Poll Results: Blizzcon Reaction

Based on an impression that the reaction to Blizzcon and Pandaria was generally strongly positive or strongly negative, I asked the following poll question:

What was your reaction to Blizzcon?

• Pandas = Jumped The Shark. Will never pay Blizzard again. - 42 Votes, 32%
• Signed up for the year-long subscription. - 28 Votes, 21% (includes my vote)
• Something in between these two extremes. - 60 Votes, 46%

There is indeed a silent moderate plurality in between the two extremes, and it's possible that these folks would take the lead in a legitimate random scientific poll.  Even so, I wonder if Blizzard may actually be happy with these sorts of numbers. 

There's a solid core - larger than I had expected - who like the direction the game is taking enough to make the long term commitment.  There are a larger number, at least amongst those who are willing to come to blogs to vote and comment, who are dissatisfied, but how many of those were really going to be in Blizzard's corner for the long haul in any case? 

Where cash store mounts are concerned, I've long maintained that anyone willing to cancel their subscription over a cosmetic mount was already on their way out the door for other reasons.  An entire expansion of Pandaren may be a bigger impact on the tone of the game, but I think the direction of WoW (both in general and under the recent dev team) is reasonably well understood at this point.  Perhaps in this context, it actually makes sense that so many people already know what they think of the expansion.

Poll: What was your reaction to Blizzcon?

New poll up on the blog, since I haven't done one of these in a while.  My impression is that the overwhelming majority of Blizzcon reactions have been extremely positive or extremely negative.  Your options (on the sidebar at PVD) are:

What was your reaction to Blizzcon?

• Pandas = Jumped The Shark. Will never pay Blizzard again.
• Signed up for the year-long subscription.
• Something in between these two extremes.

I will probably only leave this open for a week or so, since I'm more interested in the immediate reaction than the longterm.  Go vote!

Blizzard's Panda Gambit

The major announcements of Blizzcon 2011 are in the books, and I made enough predictions over the course of four separate prediction posts that I was practically guaranteed to get some of the calls right by sheer force of numbers.  The reception amongst people who blog about how they are either no longer satisfied with - or indeed no longer playing - WoW has been predictably bad, though I will admit to a bit of surprise that this seems to have comprised almost my entire blogroll. 

Personally, perhaps because my expectations were so low, I am surprised by how much stuff the game is getting in the next expansion.  I'm even considering the year-long subscription deal, even though I hate long term subscriptions. 

Expansion basics
As I wrote in August when news of the trademark broke, in hindsight a new continent with five levels and neutral playable Pandaren were the obvious call - a return to the pre-Cataclysm formula.  I did not think we would see a new class in general, or the Brewmaster in particular due to the alcohol question, and I would have said that I did not expect a fifth tanking class if I had not already dismissed a new class.  Wrong on all counts (albeit with the Brewmaster as a spec of monks). 

While most melee DPS in WoW have some passive self-healing, a true melee-based healer is a niche that most other MMO's have and WoW does not.  Assuming they don't chicken out on the "no auto-attack" plan, a DDO-style martial arts class will fill a previously unoccupied melee DPS niche.  I still don't know what they're thinking about the tank tree, and they may not either, other than wanting the new shiny to be able to queue as tank to help queue times. 

Overall, this was precisely what people should have expected, other than people who are offended because they feel that the fictional pandas Blizzard created are inappropriate for the fictional world that Blizzard created and owns.  Personally, I see no reason to take the lore more seriously than its owners do.   

New features
What I really wasn't expecting was a number of new features.

Back in January, Tobold suggested the new expansion would have public quests, while my tongue-in-cheek response (and followup explanation) was that I thought WoW's dungeon finder could fill the niche for unscheduled group content.  Turns out we were both half right/wrong - the new PVE "Scenarios" will be set in world locations (similar to LOTRO skirmishes) but will be non-public and filled using the dungeon finder mechanic (and tuned to allow non-holy trinity groups to complete them). 

