Stromgarde
30-09-2008, 05:57 AM
Well,
With the failing economy and the initial 4% stock fall Blizzard decided to take precautions and shave about seventy of its "fluff" employees as they call them. We do little things around Blizzards HQ. Honestly it just looks good on a college graduates resume. But I was there long enough to make some decent friends in the company. And I learned a few things from some friends who shared with me things they ought not be sharing.
Like the details and plans for the next expansion that they have already started on.
Right now it is tentatively being called "Depths of the Dark Tide" or sometimes the name "Depths of the Emerald Tide", or "The Surging Depths" all names are getting tossed around for finality. DotDT Great acronym right? Well anyways, as always, Blizzard keeps coming up with new ideas to keep the game fresh. They have some real whoppers they are planning apparently.
Here is just a few things I heard/seen would be in there.
-No New Races
-Two New Hero Classes
*Archdruid
*Blade Master
-New Ocean Exploration System
-Underwater and Sea Top Siege Combat with Customizable boats and submarines.
-"Shove Off" Zoning from anywhere in Azeroth
-Level Cap is only 85* There are some discrepancies.
Apparently Azshara has been cooking something up. Deep within The Rift of the Maelstrom, Azshara has been up something new. She has began using Titan Technology along with the dark energies still resonating from the Well of Eternity to... create water? That's right. She creates huge pulses of water in the Rift that spew up into the world creating massive tidal waves causing the ocean to slowly encroach on the rest of the world. Flooding the world is her dream, however there are side effects she wasn't expecting. The floods or named by the outside world as "The Surge" are pulses of stormy waves that crash into everything raising the water level. This is sending the world out of balance and adversely affecting the Emerald dream, causing the nightmare to swell like the tides rising in the real world. This apparently colapses the planet eventually, meaning all the heroes of the world have the stop Azshara before she screws things up.
Tentative Zone Lists
Zones work differently after you leave Gilneas. They are separated into Seas. Subzones are the islands and various other thing's you come across. The subzone islands aren't as big as normal zones, but the ocean is supposively going to be of grandeur size.
Gilneas
Finally you get to see behind the gate. Gilneas led by Tarn Greymane finally opens it's gates as the Surge threatens to over take them. Because of this calamity both horde and alliance can prove themselves through a series of phase quests.
They are leading supplier of boats at the beginning of the expansion.
Kul Tiras
One of the main islands, A town called Boralus will be a major port here for the alliance and will be used a bit through out the expansion. It's one of the few non tropical islands in the expansion. This is where the alliance starts to first learn about the Surge.
Tel Abim
Tropical island of Tel Bim. Concept art is showing it to be a bright and tropical paradise with very scenic beaches. The Goblins are trying to start tourism/vacation resort here, but of course they need you to clean the island up for them first.
Zandalar Island
Whats an expansion without a Troll area. The trolls are trying to get their great land tamed and are attempting something called "Land Mending" involving weaving ley lines to repair their fractured island. There are various tribes of Trolls here from all around the world, friendly and unfriendly.
Kezan
The big island is home to many things including the home town of the Goblins... Undermine. The Goblins facing the Surge agreed to let the alliance and the horde use Undermine as a home base to combat the Maelstrom. This will be the one of the two next Shattarah/Dalaran type cities. Goblin submarines are popular here as well.
The Broken Islands
Home of the Blade Master's starting island of Saramar, The Stormreaver Bay, Tomb of Sargeras, one of the first 5 mans.(And no, there is no Sageras in his Tomb)
Plunder Island
Home of the Bloodsail. A 5 man will be here as well as quite a bit quests dealing with the various attacks all over the South Sea's dealing with their raiding and ... well... plundering. The Bloodsails are almost as popular as Murlocs this time around. They are everywhere.
The Maelstrom is a main zone, with a bunch of subzones in it as well.
There are alot of 5 mans surrounding the main rift as well as the capital of Nazjatar. This zone is supposively massive. All of these zones are underwater mainly and require the goblin submarines to explore. A lot of siege vehicles come into play here. Much like the Boats work on the surface of the ocean, in the maelstrom the submarines come into play. Of course a lot of the zones have "air pocket" areas in them where you get off of your sub to explore.
The Rift is where Azshara is producing her mighty Surge and will be one of the final raid instances in the expansion.
