow this opinion. Honestly, I was hoping for more content. I’ll be waiting for a 2024 roadmap with the new expansion included.
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Delves does feel like a good direction to take with those who do not want to be bound towards the common party identity (if that’s what ‘role agnostic’ means.) I’m greatly curious in which direction the hero trees for Evoker and Monk are going to go and how it’ll advance the class fantasies from there.
Warbands and anything that helps with general alting is well and good too. This includes more breathing room with mogging options and currencies.
Earthen are… not so fantastic, in my biased opinion. Though more options the better I guess.
Though the panel just left me rather hopeless about the state of Dracthyr currently. Where are the rest of their mogging options for their true form? And additional classes?
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Initial thoughts:
I am definitely excited about the hero talents. I surely do hope that my Warlock gets her Metamorphosis back, with maybe the glyph to make them just permanent wings instead of fully transforming. I surely do miss my demon wings…
Zones look awesome, and from the way it looks how they seamlessly intertwine will be really nice. Given that it was stated they used technology used for the Zaralek Caverns one can assume these new zones are massive. Which is really nice.
I am also excited about Warbands and how this system could potentially be improved upon. Maybe provide your own alts as members within the Delves as “NPCs”? So if you join solo, 4 of your alts within the warband join you to do the Delve. Maybe assign an alt as a “bodygaurd” much like it was done in WoD and Legion?
I am also super excited about players doing outside activities finally be included within the weekly vault system. This is a lovely change, and I cannot wait to fill it out every week.
What I’m not so excited about… honestly… is the dragonriding expanding into this new expansion. Don’t get me wrong. It is nice, and it is faster… But man sometimes It’s just… annoying . I just want to fly somewhere while eating something, or make a phone call, or any other myriad of tasks and I can’t due to dragonriding being a mini-game within the game just for travel. Let alone those with accessability issues that cannot utilize the dragonriding system, as they are now essentially removed from 2 expansions now. With improvements, this new Dragonriding 2.0 system could be really nice. If it keeps the same system is has now… ugh. How long will it be in The War Within before another Pathfinder makes its way to allow legacy flight? What will its requirements be? Is it going to get an improved name from “Dragonriding”?
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So far, I’m very curious to see how the new talents will work when it’s put in practice. It feels like the sort of thing that would also open up customization in the future for glyphs of different spell effects, so I’m doubly curious about that. 
I’m glad the dragonriding mechanics are carrying over due to how much it made flying much more interesting, and involves the player more than just choosing a direction and flying. I do hope that regular flying will be enabled by default for those who require it due to accessibility issues though! Delves are also a very fascinating addition, definitely looking forward to seeing more about it.
The changes to allowing any character to unlock any mog type is excellent, but at the same time, and at the risk of seeming like it’s just asking for more, it would be great if all armor types could transmog all appearances already. The argument of visual clarity just doesn’t apply when there are cosmetic appearances as ridiculous as the yeti costume, or even simply being able to hide every slot appearance.
The story presented (in the very hype manner that only Chris Metzen can provide :D) doesn’t particularly appeal to me so far, but I was one of those eagerly expecting a rework of the world before we delved into new lands. I very much enjoy that we get a preview of what is to come so early rather than depend on cliffhangers, though, and I know there’s people who enjoy this type of story!
What I really don’t like, and hope it comes with at least a little bit of explanation or even acknowledgement, is the dwarves being available to horde and alliance both. It’s odd to see a founding race of the Alliance like the dwarves now among the horde, much like how it was weird for Dracthyr on Horde to have human visages. It feels detrimental to faction identity, to me.
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Just a quick thought about this. Aren’t Earthen a different race entirely? Sort of like how we have Night/Blood/Void Elves that all look very similar, but aren’t actually the same.