The Crab hinted at a talent revamp, and I correctly guessed that some key abilities would be automatically granted based on spec, but I didn't see the complete removal of trees coming.  Realistically, I think there will still be optimal specs in the new "six talent points at level 90" system, but I won't miss having to pick between interesting abilities and passive DPS. 

And then we have the Pokemon pet battle system.  This was a total surprise to me, and it is almost certain to be a huge hit.  Other games have tried stuff like this - notably EQ2's arena pets from 2005 - but layering this system on top of the existing minipets, when so many of us already have 50-150 of them, was a brilliant move.  The gameplay would have to be truly terrible for this to be anything short of massively popular. 

The Diablo III deal
And then, we have the curious package deal - players who commit to a one year subscription to WoW get a free copy of Diablo III and access to the Pandaria beta (and a mount, if you care about these things).

The downside is immediately obvious - Blizzard must be really nervous about retention over the next year.  Between SWTOR, possibly GW2, and the always slow end-of-expansion lull (at the end of an already poorly-received expansion, and with Pandaria possibly not even launching during the one year window), one can see why.  Viewed purely as a Veteran reward for a one-year WoW sub, this is probably a bad deal.

Then again, consider the cost.  One year of game time at the six-month subscription rate costs $156.  (Blizzard will allow single month and even game time card plans, but there's no reason not to take the best multi-month rate once you've already committed not to cancel.) 

Diablo III will MSRP for $60, and will sell well enough that you will have to pay that price if you want to play the game before 2014.  I'm not even that excited about DIII, but I'm sure I'll want to see the story at least once since I did love DII back in the day.  If you are going to buy DIII anyway, this deal is effectively one year of WoW, plus access to the Pandaria beta if you're so inclined, for $96, or $8/month with your paid DIII pre-order.

(Two bonuses for Blizzard - this effectively wipes out the secondary market for Pandaria beta keys, and it puts a lot of DIII pre-orders directly into their hands as digital presales, eliminating the retail middleman.)   

I do not currently have a WoW subscription, my last paid time expired in July, I don't know when I would next resubscribe at the normal rate, and I would very likely spend less than $96 on WoW subscription time between now and next October.  However, the way in which I would "save" that money is by not logging in when I wouldn't mind to visit Azeroth for a weekend, world event, or even a single evening, because I don't think I will extract $15 worth of value out of paying for a one month subscription.   At $8/month, WoW becomes a game I can log into whenever I feel like doing so, alongside multiple other non-subscription games where I do just that.

I'm not 100% sold because I doubt that Pandaria will arrive with much, if any, time to spare out of the year, but the deal is tempting enough that I'm definitely considering it. 

The WoW Outlook
Like many others, I'm not entirely satisfied with Cataclysm.  Blizzard did what people accuse them of not doing - they tried to do something genuinely different by spending much of their effort overhauling massive amounts of content - but the results did not work out that well.   In that context, I entered Blizzcon with unusually low expectations, and came out pleasantly surprised. 

Might I be underestimating the popular distaste for the Pandas?  Perhaps.  Might they fail to execute their ambitious plans, including yet another gutting and overhauling of the talent system?  Absolutely.  Are they likely to take until next fall, or even the holidays, developing an expansion that the game desperately needs before next summer?  Most likely. 

With all of those caveats, what they say they would like to do over the next year is for the most part what I want them to do over the next year.  Regardless of the outcome, my outlook for Blizzard is much more positive coming out of Blizzcon than it was going in - where this writer is concerned, Blizzard's Panda Gambit is a success. 

Blizzard-style Marketing: Now SWTOR is the Master (but only of Evil)?

Blizzard's marketing department is somewhat notorious for attempting to steal other MMOs' thunder - I correctly predicted their Rift launch antics about a month in advance.  I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of their competitors returned the favor. 

With Blizzcon and the presumptive announcement of WoW's Mists of Pandaria expansion less than a day away, EA has dropped a press embargo on the SWTOR beta.  One of Bioware's folks was quick to point out that the drop applies only to press - as Syp points out, bloggers who do not make money on how many page views they get (or do not get) on embargo drop day because they were included (or not) have to stay silent a bit longer. 

