What do you expect of next expansion, races and classes?

So what do people think about the next expansion? What will it be? What races if any will they add? What classes do you suppose there will be? Skip to the last sentence if you don’t want to read my rambling and then post what you think.

The rumors about the next expansion are either Maelstorm or Emerald Dream, with Emerald Dream kind of winning out since people are of a mind that Maelstorm will finish WoW, end of story or is it? In EQ there was 15 Expansions, EQ2 currently has 8 expansions, with another announced to come out next year. Some say that patches end up being mini expansions or at least major patches are mini expansions with in the current expansion. So with that said why would they end it after 5 expansions? Really does not make sense since it is probably the most popular game. For Blizz, WoW is a cash cow that they will milk until it cost to much to maintain. But with there work on the next gen MMO will it be worth to continue to invest in WoW? And will there new MMO be as popular as WoW will we see WoW diminish in popularity with there new game? Or will WoW still be the proverbial cash cow that it has been these last 4 years? I am sure these are all questions that they ask themselves on a daily basis, but with new MMO's coming from different companies how many customers will they lose if they do not invest in a new MMO?

Well looks like its more questions really than answers but this is all speculation on my part :) So on to the next question, will there be new races and what will they be? The latest rumor is that they will add the Worgen and the Goblin as a playable race, there is of course the wish of many players for the Pandaren. So what do you all think? If you look at wowwiki.com and go to there future race ideas you will see Arakkoa, Centaur, Cenarius Favored Children, Drakanoid and Dragonspawn to me both seem dragonkin type races, Ethereal, Furbolg, Gnoll, Goblin, Kobolds, Mo’arg (Felguard type Race), Murloc, Naga, Nerubian, Ogre, Pandaren, Quilboar, Satyr, Tuskarr, and the Worgen. Out of this long list of possibilities I can see Goblin, Ethereal, Ogre, Pandaren, Tuskarr and Worgen as likely candidates over the other races. With some of the introduction of material and leaks from Blizz the current trend continues on the Goblin and Worgen being the next playable races,

Now let’s say it is the Goblin and Worgen that are chosen as the next playable race. What classes will they be able to play? Let us start with the Goblin, I would imagine they could be warriors since they seem to have a lot of warrior types in the various neutral towns. But what else could they be? According to some of the lore again this is from wowwiki and other places they can be rogues, techno mage (perhaps a hero class?), tinker (another hero class maybe?). Some of the other classes do not really currently fit WoW lore from what I seen. Also people believe that they will align themselves with the horde, if this is the case what does that mean for all the neutral Steamwheedle cartel towns? Will they all be turned to a horde town? If this is the case that means that what ever race the alliance get will have towns pop up and we will have no neutral towns at all. This is probably a tough sell but who knows perhaps they will unveil the playable races and some other info on the next expansion at Blizzcon.

Moving on to the Worgen, so what classes for them? Worgen seem to be natural warriors, as well as warlocks, lore also says that they can be mage’s and maybe priest. So what else could they be? Not sure about this one. Maybe some one else can fill in here about what they think they could be. Since it is believed that the goblin will go horde, then the Worgen will go Alliance. So this means new towns popping up through out vanilla, outland and Northrend plus what ever they introduce in the next expansion.

That’s all I have for now, please post some of what you think in the following format, what race? What class? Maybe your thoughts about the hero class that you believe will be introduced in the next expansion.

Personally, I'm hoping for a rework of the old world, to phase it so that playing fresh yields more or less the same experience, but as the plot advances, so does the phasing, and all those quests you complete have visible affects on the world.

This is a multiboxing message board. We hate phasing... remember?

NO MORE PHASING!!! (in my Mommy Dearest voice)

funny enough, what you expect to see (the topic of this thread) and what you would like to see (topics seen more often than the former) rarely consist of the same content :P

Unfortunately, I see alot more of the stuff that we multiboxers hate. Phasing is one, and for some reason they seem to have a hardon for jousting and other vehicular combat. I dont see any of that slowing down with the next expansion.

I dont think they have a planned ending for WoW, and I'm sure Activi$ion would rather them pump out expansions at a much higher frequency now.

I really like the current system of an expansion every 2 years with several major content patches in between to forward the story.

I wouldnt be surprised to see every other expansion have a new race and class. Meaning the expansion after 'Cataclysm' (which will allegedly add 2 new races) will add a new class. And after that new races again, and so forth. And I forsee the next new class to be a healing/rangeDPS hybrid.

But we're talking years and years down the road here. I doubt we'll see 'Cataclysm' before September 2010.

