So Blizzard released these content roadmaps this expansion:
And it’s actually crazy to look back on them and how they met their goals and how much content they released this expansion compared to previous expansions.
Like even if you didn’t personally like the story or content of this expansion, that’s really good news. That it seems like not only did the WoW team be more transparent about what the content roadmap looks like for the expansion, but they also found some way of churning out a decent amount of content in a reasonable time compared to expansions before.
It seems like all throughout Dragonflight we didn’t spend much time at all waiting around for new content to be released compared to previous expansions, there was always something new to do either that just came out or was set to come out soon. The content lulls were pretty minimal.
Here’s hoping the next 3 expansions they can do the same.
Yeah, people were complaining about feedback and Blizzard decided to go all out.
If you notice, everything is more transparent now. Expansion goals, future trading post items, down time/server maintenance, weekly/monthly dev blog-like posts, twitter teasers, polling questions (which I’d like to see more of even if they’re just for fun).
They’re doing a very good job as far as I’m concerned.
And yet people want even more transparency I don’t know what else they can do to further improve and proof those people that they are transparent and no more secrecy. Hell, they have announced 3 expansions that’s bigger transparency.
There wasn’t really any update to the profession system except for a new spark and green PVP gear. I was hoping for better profession equipment to allow us to proc rank 5 without inspiration.
Professions are a system that may have turned out too far away from their vision they imagined and required a bigger course correction than they could budget for it?
( unless the legacy recipes were the content they were teasing all along - they were a fairly major feature of DF that I almost missed noticing because it was framed as a collection of secrets and I still haven’t worked them into my routine to finish the grinds )
I for sure cannot fault them for the amount of content this expansion. There is still plenty I have yet to do. I still haven’t played all the Tyr related quests, haven’t done any of the whelp daycare, still got most of the zaralek caverns stuff to do. Probably plenty of other stuff I’m forgetting too. The fact that they actually stuck to the road map and hit all the marks is commendable.
This seems to be missing an objective analysis though. A lot of the items on that list are extremely shallow, filler, or generic items that really don’t take long.
Looking at the item marked “Holiday Refresh” and planting a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED flag would be silly. I believe someone already mentioned the so-called “Professions Updates”. Many of those items are just items that needed to already be there, like “New Raid”. “New PvP Season” isn’t exactly a big effort of content development. etc.
Then when you look at the content itself, a lot of it as mentioned was fairly generic and had a very low shelf life. Storm’s Fury is something people have probably forgotten even existed; I remember a lot of people stopped even trying to do it the week it was released. Zskera Vaults is something I saw players receive as a massive let-down, and never go back to it after 1 week. Zaralek Caverns was an own goal that we as a playerbase still don’t know what they thought the zone was supposed to be about, and even what should have been simple stuff like Night Elf Heritage armour was a flop.
Augmentation essentially ruined the rest of a season, Aberrus as a raid had some pretty huge debacles like Zskarn, Echo of Neltharion, etc. Some of those items like “Class updates” are even items that are only on the list because they’re unfinished work carried over from Beta, where they should have been done.
There are some good things for sure. I personally think they did the Orc Heritage Armour fairly well, for example.
But on an objective level, looking at that list and talking about “how they met their goals” is doing a disservice. Much of that list is padded in the first place, and much of that list was “technically delivered, but underpar”, which isn’t something to be called good news. Any idea that there wasn’t much time spent waiting around for new content to be released seems like historical revisionism considering we’ve literally just been there through Season 2.
Mind you, it’s concerning in itself that we’ve hit the end of the Roadmap and there’s nothing yet actually announced beyond the next expansion stuff from Blizzcon. The point of a roadmap is that you need to keep it rolling, meaning we should have already had a roadmap of what’s coming in a hypothetical 10.2.5, or early 2024, or whatever. And we don’t.
They released the same open world content in every patch with minor changes since pre-patch lol
We basically got emerald dream zone, Zaralek zone (bear with me) 2012 Timeless Isle designs rehashed for the 10th time (rare hunting as a core gameplay loop) then all of the events save for Niffen Seeking have literally just been the pre-patch elemental invasions in different zones with different models but the exact same gameplay loop
I mean, sure, it looks like a lot of content when you include nonsense like… “whelp daycare” and “warlock pet customizations” or the 1-hour grind that was the “furbolg faction.”
We’re still getting hosed on raid and dungeon content.
Disagree. They frontloaded the content. But did we really get more content overall than Shadowlands? At this point I don’t think so, especially since the expansion is basically over at this point with the exception of another fated season and maybe a couple more storylines.
I mean, I kind of don’t care that the day care exists. I don’t even know what the warlock pet customizations are.
But where are my four raid tiers? (And maybe a 1-boss pre-next-expansion raid? Ruby Sanctum, anyone?)
And where are the new dungeons? And no, I don’t mean the now formulaic mythic-only mega-dungeon that inevitably gets split up into smaller dungeons for queue purposes. I mean the ones that tie into the story and are related to the raid. Trial of the Champion tied in well with the Trial of the Crusader. Halls of Reflection and Forge of Souls and Saronite Pit tied in well with Icecrown.
If Blizzard wants to keep the M+ rotation interesting (and no, reusing crappy old dungeons is not interesting — Court of Stars, you get a pass), they should release a new dungeon or two each patch, tie them into the story, and immediately make them part of the M+ rotation. Not a useless mythic-only dungeon that you run once and forget about until next season.
I agree, and go back and forth on what is/should be considered the “norm” for dungeons and raids.
Wrath had 4 raid tiers, but it also copy and pasted its first tier and its third tier was a horrible 2 room 5 boss disaster. It did add 4 dungeons though which was awesome. It also added almost zero world content (no new zones, and only some tournament dailies) so dungeons WERE the catch-up.
Cata added 3 new dungeons and 2 revamps. Again these dungeons WERE the catchup system back then. Also added the Molten Front as a new daily hub area. Cata has 3 raid tiers, but the opening tier has a lot of bosses.
Mists adds 2 new zones in patches, but launches with only 6 new dungeons and 3 revamps and adds 0 new dungeons. Catchup is now based on doing world content like Timeless Isle. MoP has 3 raid tiers, but all 3 tiers have high boss counts.
WoD adds 1 zone in a patch and it handles all the catchup. It launches with 7 new dungeons and 1 revamped. Only 2 raid tiers, but somehow still has more raid bosses than DF lol.
Legion adds a massive amount of content on top of 9 new launch dungeons, 1 revamped, then adds 2 more normal dungeons and a new “megadungeon”. Legion has 4 raid tiers, class hall campaigns, mage tower, death of chromie, mythic+ as a completely new gearing system, tons of end game questing (Surumar), adds 3 new zones for Argus. Just a beast of an expansion.
BFA launches with 10 dungeons and adds a megadungeon in 8.2. Adds 2 new zones in patches. BFA has 4 raid tiers, and adds horrid visions.
SL launches with 8 dungeons and adds a mega dungeon. It adds 2 new zones in patches for catchup and has 3 raid tiers. It has Torghast as a “feature”.
DF is basically a copy and paste of SL with 8 dungeons and a later mega dungeon. 2 new zones in patches, and 3 raid tier (lowest boss count ever): it did add a lot of world content, but like you said that is pretty boring.
Would love to see 4 raid tiers again, and a new dungeon per tier in addition to the mega dungeon (or the mega dungeon is for a tier and a new dungeon for other new tiers).
War Within is adding delves so who knows how that will impact the game.