Personally, I don't have a problem in principle with the strategy - Blizzard has earned whatever karma they get on this front.  That said, I'm not convinced it will work.  Even with the relatively controlled press audience, Keen reports that the reactions are mixed or even lackluster.  Perhaps there are some people who aren't aware that there is a SWTOR or that it is coming out at the end of the year.  These folks may remain ignorant after the new WoW expansion gets the front page of every news site tomorrow anyway.  I don't know if they're going to make it all the way to the keynote, but even getting to the night before without the full details of the expansion posted on MMO-Champion is a bit of a coup for Blizzard compared to past years. 

At the end of the day, I think the strategy is a bit misguided for the same reasons it is misguided when Blizzard does it to other companies - I don't think most players are making purchasing decisions on games that are out now (or shortly) based on things that may be worth playing in the future (e.g. SWTOR's December release, versus almost certainly 6-12 months for the WoW expansion). If SWTOR doesn't get all the coverage they otherwise would have earned (good or bad) because they got buried under Blizzcon news, well, I guess it's only appropriate since overcoming his old master only worked out so well for Vader. 

P.S. Yes, I still think that the expansion will be Pandas, come back and laugh at me this time tomorrow.  Based on the schedule for an entire panel devoted to talent trees, they're probably messing with that system again.  My guess is that they will re-open the system a bit to cross-spec points, but remove key spec-defining abilities to a separate category based on points spent in the primary tree, akin to Rift's "root" system, to prevent the old cherry picking issues.  In fact, the Crab had suggested allowing the 10 out-of-tree points to be spent anywhere in the other trees, not just in the bottom tiers; we may be looking at a system where tiered "trees" are removed altogether, with the remaining "non-spec-defining" talents freely available based on level (i.e. no wasting points on talents that modify level 60 spells before level 60).

Pondering Pandaria

MMO-Champion reports that "Mists of Pandaria" is "extremely likely" the next WoW expansion.  While some folks are unconvinced, I'm inclined to trust the MMO-Champion track record. 

Hindsight is always easier than foresight - my best guess would be nowhere near the mark - but this makes a lot of sense in hindsight.  Regardless of the success or failure of Cataclysm's world revamp, which peppered with a few new zones in previously blank areas of map, the more traditional model with a new continent makes sense as a follow-up.  If Pandaria does turn out to be located on a previously unknown South Seas island, it is a logical battleground for an invasion by Azshara and the Naga.  There are relatively few other combinations of location and antagonist that players have heard of (especially through the Vashj'ir storyline in Cataclysm) and that are not similar to past foes (The Burning Legion again, or yet another Dragon Aspect gone evil). 

There are a few obstacles Blizzard has to deal with, if this is the expansion.  Panda haters are going to hate, and Panda lovers aren't going to be happy unless the race is playable for both factions, as Rohan suggests, which would be a first.  That said, I see no niche for a Brewmaster class, even if Blizzard does want to take the PR hit for marketing drunken cartoon pandas in a game that kids play, which might mean no new class.  WoW expansions have always included either new races or a new class, and Blizzard had previously suggested that two new races every expansion would be tough due to art requirements.  One new, neutral race mitigates that concern by halving the art requirements, even if two panda factions require Alliance and Horde colors.

There's also the issue of China, which was rumored to have prompted the removal of the Pandaren as the Alliance race for the 2007 Burning Crusade expansion.  Six months ago, I would have guessed that Blizzard no longer cared about China due to the likelihood that the government would refuse to approve the next expansion no matter what its contents.  However, after a rocky period that saw WoW China shut down outright and the Wrath expansion delayed by nearly two years, Blizzard seems to have finally mended relations; Cataclysm reportedly hit China a mere seven months late.  I don't have a good answer for this question, other than that Blizzard apparently thinks they can do something involving Pandaren - perhaps the Chinese version of the expansion will have all the Pandas find-replaced with Worgen? 