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I might be a bit rusty on that front but I think they’re like ancestors to the dwarves, since they weren’t afflicted by the curse of flesh. The only thing that throws me off about them being among the Horde is simply the same thing as human dracthyr visages, it’s putting an alliance race, well, among the Horde haha. Might be a bit pedantic, I guess! To me it’s different from void elves and blood elves because the Alliance does have a precedent with having elves among them (which is to say void elves may as well just have been high elves).
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I believe all elves used to be night elves (according to Wowpedia at least), yet blood elves are part of the Horde. To me it’s similar to that relationship.
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Cross Realm guilds are a MASSIVE win.
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Deep Dive initial Thoughts:
Warbands are looking really awesome. I can’t wait to select which 4 of my many characters will be huddled around the fire together. And then be able to see all of my other characters together without having to bounce between realms will be such a QoL improvement.
Delves are just getting even more intriguing. I can’t wait to experience them. The outdoor world experience getting a vault treatment equivalent to Mythic+ and raiding is such an awesome thing.
I can’t wait to see more about the different Hero talent trees and what they are for each class. All of the Warlock ones sound awesome. Soul Harvester, Hellcaller, and Diabolist are just awesome. I can’t wait to see what they entail.
The Allied race being unlockable just by doing the campaign is so nice. The past experiences with allied races have kinda been not fun with having to do so much just to unlock them, that sometimes by the time you do… You just don’t want to level them. This new race just being unlocked by doing the campaign should enable more people to just start playing them instead of the long time between seeing them, and then finally unlocking.
Edit: I am also very glad and appreciative that you are enabling players to choose between Dynamic Flying and TBC flying. Though, I wish you’d just enable both from the start just like you’re doing with Dynamic. Forcing players who physically cannot, or with limitations, or those who simply do not like the system to do an entire expansions campaign before getting the option… While better than Dragonflights wait until 10.2… is still a little too long. Using “TBC Flying” while Dynamic flying is available does nothing to the players using Dynamic, and thusly nothing to those who use Dynamic over those using “TBC flying”. Both should unlock at the same time, with the option given to the player of which they wish to use.
Questions that arose or were not answered:
*Moved to post down below
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We’re looking everywhere for
Please keep ‘em coming!
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So much info to unpack!
Im really excited for the refresh of quest Icons, specifically weekly and hopefully annual quests getting their own icon! =D
Ive also been seeing a lot of hype in the collecting discords about the lifting of transmog learning
Questions:
Is the transmog learning specific to looted items? or does it go for quest rewards, ensembles etc as well?
Account wide achievements, how will this effect achievements like the seeker, (complete 3000 quests on one character)?
With all the attention on the sword in silithus, is there any chance of getting the disabled sections of the “Silithus: The Wound” quest chain reenabled?
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Further Questions based upon second watch of Deep Dive Video:
End of Dragonflight:
Will there be a Catchup mechanism provided for the dragonflight professions? Given that it’s taken an entire year for some just to get maxed out, and on some professions still have a ways to go before they’re maxed out a new player returning will feel very very behind in professions should they wish to do them before Dragonflight ends or if they go back to dragonflight within The War Within.
Will a Toy map be provided for alts to learn all of the zones within Dragonflight? Much like all the other expansions have a toy map that does this, alongwith learning all the FPs?
What is the timeline for the upcoming 10.2.5? Will 10.2.5 be the final patch? Will this be the “Pre-release” to 11.0 patch with whatever that event will look like be within?
The War Within Beginning:
Will there be an option for players bringing alts to the new expansion after another character has gone through the expansion to participate in a “Threads of Fate” type experience? Or will it be like Dragonflight where the open world quests will be available from the moment you arrive?
Open world:
Will the Dragonflight way of “Bi-weekly” quests be returning, or will we be returning to the Daily quest way? During the beginning of Dragonflight the Bi-weekly way made the world feel really empty upon hitting max level, and you’d quickly run out of things to do. Whereas dailies provided something to the player every day.
What type of outdoor “World Activity” would give players a completion item for the great vault?