Ok, this sounds like alot of zones... but the islands really aren't that big. All of the Ocean is maybe 4 zones.
This is where the Emerald dream comes into play along with the Arch Druid Hero class.
The Roaming Flats
The ever changing lands of the Roaming Flats... built to be a defense mechanism against invaders of the Emerald dream, of course the nightmare infection has messed things up here. It is highly confusing and never looks the same twice. From what I hear this is one of blizzard's new babies. The next step after phasing quests. The zone actually changes every hour and locations relocate themselves. This zone has a huge quest chain that you need to complete to get to the rest of the emerald dream.
The Dying Paradise
The most corrupt part of the emerald dream. Dying trees slowly fall down to the ground. Horrific twisted versions of azeroth animals roam attacking anything near them. Black darkness spreads in some areas while it looks like fall time in others. A huge offensive of druids attempts to push back the corruption.
The Tangled Sky
This sounds like the most interesting zone in expansion imho. A series of winding roots tangled through the sky. Not sure how this one will work to be honest. But it sure is... different?
The Eye of Ysera
Overly bright green energy spews in this still pristine part of the emerald dream. The flows are trying to push back the nightmare infection leaving pretty little rows of flowers and trees in it's wake. The architecture is unique slightly similar to the night elf structures. There is a massive town here and will act as another Dalaran/Shattarah.
The Sleeping Grove and The Breathing Grove
The starting area for the Archdruids. Not much else is known.
Ocean/Depths Exploration/Shove Off
Boats! Submarines!
The new system is going to involve you actually building and customizing you're own boats to sail the sea's with. The sea's are very open and full of little cavern's and other things in the middle of nowhere. Well this is what they are aiming for anyway. Pirate attacks and sea monsters to follow.
This is going to be one of the new selling points come the expansion. Boat and submarine battles amongst players.
You get to customize your boats with different parts improving it's performance, speed, armor, and weapons. They will be using the same system as siege vehicles but they will probably add more bells and whistles.
Also you can upgrade from boats at 84 to submarines. This will be the only way to enter Maelstrom. Subs will be much like boats be be underwater. The better parts will come from engineers. This will be their new direction. They will get epic parts like blacksmithing gets epic weapons.
Oh, no flying mounts when over the ocean. The Surge prevents you from flying. Enjoy the sea's. You can enter the sea's off any beach in Azeroth by going over the fatigue area while in a boat.
New Leveling System
They are pushing forward with a more story driven progression. Northrend has some great story driven quest lines.
You still gain experience but there caps. Upon reaching enough experience to level you must complete quest chains to unlock the next level. They will be soloable. It's just in concept stages right now, and they are expecting a lot of whining if they do decide to go through with it. But they want players to feel progression just besides gear and seeing new raids.
It might not make it through, but how many other things that are planned get scrapped?
Archdruids
Archdruids... why those are just leader druids. And who would want to play a normal druid when there are ARCH druids. Yeah I know right. But they do play quite differently.
The Archdruids are the druids trapped in the emerald dream. These druids focus more on the ethereal aspect of druids. Their abilities are suppose to reflect their control over the emerald dream. No spells have really been discussed that I personally know of.
They are going to continue like death knights and have an impressive starter zone inside the Emerald dream that involves them fighting off the nightmare and waking themselves up. They work with Malfurion himself.
Blade Masters:
These clever brutes have taken up residence in the Saramar ruins. They use it as their training grounds testing their trainees on the residents of the ruins. The whole zone is to prove yourself. Half of the starter zone is you on a large boat with other graduated blade masters heading back to the mainland. You fight off sea monsters and pirates etc on what they try to make feel like a long journey home.
Blade Masters are going to tri-wield. They will equip 2 one-handed items and then 1 two hander. I am not sure exactly how that works but different skills use different weapons. They have a "reactive" skill set. Where certain skills are only usable after using other skills. An example I was given was Sliding Slash, it's like a damaging charge, after using that attack two other skills become available. Each of those two skills break off into 2 or three other possible skills. So different attacks are available depending on how you start the fight. You would have a whole different slew of options if you started the fight upclose instead of using sliding slash to gain distance. If you don't use the next in the set of skills in 5 seconds, it starts over again. There are also finishers... There are 5 tiers of skills in the set up. Sliding slash being a first tier and so on. You have a special attack button that will do a different attack based on the tier you are on and the last used skill. It ends the combo.