In the end, my guess is that Pandas, much like EQ2 Beastlords, will arrive because people want to see them.  Yes, some people will argue that this is WoW jumping the shark, but others have been asking for the Pandaren at every Blizzcon since the first.   By the time you're talking about a seven year old MMO, your target audience really should be your current playerbase.  Very few players who have stuck with the game through Cataclysm are going to walk off because they think Pandaren are a joke, while players who have already made the decision to leave are free to mock the move as validating their departure.  Sounds like as good a choice as Blizzard could make under the circumstances. 

Incorrect Convention Predictions for Summer/Fall 2011

My track record for incorrect Blizzcon predictions is so epically bad - last year all my calls were proven wrong before the show even started - that I've decided to get a head start and expand my coverage to be sure that I can be totally wrong about even more 'con's.   Without further ado...

Inaccurate Predictions for SOE Fan Faire (to be disproved by 7-9 July)
The new EQ2 class will be the fabled Beast Lord, and the new expansion will have something to do with the destroyed moon of Luclin.  The new expansion will come out sometime later than previously (perhaps May 2012) and will NOT increase the game's level cap.  Given that EQ Next was no more than concept art last year, it won't be playable this year. 

There really isn't another choice of class that I've ever heard anyone suggest serious interest in.  Of course, I didn't hear much call for a premium vampire race either, but finding a home for a new class in a game that already has more classes than it knows what to do with is a bit more work than a mostly cosmetic new race.  It really wouldn't make sense to spend the time on something that no one would care about, the melee pet class is the only option I can think of that isn't covered by the game's two dozen existing classes, and the Beast Lord was tied to the lore of Luclin in the original EQ.

My guess on Luclin arises partially from similar reasoning - this game isn't getting any younger, so it doesn't make sense to save its most recognizable expansion ideas for some future rainy day.  There is the minor issue that Luclin doesn't exist anymore, but my guess is that this expansion will be very light on new content.  Smokejumper came out and said that he'd like expansions to be more about new features than new content, and I would guess that the additional content that is being added in the content patches of Velious is coming out of the dev time that would have been available for the next expansion.  In that context, a Cataclysm-like plot in which chunks of the old moon fall on underutilized zones may fit Smokejumper's plan.

Finally, the level cap.  I have not heard a single complaint that DOV did not increase the level cap this year, or a single desire for it to be increased next year.  Quite the contrary, the only thing we absolutely know is coming next year is the Qeynos revamp (following this year's Freeport revamp), and there was the whole kerflaffle about giving away max level characters, which only gets worse as the game accumulates more than its current 90 levels.  Meanwhile, last year's TSF expansion was a mess in large part because they raised the level cap far more than the limited new adventuring content could support, and nothing suggests a different scenario this year.  I guess they could go for 1-3 levels as Ferrel has suggested from time to time, but I don't see a real reason why there need to be any this year, and thus I'm predicting zero.

Inaccurate Predictions For Pax Prime (to be disproved 26-28 August)
I don't even know who is exhibiting this year.  I'm guessing that Trion and Turbine are in, since they were in last year, and that Blizzard and SOE are out, because they have their own events.

The Turbine booth will assuredly be busy hyping the new LOTRO expansion, but I don't expect major news to drop a mere month out from the expansion launch.  The real news here will.be the mystery non-druid class to be added to DDO.  My guess here is a modified version of the pen and paper Mystic Theurge, which can cast both arcane and divine spells at the cost of reduced progression in both schools.  I predict that the DDO version will be a stand-alone class (i.e. does not stack with other classes) with a single set of spell slots for both schools (since DDO uses a more MMO-like SP system instead of DND spell slots).  Someone will find some creative use for it, and it will be easy for Turbine to make because it doesn't require large amounts of new mechanics; it's basically a Sorcerer with slower spell acquisition and a wider spell list. 

The Trion side of things is harder to predict - to my knowledge, they've said next to nothing about patch 1.4, other than the assumption that it will contain the guild banks that were not ready for 1.3.  At their current pace, patch 1.4 will be in final testing or live and they'll be hinting at the contents of 1.5.  Six months post-launch is too soon to be talking paid expansions, so it would surprise me if anything of the sort came up.

