• Chris Metzen for a Day

    by
    Jeremiah
    Published on 02-15-2012 01:23 PM
    3 Comments Comments

    Let's say hypothetically that you take over Blizzard's creative development for a day, which means you essentially become Chris Metzen. You have complete and total control over the story and overall feel of the next expansion. Now, I know people are incredibly and passionately divided over whether or not Mists of Pandaria is a good or bad idea, so I'm just wondering what you would all do instead.

    Would you bring back the Scourge for yet another expansion, create an entirely new enemy, focus on the Alliance versus Horde conflict, or something entirely different and "Outlandish"? For those of you who really don't care about the story or lore, it still determines what your gear will look like, what continent you're going to be leveling on, and what sort of races and classes you'll have access to.

    Personally, I'd love to see a spacefaring expansion or an expansion that focuses entirely on the present conflict between the Alliance and Horde. Mists of Pandaria claims to focus on this conflict, as there seems to be no "Big Bads" or supervillains present, and I think that's a step in the right direction. Still, Pandaria serves as a distraction from what could have been an amazing story of war between the Alliance and Horde. I think Blizzard gives too many shining moments to the good guys and has a difficult time creating believable villains. Most importantly, I think Blizz has a difficult time creating villains you can easily sympathize with. Their story department can't seem to create a villain that I would say, "Wow, he's actually right," to. I like villains when I can agree with their ends but have a few problems with their means, and so far, Blizzard has really only developed a caste of villains who want to "DESTROY EVERYTHING!!!" I can't get behind that kind of idea for obvious reasons.

    I have a feeling that the "Sha", or the "Elemental Hate" is going to give this expansion a reason to end on a happy-go-lucky "We're the heroes of Azeroth" note; I don't want to be a hero, I want to be a player in a global conflict. This upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion will end with the Pandaren tying the Alliance and Horde together with their lessons of kindness and peace, and the Horde and Alliance will eradicate the Sha, or the Elemental Hate, and learn to love each other. I hate to say it's going to end that way, but it is. I'll put 50 bucks on it right now. The story will start off with the Alliance and Horde plunged into absolute and total war with the destruction of Theramore, and for a moment we'll finally get to see these two great civilizations and their member states unleashing their most terrifying weapons. That will end soon when Blizzard's wise, Monk-like race exerts their international influence through their new Monk cadre and the fact that there are great number of Pandaren amongst the Alliance and Horde, when they will then stop the conflict with the power of love. Tell me I'm wrong, because I don't want to be let down.

    We want to hear from you. What would you like to see from a future World of Warcraft expansion?
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Chris Metzen for a Day started by Jeremiah View original post
    Comments 3 Comments
    1. shad8w's Avatar
      shad8w - 02-18-2012
      I would focus on the conflict between the Alliance and Horde.
      Balance out PvE and PvP - Possibly split them into two groups because as it is now it's ridiculously hard to balance.

      Try to add the open world feel back to the game and give players a fun reason to do world PvP.
      One possible solution that has been in the game:
      Having to run to a zone to queue for a BG would enable world PvPing to start again, the "portals" to the BGs should also be fairly close to one another.

      Make some zones where there are plenty of materials to gather but flying is disabled.
      I'd also revert the questing back to what it was like pre Cata where you had the option of doing other quests other than the zone chain one.
      Remove the fail risk on engineering items and give professions specialization trees to add uniqueness to your characters.

      And finally stop focusing on raiding, most players seem to be doing PvE but that doesn't mean the other players who enjoy PvP more should be punished. Most of the raiders who dislike PvP probably haven't been able to get into it. I would try to make them experience some PvP to get them into it, players on PvE realms should be able to avoid this though.

      That's what I'd do.

      Edit- Lol the new site layout made the text invisible ^^
    1. xtase2007's Avatar
      xtase2007 - 02-18-2012
      I would remove flying mounts from the game. it is truly ruining the game.. there are so many cool zones, even in WOTLK that are deserted...

      and add something fun in old world so people travel around and pvp etc..
    1. TehVoyager's Avatar
      TehVoyager - 02-21-2012
      Metzen for a day huh?

      10:00 am: Buff mages.

      12:00-3:00 Tell the player base there wrong in as many ways as Humanly possible, without repeating myself or telling a player they are wrong, twice.

      3:00-3:03: Invent an Expansion worse than MoP with things rejected from Wrath. spend 2 1/2 minuites more dev time on it than MoP.

      5:00 Make a good salary and have no possibility of being fired for shoddy work.