Hehe BigFish just read the WowInsider article on Phasing and I like some of the ideas that some of the posters have and some seem to be ugh just bad. Now I like phasing for the most part but sometimes it does get frustrating specially if your leveling an alt and your starting to do some of the quest concerning Icecrown where your hosed since the alt will have to do it solo. I just did so with one of my shaman because I was leveling another pally to 80 on that account and I did a lot of the questing in Icecrown on that pally and then the 3 other shaman and my priest.

Agree with you on the vehicular content Kalros can't really stand it, maybe if there was something else to it, it might be better but as it stands I don't care too much for it at all, hence I still have not done Oculus. I have beaten everything else but Oculus

Also agree on when the expansion will come out September/October of 2010 sounds about right, even though they said they wanted to have a new expansion on a yearly basis versus every 2 years.

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even though they said they wanted to have a new expansion on a yearly basis versus every 2 years

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The great thing about Blizzard over the years has always been that when they release something, they do it RIGHT! They dont adhere to timelines, and have said countless amounts of times, "When its done". And it has really worked out for the best overall, because they just DONT release crappy products (now I'm not counting bugs associated with patches, etc). And I remember them saying they wanted expansions on a yearly basis, but they know better. Even though we always have to wait a long time for their products, its normally always worth it (I never played WarCraft 3 though, which I heard iffy stuff about).

Now that they are in bed with Activi$ion though, I fear those days of long development times and high quality releases may be coming to a close. I hope the guys at Blizzard stick to their guns and dont let the whispers of 'Big Brother' affect their own development, but I think we're already seeing it.

Think back, even just a year or two ago, and if you had asked a WoW developer about the concept of paid Faction/Racial change services, they'd probably laugh in your face! However now we can see it on the horizon. Is it really a BAD thing? Not necessarily. I'm sure plenty of people will take advantage of it. Its just one of those things that chips away at the integrity of the game for money (And yes, I see the irony of this statement coming from a multiboxer).

So for now, I'd expect Blizzard to stick to the gameplan as always, but as time goes on, it'll probably be like an EQ-type thing where we see a constant flow of generic, average expansions on a yearly basis.

I have to agree with you on that Kalros, Blizz has in fact done a real good job on there releases so far and like you I hope that the trend they have set continues. Now I never played WC3 but i did place WC3 Frozen Throne which was great, with WotLK they kind of continued the Lore from what happen in WC3 Frozen Throne. And the cinematic's they made for D2 and WC3 Frozen Throne where great I have always loved what they did for those games as well as the intro movies to WotLK and some of the other stuff they did for WoW.

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Originally Posted by Kalros

Think back, even just a year or two ago, and if you had asked a WoW developer about the concept of paid Faction/Racial change services, they'd probably laugh in your face! However now we can see it on the horizon. Is it really a BAD thing? Not necessarily. I'm sure plenty of people will take advantage of it. Its just one of those things that chips away at the integrity of the game for money (And yes, I see the irony of this statement coming from a multiboxer).

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I for one am REALLY looking forward to this service. I always, always played alliance on Nathrezim from the get-go, because that's where my RL friends played. At one point there was 20 of us Winnipeggers going on Nath, all in the same (larger) 40 man raid guild together, heh we made up half of most raids!

Over the years though, every single one of them except me and a buddy were lost to attrition - that is, they don't play WOW at all anymore. So last summer me and my remaining buddy joined a handful of other RL friends that play horde on Shadowsong. We rerolled and started new toons there. Now horde is my main faction, but I still have my original rogue that I've played since WOW release. Leveled her to 80 solo on the old realm, did some PUG raids to get a few pieces, but I'm really looking forward to the ability to faction transfer her to horde to join my current horde guild. Saves me having to level/boost a fresh rogue, *AND* gives me the satisfaction of being able to continue playing my ancient main character so she doesn't get left in the dust.

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I for one am REALLY looking forward to this service.

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Oh yeah, it'll be interesting for sure. Hell, I even considered ditching Alliance for Horde at times just so I could actually WIN a Battleground besides AV.

Yeah, it certainly has its advantages and could be really fun, but it is a far cry from way they did things before, and I am positive that Activi$ion had alot to do with that decision.

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Originally Posted by Kalros

Activi$ion had alot to do with that decision.

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I think by law they have to maximize profits for shareholders :confused:

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Originally Posted by muffe

I think by law they have to maximize profits for shareholders :confused:

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I am a shareholder. :D

It makes me lose sleep at night to think of all the sucky alliance players who will transfer horde just to win BGs. I know my server could for sure use a huge influx of raiders.You can see the tumbleweeds rolling thru Org sometimes.