Blizzard's Greg Street said the next expansion will probably feature a new continent, however he admits WoW needs plot fixing after the release of Cataclysm.
Monday before the launch of the long-awaited World of WarCraft expansion Cataclysm, Blizzard lead systems designer Greg Street revealed his plans for the next (4th) expansion pack. His approach will be to bring an entirely new continent to the MMORPG, a new place for players to visit rather than revamp more existing areas.
"More like the Burning Crusade or Nothrend, where we send players somewhere new that they haven't seen before," he told CVG. "I think the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor are good now, we won't have to mess with them. There might be some small areas that may require polish or changing if things still don't feel quite right."
But he also realizes that there's a weirdness about the overall story when players access the Burning Crusade and Lich King content. It's almost as if players move back in time. "We're going to have to do something to bring that up to speed," he admitted. "We need to make that whole story a little smoother."
Bringing the previous expansion content "up to speed"-- or rather, overall plot fixing-- could mean an update via a future patch or by way of the next expansion pack. Right now the team is currently banging out bugs now that Cataclysm has officially gone retail, however Street said that he wants to stay on a consistent release schedule with expansions, indicating that the 5th installment could arrive sometime in 2011 or 2012.
"We want to get expansions out on fairly regular schedules so we can't really sit back for too long," he said. Burning Crusade launched in January 2007, followed by Wrath of the Lich King in November 2008. Blizzard waited two years to release the 3rd expansion, Cataclysm, which went live today, December 7, 2010.
To my knowledge a free month with the purchase of an expansion pak has never been the case. I am not a big fan of people opting for wow when you have bills that should be payed instead, but honestly when you get down to the bottom line for what you get $15 bucks is pocket change for the amount of content and activities the game offers. I started playing wow about 8 months after I started my IT career and I only started playing because I wanted to see just how good the content and gameplay was. I think WOW is probably one of the best options for gaming out there. Honestly though if you are trying to decide between rent and wow you have bigger problems. Gaming is not for the "I dont pay any of my own bills" Poor. I am so sick of hearing people bitch because they think these companies are charging too much. Perhaps they are, but I am getting my monies worth. Well....Just as long as we don't have another BC issue when I log on tonight and have to spend 3 hours in que.
Cheers,
Dragonenvy
LV 80 Troll Hunter
Dragonmaw
Paying $14.99 a month for WoW (cheaper if you buy more months in advanced) is hardly back breaking. Paying 50 cents a day is pretty much as good of a deal as it gets.
Consider the entertainment value you get with WoW, albeit, it destroys your life after some time with it's addiction.
I never had any problem paying a measly $15 a month to play WoW. I had MANY problems trying to have a life and juggle anything besides breathing, eating and sleeping WHILE playing WoW. Trying to keep a full time job, school or a social life? Forget it...you can't do it and play WoW at the same time. One of those big things has to give if you want to.
P.s. When I mean play, I don't mean casually put a few hours a day....I mean actually progress and actually have something impressive to show for it. There's a certain point, where if you can't invest enough time into WoW, It's really not worth playing.