I find it weird how many people are going “FAKE LEAK FAKE LEAK IMPLAUSIBLE” when very little in that leak doesn’t fit what’s already observable and verifiable.
There’s no way that leak is true. I’d honestly believe “Shadowlands 2” as the expansion
after next before I believed that leak honestly.
Yeah. I think that’s kind of the point, really.
I doubt anyone actually believes anything about 10.0 or whatever. We have those kinds of things every expack. But, when they’re facing a ridiculous PR disaster, the expansions parts aren’t the parts people are interested in. If the inner workings of Blizzard have people going “Yeah, that seems possible,” then that’s the public’s perception of the company. Even just the existence of the company issues in these “leaks” are themselves a statement about public perception.
It’s not about what is true or not; it’s about what people are thinking of your company, and it’s pretty bleak!
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I’d like to look at a timeline of wow’s story and FF14’s story by date-of-release.
Which came first, the Cataclysm or the 8th Umbral Calamity?
The Lightwardens or Yrel’s evil lightforged?
Traveling to the First or traveling to alternate-timeline Draenor?
what i can confirm is that rioters have basically been telling blizz bottom line employees to work at riot instead and if uh. if that’s the state of your company, that riot games employees are happier with their paychecks than blizz employees, then uh yikes.
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I assume you mean 7th Umbral Calamity, but anyway WoW’s stories came first in those examples. But XIV did it far better.
my stance is I’m too jaded to believe the leak, but also too distant from the ongoings of the game to think it is entirely unvalid.
7th right, thank you!
Well then, I guess I’m not aware of any previous examples of Blizzard copying FF14’s story!
But yes I agree that overall FF14’s story is more enjoyable and somehow makes more sense than WoW’s despite how complex and how anime it is at times. If I had to guess I’d say its because the writers care about their dumb anime story so much that they make at least know their own continuity and don’t need retcons.
That’s probably the lone kernel of truth from the 4chan rumor mill…
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Agree w/ Serph, it’s not that the leaks are real, it’s that big chunks of them are plausible because they’re just extrapolations of what we already know.
Subs are very likely lower than ever. There’s no official source there but some data-driven speculation has made some compelling cases, even before the lawsuit.
They’ve hinted at a dragon theme returning in the game. Some even thought it would come after BfA.
It’s not really the timing for a real leak, which we’ve had for nearly every expac (but timed closer to blizzcon).
Finally, no one cares if it’s real.
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If there is not one How to Train Your Dragon reference in the Dragon expansion I will be very disappointed.
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hey guys i just got home from work i hope no more news came out about how the higher-ups of this game dev company are absolute scumdog millionaires
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No I know, I caught it on my way out to my shift today.
Like this company better get disemboweled and turned inside out from either within or continuing lawsuits. I like their IPs. Some of the games/media, eh. The figureheads and mouthpieces? Lord no.
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…yeah, I should’ve figured that when I saw that it got posted nine hours ago… <_<
But I post first, ask questions too late, lol
s’all gravy
dunno when the next time i’m spending dosh on a Blizzard title is (i don’t even know the last time i even bought an Activision game was)
That’s because Final Fantasy has spent Fifteen games mastering how to make absolute convoluted nonsense play out and leave players satisfied after 40-60 hours . As one would hope from a franchise that has always been a Roleplaying Game.
WoW, as has been established, can’t even maintain continuity between its own games. Which is also to be expected from a franchise that began its life as a licensed Real Time Strategy title.
That it took 15 years for the wheels to really come off WoW’s overall narrative is a testament to its quality.
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Not to sidetrack into FFXIV talk or comparisons, but there’s a whole bunch of factors. One of the notable ones include (and are not limited to) the design as a standalone mainline entry. It’s not treated as a theme park MMO because it’s not just a theme park MMO, it’s intended to be a full and earned Final Fantasy entry on it’s own that just happens to be online. It failing atrociously and getting fixed at all is, only in part, because of the expectations for that very fact.
If Blizzard had been a bit more focused (or forward thinking) about presenting WoW as a Warcraft 4 (or 3.5 or something, however you want to label it), it very well also might be in a different place.
Or maybe not. Who knows.
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I think the big thing was WoW was the Top Dog of the MMO market for so long, and for so long after the MMO bubble burst, that I think it was a case of seeing themselves at the top as inevitable that lead to the talent bleed off and poor management decisions that result in the game being where it is today.
To this day, I don’t think WoD was initially intended to be a full expansion, just something to go along with the live action film that the big wigs wanted to ensure got a huge tie in, and then promptly wanted the whole thing abandoned when the movie failed to live up to expectations.
EDIT: Heh, I remember launch night. There were so many players in the Blasted Lands that they were shunting people to Pandaria just to lessen the server strain.
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I always found the IP to be silly. I remember the first time I saw “daemons” in WC1 or whatever, just laughing at how generic and dumb it was. I loved it. And I loved it for all its faults and nonsense for many expansions.
It just turns out that there’s a threshold for how stupid, contrived and flat you can get before it gets really tired.
For some, they haven’t hit it yet. I still know people who think it’s the best story ever. Had a RL friend back in Wrath tell me some WoW book had “the most epic scene ever written in a book.” That same person used a stale piece of cake as a wrist rest.
Turns out I had a way higher threshold for it than you’d think, given that for most things, I’m an insufferable snob and/or depraved lunatic.
In fact, shameful as it is to recount, I’m sure I attempted to back-and-forth w/ Enekie and others on these very forums about how the story quality didn’t really need to matter because “hey, it’s just a game!” **don’t worry, I know that was 
level idiocy on my part.
Because man, if they just got the right people in during Cata or earlier… we’d be reaping the foreshadowed rewards of actual narrative design here like we do in FF 
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