Is there a future where Chromie Time could be utilized by max-level characters to bring the previous expansions up to max level, or bring the max level character down to the level of the expansion? This way when replaying, or playing thru initially said expansions campaign it isn’t just a game of Wack-a-mole?
Delves:
Will Delves only be an endgame event for participation, or will they be open to the leveling characters as they are encountered during the leveling experience?
How many keys will be, at max, available to a player to unlock? What is an example of a quest that would provide a key for delves for one of the “resplendent chests”?
Edit: Addition:
If in a group, and you go do a delve, will there be multiple “Brans” within, or only 1 “Bran”? How will the level/Progression of your “Bran” work within a group?
Dynamic Flight:
Will druids Flight form be included within the expanded “Dynamic Flying” coming? - Edit: Answered by a developer on “X”, Aka Twitter. Answer is “Yes, 11.0”. – Further answered again within Blizzard Q&A Video, Answer is still Yes. All Current Flight forms will work.
What is the leveling experience going to look like in regards to unlocking the dynamic flight abilities? Wiil players innately have the max vigor with max regeneration, or will this be learned throughout leveling? If so, what levels will that unlock at?
With “TBC Flying” being an option given to players, will they be stuck at the 310% speed, or is there a speed increase possibly coming?
Do you have a list of all the mounts that will be getting the upgrade to be “dynamic flying” capable? Is there a road forward to get those who can’t out the door get there? Seems bad that you’re upgrading to make this the new standard, but cannot provide every mount to be capable. – Edit: Answered within Blizzard Q&A Video, They do not have a list at this time. Looking at getting to 100%, but at launch it will not be 100%. There will be “hundreds” available, with more coming over time to get to 100%.
What will that toggle look like to go from Dynamic to TBC? Will this toggle be open to players leveling?
Warbands:
Is there a plan in the works to make the “Campfire” that the 4 characters are huddled around being increased to possibly being campfires for 4 alts at a time? As in, if I have 8 characters I’d have 2 different campgrounds to cycle between?
Will all character contribute to the “Renown” tracks, As in If I do the same daily or weekly on my main and then an Alt… Will I only receive renown for the first time it was accomplished, or both times?
Will “Warbound Until Equipped” be replacing all “Soulbound when Equipped” items? Will this be supplemental gear that drops? Will it include normally only “Soulbound” items but reduced in ILvl to make it “WArbound when Equipped”?
To Clarify: Is the Warband only the 4 characters sitting around the campfire, or ALL characters on the account? --Edit: Question Answered in a Q&A session, Entire account roster will be apart of the warband. – Further Answered within Q&A video posted by Blizzard. It will be your ENTIRE Battle.net account, including all other licenses on your account, but due to limitations can only display characters on the license you’re logging into, but everything will be shared across the entire battle.net account.
Is there a future possibility where your alts within your Warband become some of those “NPCs” You see doing Delves? Maybe if you do a solo Delve they join you?
With Flight paths being unlocked across the Warband, Does this include the exploration of said area? Or will the warbands alts that havn’t gone that direction have the Blank map?
Is the setting the 4 characters are sitting around customizable? As in, if I have mostly Blood Elfs, can they be sitting around Silvermoon? – Edit: Answered in Q&A Video posted by Blizzard, There will only be 1 background at launch of The War Within, but they see feedback in this and are looking into expanding it.
For complexity: When Warbands shared reputation hits, in the future, Shadowlands… Does that mean if I have all the covenants maxed out that all of my characters will have every covenant maxed? – Edit: Quasi answered within Blizzard Q&A Video, Reputations where it is a character choice will most likely remain a character choice. But all things unlocked across the account should be accessible to all regardless of choice.
Hero Talents:
Warlock Tank? Did someone say MoP glyph to Metamorphasis?
Edit: Addition: As another funny Question: If a Paladin chooses the “Templar” hero talent tree, do they turn into a Protoss?
Druids = So complex they are used as the “Lol, if we can do it here, we can do it anywhere”?
