OMG for the first time in 10+ years I’m actually happy to see Anduin. Also how much time has pass!? Thrall has gray gray and Anduin looks like he’s in his 30s
Attention all RPers with human and Orc characters: Your Characters are getting old. Goblins and gnomes might be old as dirt soon.
All elves you don’t look a day over 500. 
Alleria stole Anduin’s youth, she looks like a teenager now
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1128799.jpg
And I take this sketch’s rough edges as canon proof that sapient knife does not know what feet are and sort of guessed when forming her humanoid shape
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1128801.jpg
NGL, Thrall with grey streaks in his hair and beard hits hard, you know?
So, the cinematic has me wondering…was it not already common knowledge Azeroth has a baby Titan in it? Because Thrall and Anduin are talking like they haven’t been around for the past four expansions listening to a diamond Dwarf carry on about tha woons.
As for the rest of it…Anduin was gorgeously animated but Christ the writing was 14 year old edgelord. Dude gets posessed by Nips McGee and Arthas’ fart, goes on to hurt a glorified Furby and acts like he commited a War Crime.
Come on Blizzard, your staff commited more henious acts to females after only a few beers, no Chain Daddies and goth twinks necessary. Stop pretending a man who had all agency taken away would be so broken up about this.
As for the game stuff…im interested in none of it. I don’t want Earthen. I want Broken. Four zones entirely unconnected to one another…I wasnt a fan of Cataclysm’s doing that either.
Just watched a 6 hour retrospective on EVE. More curious to check that out than this. Not meaning to sound harsh but seriously Blizzard…why would i come back for this? Larion’s Song for Everquest is more interesting than “Come getcher slop! Same slop we’ve been serving, but we added some cheese innit this time.”
I think the beard probably makes Anduin look older than he would look if he were clean-shaven. Beards generally do that.
It DID take a moment for my brain to go ‘oh hey that isn’t a real person’. The CGI is getting over the uncanny valley effect everyone.
I’m glad the sword is no longer being ignored, though. And it’s funny how the first zone in the game to have a major event centered around it (Gates of Ahn’Qiraj) and the one that everyone HATED being in and had so little content is still such a major lore point.
My overall take away is that if no player housing is coming for 3 upcoming expacs, that means no player housing. Guess I’ll keep spending my disposable income in Conan and ESO. I’d rather spend it here, but WoW won’t give me a reason.
At this point, I no longer expect player housing.
Ever.
They really think the Garrisons counted.
I would make a comment about player housing,
but given we have been given very little on actual content, and we recieved information on the 3 upcoming expansions, I think withholding comments on it is in order.
Personally, I have the sneaking feeling if they do so, it will either be in Midnight when they revamp old area… or in WoW 2 after this.
Also, this was one of the first times for a Expansion reveal where I feel I was half right.
We’re going to a new place, but it was the wrong new place because i predicted the other side of Azeroth that was being hinted at in lore, as opposed to under Azeroth.
This said, I am going to kill every spider I see with fire on the basis of ‘NOPE’
I haven’t gotten to watch anything from their own mouths yet, but the idea of having three expansions that are explicitly one act each of an overarching story feels like a huge step in the right direction to me. It feels like they want to do their version of Endwalker, and as the world’s foremost Endwalker apologist, I can’t help but be at least a little interested.
Maybe I’m just getting too old to slag off Blizzard the way that I used to, but I think this could be the beginning of something really excellent. I’m not expecting it to have Stuff To Say About The Fantasy Genre that that original Endwalker campaign had, but…I mean it might!
Three playable kinds of Dwarves? WOW!
God I was doing the timeline on my orc that was born in Lordaeron the other day and realized she’s almost 30.
I made her to be 16 during MoP. How time flies.
I think people would be going wild if a lot of the Season of Discovery stuff was in the next expac.
If it was one retail expac that went harder than an underground romp and the future of WoW was broader.
Like “We’re introducing 2 new support specs and 3 new tanking specs – but more will come in the following expacs!”
And Warlocks got a meta-form tanking spec for level 80.
And yeah, a lot of our wishlist items ticked because it’s 20 years of WoW.
All that said, I wouldn’t discount anything based on The War Within info we have now.
I also see a lot of people saying this is the end. WoW 2 is not necessarily a separate game happening after The Last Titan. Metzen said this 3-part expac steers us into the next 20 years of WoW, not that it ends WoW.
They can easily do a sequel to the game without killing the game itself. At the end of TLT, we’ll probably all be level 100 – could be time for big level squish part two.
Can’t sleep, so I came here to babble about blizz con.
I was very interested in Seasons of Discovery. I like what they have planned for leveling along with the runes. Seems like a good way to try out and test some new ideas without devoting too many resources to them. I think if it works out, after the level cap hits 60 we might get the announcement of Classic +.