Anyways... thats all...
With the failing economy and the initial 4% stock fall Blizzard decided to take precautions and shave about seventy of its "fluff" employees as they call them. We do little things around Blizzards HQ. Honestly it just looks good on a college graduates resume. But I was there long enough to make some decent friends in the company. And I learned a few things from some friends who shared with me things they ought not be sharing.
Like the details and plans for the next expansion that they have already started on.
Right now it is tentatively being called "Depths of the Dark Tide" or sometimes the name "Depths of the Emerald Tide", or "The Surging Depths" all names are getting tossed around for finality. DotDT Great acronym right? Well anyways, as always, Blizzard keeps coming up with new ideas to keep the game fresh. They have some real whoppers they are planning apparently.
Here is just a few things I heard/seen would be in there.
-No New Races
-Two New Hero Classes
*Archdruid
*Blade Master
-New Ocean Exploration System
-Underwater and Sea Top Siege Combat with Customizable boats and submarines.
-"Shove Off" Zoning from anywhere in Azeroth
-Level Cap is only 85* There are some discrepancies.
Apparently Azshara has been cooking something up. Deep within The Rift of the Maelstrom, Azshara has been up something new. She has began using Titan Technology along with the dark energies still resonating from the Well of Eternity to... create water? That's right. She creates huge pulses of water in the Rift that spew up into the world creating massive tidal waves causing the ocean to slowly encroach on the rest of the world. Flooding the world is her dream, however there are side effects she wasn't expecting. The floods or named by the outside world as "The Surge" are pulses of stormy waves that crash into everything raising the water level. This is sending the world out of balance and adversely affecting the Emerald dream, causing the nightmare to swell like the tides rising in the real world. This apparently colapses the planet eventually, meaning all the heroes of the world have the stop Azshara before she screws things up.
Tentative Zone Lists
Zones work differently after you leave Gilneas. They are separated into Seas. Subzones are the islands and various other thing's you come across. The subzone islands aren't as big as normal zones, but the ocean is supposively going to be of grandeur size.
Gilneas
Finally you get to see behind the gate. Gilneas led by Tarn Greymane finally opens it's gates as the Surge threatens to over take them. Because of this calamity both horde and alliance can prove themselves through a series of phase quests.
They are leading supplier of boats at the beginning of the expansion.
Kul Tiras
One of the main islands, A town called Boralus will be a major port here for the alliance and will be used a bit through out the expansion. It's one of the few non tropical islands in the expansion. This is where the alliance starts to first learn about the Surge.
Tel Abim
Tropical island of Tel Bim. Concept art is showing it to be a bright and tropical paradise with very scenic beaches. The Goblins are trying to start tourism/vacation resort here, but of course they need you to clean the island up for them first.
Zandalar Island
Whats an expansion without a Troll area. The trolls are trying to get their great land tamed and are attempting something called "Land Mending" involving weaving ley lines to repair their fractured island. There are various tribes of Trolls here from all around the world, friendly and unfriendly.
Kezan
The big island is home to many things including the home town of the Goblins... Undermine. The Goblins facing the Surge agreed to let the alliance and the horde use Undermine as a home base to combat the Maelstrom. This will be the one of the two next Shattarah/Dalaran type cities. Goblin submarines are popular here as well.
The Broken Islands
Home of the Blade Master's starting island of Saramar, The Stormreaver Bay, Tomb of Sargeras, one of the first 5 mans.(And no, there is no Sageras in his Tomb)
Plunder Island
Home of the Bloodsail. A 5 man will be here as well as quite a bit quests dealing with the various attacks all over the South Sea's dealing with their raiding and ... well... plundering. The Bloodsails are almost as popular as Murlocs this time around. They are everywhere.
The Maelstrom is a main zone, with a bunch of subzones in it as well.
There are alot of 5 mans surrounding the main rift as well as the capital of Nazjatar. This zone is supposively massive. All of these zones are underwater mainly and require the goblin submarines to explore. A lot of siege vehicles come into play here. Much like the Boats work on the surface of the ocean, in the maelstrom the submarines come into play. Of course a lot of the zones have "air pocket" areas in them where you get off of your sub to explore.
The Rift is where Azshara is producing her mighty Surge and will be one of the final raid instances in the expansion.
Ok, this sounds like alot of zones... but the islands really aren't that big. All of the Ocean is maybe 4 zones.