Are hero Talents mostly passive, as to alleviate the button bloat that would have occurred had you added 5 more talents per row? – Edit: Question answered within a Q&A session with Ion. Answer: Yes, most are mostly passive.
Questions previously posted consolidated here
What is the new pacing going to look like for the upcoming Expansions? Were all 3 announced to be what some have akinned to the “Phases” of the marvel movies? That the pacing will stay the same, or slightly increased, but overall nothing should be impacted? Edit: Will we still be getting the same amount of content we currently experience in the current pacing, or will there be an increase or reduction? **Aka, should we expect to ever see an 11.2 or 11.3, etc. – Edit: Answered within Blizzard Q&A video: Expansions will remain the same as they’ve always been. Just trying to decrease time between content being released. Not as many lulls, but still same amount of content expansion have historically had.
Will there be another stat squish? If so, what does that look like this time? If another stat squish is enacted, will the team be looking into the after effects that occur in regards to legacy content? – Edit: Answered within Blizzard Q&A Video YAY I WAS CALLED OUT WHOO - Answer: There will be no stat squish for The War Within, However we will have a stat squish coming in Midnight as values will be “Akin to Legion” at the end of The War Within. They believe they’ve gotten good at doing these stat squishs over time and the impact to legacy scaling shouldn’t be affected, but iterated that it will be available in the very early days of the alpha for Midnight for testing to provide feedback for fixes.
Speaking of legacy content, What is the teams way forward to make legacy content… actually legacy content? Currently you cannot solo raids within Battle for Azeroth, even though our characters are 20 levels higher, and upwards of 300 iLvls. This is a significant “feels bad”.
With guilds being Crossrealm, crossfaction, and even player select screens being “crossrealm and crossfaction” now, can players from the opposite factions join instanced content together now?
Is there a reason as to why Transmog is still being limited to armor types? It is a great awesome amazing step forward for me to be able to unlock everything, but why can’t I wear everything on any character?
With Dynamic flying now being the baseline, and what is now being referred to as “TBC Flying” already being given to players will players unlock the Dynamic Flight regardless of which expansion they choose to play through if utilizing “Chromie Time”?
Is The War Within going to continue down the road for professions that Dragonflight initiated? If so, will there be a reduction in the bag bloat of reagents that Dragonflight has? *Aka, will The War Within not have as many reagents required as Dragonflight does. Dragonfligh requires so many reagents you were compelled to give us an entirely new bag just to accommodate them, and even then it overspills into the conventional bag. – Edit: Question Answered within Blizzard Q&A: Professions are going to utilize the way Dragonflight initiated for The War Within, and for Bag Bloat they are looking into this and are constantly working ways of reducing the amount of stuff they throw into our bags.
Will the War Within’s currencies be relegated to the currency tab? Or will we encounter another Dragonflight experience of having most of my bags full of the various currencies enacted for the expansion? – Edit: Answer Quasi answered within Blizzard Q&A video - Answer: They did state that they’re looking at making more currency subtabs for The War Within, eluding to the fact that more items that they’d normally have thrown into our bags are now going into the currency tab.
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Warbands are a huge quality of life improvement. No more mailing items to yourself.
Are we allowed to have only 1 warband? What will be the limitations on adding and removing characters from it?
Aren’t the 3 days early access of the Epic Edition of The War Within pay to win? A player could get much ahead in their professions and gearing in these 3 days. The launch of new expansion is the most exciting time to play because all the zones are full of life. And vast majority of players will be deprived of this experience.
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In a Q&A interview they answered your first question. The Warband is your entire account. 
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Not trying to specifically call you out on this, but I would be completely against this.
I am thrilled you can collect all appearances on 1 character, but your character should still be limited to what they CAN wear to what is transmoggable. Removing that barrier just eliminates all the fantasy of armor types.
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Yeah I think that despite the trend in the gaming world of early releases for extra money, this is a terrible idea in an MMO. The ONLY silver lining I see to this is de-cluttering the number of players at launch. Everything else about it is bad.
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