Incorrect Blizzcon Predictions (to be disproved 21-22 October)
Having been told last year that Diablo III will not launch in 2011 and Titan, the Mystery Fourth Project, will not be announced until 2012, takes much of the guesswork out of this year.  DIII will take center stage, accompanied by the SCII expansion (which finally got some face time this year). 

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Blizzard will opt NOT to announce the next World of Warcraft expansion at this event.  This would break past precedent - all three past WoW expansions were announced at Blizzcon, and you would ordinarily expect the new expansion to roll out at this con - 10 months post-Cataclysm - to start building hype for its launch at the 18-24 month post-Cataclysm launch.  The problem is timing. 

Blizzard planned 2-3 patches for Cataclysm before they ended up breaking 4.1 in half and spending seven months to get both parts out the door.  At their customary 6-month patch cycle, we'd expect to see the patch that was previously the second patch of the Cataclysm era hitting the test servers around this time, with the third patch and the final battle with Deathwing presumably at least six months beyond that (i.e. June 2012).  If that's the timetable, October seems a bit soon to be looking beyond the Deathwing era.  Maybe they can hold Blizzcon 2012 earlier, or announce the WoW expansion at some other event in early 2012?

Whenever they do get around to announcing the expansion, I predict that Nozdormu and the Infinite Dragonflight will be the stars of the show.  I do not expect any significant changes to the now out-of-date lore of Outland and Northrend, but we could see a slight tie-in where players heading to those unchanged continents are specifically told that they're being sent into the past to prevent the Infinite Flight from changing (relatively recent) history.  I'm also going to predict neither a new class nor new races.  Blizzard has said that they like to alternate because of art demands of a new race, but I just don't see a niche for a new class in a game that is already struggling to deal with the 30 subclasses of its 10 classes.  I predict that there will be five new levels - unlike EQ2, I think there is a demand for more dings, but I don't think they want the talent point inflation that comes with 10 levels.


And that's what I've got for the year's three big cons.  Have fun pointing and laughing over the next four months.  :)  


 

Blizzard's MMO Roadmap

Another Blizzcon is in the books, and the majority of my self-described "incorrect Blizzcon predictions" for the year were proven wrong before the convention even opened.  I suppose you can split hairs on whether the event is "widely viewed as a disappointment" for lack of an announcement concerning the Mystery Fourth Project, but what Blizzard did NOT announce was almost as interesting as what they did. 

Diablo III's beta was mentioned (some attendees will win keys), but the SCII expansion/sequel's beta was not, and the game apparently is not expected in 2011.  Also not expected in 2011 is even the ANNOUNCEMENT of the Mystery Fourth Project, which Blizz says won't be revealed until 2012.  (This is remarkable since game itself will probably still be 1-3 years out AFTER the announcement; relatively few games have the luxury of a dev cycle this long.)  These announcements mean that Blizzard apparently intends for WoW to continue to be the company's flagship MMO quite possibly up to the game's tenth birthday in 2014. 

In that context, it's interesting to see how little we got out of Blizzcon about the content patches of the Cataclysm era.  At Blizzcon 2008, just prior to the release of Wrath, Blizzard held a community summit that outlined the planned content patches of 2009.  The actual convention itself included tidbits about patch 3.1 (described at the con as almost complete), such as dual specs and swimming ground mounts.  At this year's event, we got some pictures of new dungeons for patch 4.1 and a comment from Tom Chilton that Deathwing will arrive in either patch 4.2 or 4.3.

Why Blizzard is considering only two content patches for the Cataclysm era? 

Are they thinking that Cataclysm sets a precedent of five levels per expansion that would allow them to complete a less ambitious fifth expansion sooner than late 2012?  Blizzard has been saying that they wanted annual expansions for years now, but previously have never delivered.  Perhaps the added pressure of having the followup so far out is pushing them to pick up the pace?  Perhaps Bobby Kotick is demanding more box sales?  Or perhaps this is Blizz-ness as usual, and we'll see 4.1 in April 2011, 4.2 (sans Deathwing) in October 2011 along with a Blizzcon announcement of the fifth expansion, 4.3 in March 2012 and the new expansion in November/December 2012. 

