Narratively, maybe. But I am thinking design here.
Shadowlands’ design was just a continuation of past design trends - some new zones, some new story campaigns, some new dungeons, a new raid, and new borrowed power systems to replace the old borrowed power systems. The only thing I’d say that was really distinctive about Shadowlands’ design was the decision to tie a large amount of borrowed power to faction choice, and then make that choice have a lot of friction to prevent you from changing between factions too easily.
Shadowlands didn’t really do much to innovate on that gameplay design - just carried the torch forward from BFA and Legion.
Dragonflight actually did take some risks when it comes to design, because it undid all of that borrowed power design we had in the past three expansions and brought back older design mentalities like evergreen mechanics and expansive talent trees.
But of course, Dragonflight still stuck with the same gameplay staples of WoW expansions: new zones, new story campaign, new dungeons, new raid. OP’s absolutely correct about how we pretty much know what to expect when it comes to that stuff in WoW expansions. They’re probably correct about a 11.1.5 megadungeon, too.
War Within is really just refining that same mentality - no big changes in thinking here, just some new evergreen systems. The biggest change really is the Warband system, which won’t really alter your gameplay so much as it will reduce the friction of playing alts.
Ignoring the massive amount of alpha/beta feedback saying that locking players to covenants was a bad, bad thing. That’s where they went terribly wrong. Throw the disconnected zones/yada yada into the mix and SL ended up being SL.
Four zones and 8 dungeons is far too sparce when it is supposed to last us two years. Yes, they’ll surely add a couple of more small zones and a dungeon or two, but that didn’t help DF in this regard either.
Right. It’s kind of baffling, predictable and boring, that they’re choosing to go with the SL model for a third time in a row. Even if the content is good, they don’t do a good job at generating hype anymore.
You mean like adding new zones in later patches , probably another mega dungeon in 11.1 and new raids each new major patch ?
Once again because I’m honestly not sure if you are troling or are honestly that daft but the initial 4 or 5 zones and 8 dungeons are not the entire expansion they are just the opening patch . More stuff is added in further patch releases during the expansion .
Sure, but this has been the standard since Vanilla. It’s not like Blizzard didn’t iterate on the game with each patch up until Legion or whatever.
It’s not really a secret that we used to get more content in this game at expansion launch. We used to get 7-8 zones and 12-16 dungeons depending on the expansion. Now it’s strictly 8 and the ability to run them at varying difficulties.
I don’t mind all that much, but let’s be honest and recognize that WoW as a game has shrunk considerably over the last decade or so. They rely pretty heavily on vertical endgame progression to keep people playing.
EDIT: Something else to note. We also used to get more raids at launch. These raids were admittedly not as large scale as the primary raids, but they still existed in the game.
At the launch of TBC, we had not only Karazhan, but also Gruul’s Lair and Magtheridon’s Lair. In WotLK, we the Eye of Eternity, VoA (which had new content added to it over time as well), Obsidian Sanctum, AND Naxxramas. In Cata, Baradin Hold, Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four Winds.
All of these raids were content available at the launch of their respective expansions. We simply used to get more content in WoW, plain and simple.
It wasn’t until SL. Now they’re just carrying the same tired 4 zone/8 dungeon trope. Again, it’s predictable and sucks the hype out away. Heaven forbid we get a different number of zones or dungeons.
I don’t mind the formula. I just wish we had more raid variety. That first tier in MoP was so good with the different locations. I also liked winged dungeons more than mega dungeons.
Also, I miss raids with single boss encounters like Onyxia.
I was thinking about this and your right , why only 4 zones why not 8 why not 10 zones and make it open world instead of being on a track , why not get rid of renown all together and lets us play they way we want… and why not 20 dungeons and 12 raids… now that would be wicked there would be so much to do omg… since they have micro soft money now and they can do it … if they wanted to … they have to have the drive and the talent to do it .