I actually like concept and was a little excited about the World Soul Saga. Looks like they will be tying up some loose ends and drawing this era of WoW to close. I mean, if there is a Titan going to hatch out of our planet, it’s probably not going to go well for us. Seems like the perfect time to introduce WoW 2.
I don’t WoW 2 really means they have to “kill” WoW. But it needs to be cleaned up. Maybe a new engine and clear out some of the bloat that exists now.
Quoting myself because…
Holly Longdale: “Also in your travels…you’ll meet the Earthen and unlock them as a new AR”
6 people in the Crowd: “Woo” (1 of them was probably Sholaad)
Now, as I said up there^ I personally love playing Dwarves. I am genuinely excited to finally have something close to a Frostborn skin. I’ve been waiting years.
However, this is precisely what I meant when I said they will throw something at us we didn’t ask for and no one really wanted.
The Dwarf-playing community is small. The Dark Iron Dwarf playing community is even smaller. The idea that anyone thinks yet a third playable Dwarf, that is a gem-encrusted rock Dwarf is going to be the thing that finally gets people playing Dwarves? Why not just make it an option skin or something?
For all that Blizz gets right, sometimes they really confound me.
We’re going to meet up with Nerubians. A larger portion of people would be excited to play that race than want to play rock dwarves.
Playable Nerubians would get me to come back.
Playable Broken would get me to come back.
Playable Earthen won’t get me to come back.
And this is the thing.
Playable rock dwarves won’t result in players leaving, but it sure as heck won’t bring anyone back.
I think you hit on something that I feel the whole announcement was lacking in - something that will bring people back. Metzen telling people now is the time to come back, isn’t going to do it.
I’ve said it for years. People want to play this game. They want to be here. However, there are so many other games with so many other options that unless you give them something BIG to come back to, they won’t come back.
I’ve stated this before, but if we are just doing reskins of existing races, then the character creator screen needs to be cleaned up and all the allied races that are just variants of a base race need to be lumped together as ‘ethnicities’.
For example, dwarves need to be Modani (Bronzebeard/Hinterlands), Dark Iron, and now Earthen.
And while I’m not crazy about it, its time to drop the faction locks. You still choose your faction on creation and you get locked to that in game but any race can be any faction. That way we just stop cluttering the CC screen with what I feel are duplicates.
And instead of just more dwarves, the ‘Earthen’ faction should expand to cover Vrykrul, Earthen, Storm Giants, Watchers, full Mecha-Gnomes, basically all of the Titan-Forged creations that didn’t get Curse of Flesh’d. And then you loop them, the Drak’thyr, the Pandas and any other unique looking race that isn’t a reskin behind the ‘neutral’ faction tab.
It would just simplify things and allow Blizzard to add more variety without clutter.
I have to say, Nerubians and Earthen feels like another High Elf and Void Elf situation.
You have Nerubians, who everyone’s wanted for years. You have a story reason they’re “evolved” to take different forms. You have a faction of Nerubians that appears to be a splinter group.
It just screams a playable race. They’ve launched races with even less before.
But no. Instead we get Earthen. No one asked for Earthen. Earthen barely do anything in the actual story.
WoW has been my MMO of choice since 2005. I’ve been on Thorium Brotherhood and Scarlet Crusade, but since at least Cataclysm (possibly late Wrath, honestly dont remember), Wyrmrest Accord has been my server home.
I say that because I have roots in this game. Roots that go deep enough I can still keep playing WoW after all Blizzard has done. I’m not refusing to come back, I want a reason to. A underground expansion seems interesting…but two of the four zones aren’t underground. A new race of Dwarves is basically a piece of buttered toast being labeled a full continental breakfast. Heroic talents brings to mind the borrowed power of Legion, BfA, and Shadowlands.
Finally, much as how I was Dragoned out with Cataclysm to the point i skipped Dragonflight wholesale…I don’t care about the Titans. I’ve never cared about the Titans. They were background noise, and WoW’s cosmology is basically a Transformers fan fiction at this point. We’re all robots, baby!
I especially don’t, in the Year of Our Lord 2023/4, have the energy or free time to dedicate myself to a bloody 3 expansion cycle for a story that is literally going to end with “Azeroth is freeeeeee!” loud cheering
Its been seven years since Legion. Its a little late to be picking up that plot thread again. And now a Winrunner is back to being a major character. I just dont have the energy any more.
Give me something small Blizzard. I’m too old to save the bloody world for the 12th time. Small stakes, new horizons. Some fun hooks beyond new animations for flying mounts. The Dance Studio. Its all I want. I dont need more things. I just want more stuff.