Given my track record, I'd hesitate to guess.  Given Blizzard's track record, though, the latter may be the most likely.

Incorrect Blizzcon Predictions For 2010

Blizzcon is coming up in just over a week, so time to put predictions that are usually proven wrong to electronic paper is running out.  Here are my best guesses for this year's event.

• Diablo III and the first SC2 expansion (called the second game in a "trilogy" so that Bobby Kotick can charge the new game price instead of the expansion price) will be playable.  I really am not following either game at this point, so there's not much else I can predict about them. 
• Cataclysm's cinematic introduction will make its debut.  My guess is that it will finally include gnomes, though I suppose we can't put it entirely past Blizzard to make a point of including Goblins and Worgen over gnomes as a running gag. 
• With most of the juicy Cataclysm news out on live servers, PTR's, and the no-NDA beta, WoW news will include discussion of patch 4.1.  The patch will include a major feature that has not been announced or discussed publicly (sorry, dance studio). 
• Blizzard will have to announce the mystery fourth project (confirmed to be an MMO based on a new IP) if they do not want the event to be widely viewed as a disappointment.  My guess is that the new game will be more action-based, will be designed with some form of item shop or other transaction system in mind, and will not be a straight up fantasy setting (perhaps Steampunk, Sci-Fi or Cyberpunk). 
• Date MMO-Champion leaks the juicy details: Monday, Oct 18th.

We'll see how much of a laugh we have over this post sometime next week.

Very Public Cataclysm Brainstorming

It was late August 2009, and the stage was set.  Ozzy Ozborne was in the house, and the new WoW expansion, albeit spoiled in advance was ready for its big unveil.  With a room full of frenzied fans and journalists, what better place to hold a brainstorming session to discuss ideas that may or may not make the expansion? 

Or at least, so it seems this past week with several announced features getting the axe in a pre-E3 press event.  The Path of Titans, a somewhat nebulous alternate advancement mechanic that would have struggled to strike a balance between useless and mandatory, is gone.  The new archaeology profession that was to unlock options for the Path will now be used to provide lore tidbits, similar to Warhammer's Book of Knowledge.  Guild talents have been replaced with a more traditional "gain a level, get a perk" system, similar to what Warhammer has.  The revamped heroic modes for iconic low level dungeons - the Deadmines and Shadowfang keep - have been punted to patch 4.1. 

In some ways, it's refreshing to see Blizzard willing to talk publicly about what they're thinking about.  At the time, patch 3.3 was still in the works and the expansion was over a year from launch, so they simply would not have had much to talk about if they hadn't been able to speculate.  Players continue to cite features that were never delivered, such as the original vision of Hero Classes and the Dance Studio, and that might have created even more incentive to clam up. 

Even so, it also feels a bit odd to see this level of what, in hindsight, appears to have been pure brainstorming speculation at a major media event.  The issue with guild talents potentially forcing players to leave their guilds to find someone who was talenting to support their playstyle was an extremely obvious one - it was one of my earliest reactions to the proposed mechanic - and it seems odd for them to be pulling the system over that very valid concern a year later.  Did they have some super-secret plan to address this issue that came up short, or did they literally throw it into a Powerpoint because it sounded cool and they figured they'd have a year to work on the details?

(Aside: In an amusing note, World of Raids learned that the new Guild Reputation, used to encourage players to contribute to their guild before gaining access to rewards,

"is not wiped immediately upon leaving or being removed from the guild; this is to prevent losing all your progress in the guild due to someone jokingly kicking you."

Ah, the joking /gkick, I guess they are playing the same game we are after all.) 

On the plus side, the speculation is now over, and the ramped up info releases seem to point towards the expansion hitting beta in the next month or so.  That said, it will be very interesting to see whether this affects the amount of information we get out of future Blizzcon-type events.