This is where the Emerald dream comes into play along with the Arch Druid Hero class.
The Roaming Flats
The ever changing lands of the Roaming Flats... built to be a defense mechanism against invaders of the Emerald dream, of course the nightmare infection has messed things up here. It is highly confusing and never looks the same twice. From what I hear this is one of blizzard's new babies. The next step after phasing quests. The zone actually changes every hour and locations relocate themselves. This zone has a huge quest chain that you need to complete to get to the rest of the emerald dream.
The Dying Paradise
The most corrupt part of the emerald dream. Dying trees slowly fall down to the ground. Horrific twisted versions of azeroth animals roam attacking anything near them. Black darkness spreads in some areas while it looks like fall time in others. A huge offensive of druids attempts to push back the corruption.
The Tangled Sky
This sounds like the most interesting zone in expansion imho. A series of winding roots tangled through the sky. Not sure how this one will work to be honest. But it sure is... different?
The Eye of Ysera
Overly bright green energy spews in this still pristine part of the emerald dream. The flows are trying to push back the nightmare infection leaving pretty little rows of flowers and trees in it's wake. The architecture is unique slightly similar to the night elf structures. There is a massive town here and will act as another Dalaran/Shattarah.
The Sleeping Grove and The Breathing Grove
The starting area for the Archdruids. Not much else is known.
Ocean/Depths Exploration/Shove Off
Boats! Submarines!
The new system is going to involve you actually building and customizing you're own boats to sail the sea's with. The sea's are very open and full of little cavern's and other things in the middle of nowhere. Well this is what they are aiming for anyway. Pirate attacks and sea monsters to follow.
This is going to be one of the new selling points come the expansion. Boat and submarine battles amongst players.
You get to customize your boats with different parts improving it's performance, speed, armor, and weapons. They will be using the same system as siege vehicles but they will probably add more bells and whistles.
Also you can upgrade from boats at 84 to submarines. This will be the only way to enter Maelstrom. Subs will be much like boats be be underwater. The better parts will come from engineers. This will be their new direction. They will get epic parts like blacksmithing gets epic weapons.
Oh, no flying mounts when over the ocean. The Surge prevents you from flying. Enjoy the sea's. You can enter the sea's off any beach in Azeroth by going over the fatigue area while in a boat.
New Leveling System
They are pushing forward with a more story driven progression. Northrend has some great story driven quest lines.
You still gain experience but there caps. Upon reaching enough experience to level you must complete quest chains to unlock the next level. They will be soloable. It's just in concept stages right now, and they are expecting a lot of whining if they do decide to go through with it. But they want players to feel progression just besides gear and seeing new raids.
It might not make it through, but how many other things that are planned get scrapped?
Archdruids
Archdruids... why those are just leader druids. And who would want to play a normal druid when there are ARCH druids. Yeah I know right. But they do play quite differently.
The Archdruids are the druids trapped in the emerald dream. These druids focus more on the ethereal aspect of druids. Their abilities are suppose to reflect their control over the emerald dream. No spells have really been discussed that I personally know of.
They are going to continue like death knights and have an impressive starter zone inside the Emerald dream that involves them fighting off the nightmare and waking themselves up. They work with Malfurion himself.
Blade Masters:
These clever brutes have taken up residence in the Saramar ruins. They use it as their training grounds testing their trainees on the residents of the ruins. The whole zone is to prove yourself. Half of the starter zone is you on a large boat with other graduated blade masters heading back to the mainland. You fight off sea monsters and pirates etc on what they try to make feel like a long journey home.
Blade Masters are going to tri-wield. They will equip 2 one-handed items and then 1 two hander. I am not sure exactly how that works but different skills use different weapons. They have a "reactive" skill set. Where certain skills are only usable after using other skills. An example I was given was Sliding Slash, it's like a damaging charge, after using that attack two other skills become available. Each of those two skills break off into 2 or three other possible skills. So different attacks are available depending on how you start the fight. You would have a whole different slew of options if you started the fight upclose instead of using sliding slash to gain distance. If you don't use the next in the set of skills in 5 seconds, it starts over again. There are also finishers... There are 5 tiers of skills in the set up. Sliding slash being a first tier and so on. You have a special attack button that will do a different attack based on the tier you are on and the last used skill. It ends the combo.
Anyways... thats all...