New Expansion: Battle for Azeroth(possible spoilers)

[Kunikiko]

So the new expansion has been announced. Horde and Alliance are going to fight again. Upright Orcs and Trolls! More Elves on the Horde! Moose Tauren! Teldrassil is gonna burn! Azshara! Old Gods (probably)!
Battle for Azeroth Cinematic

Battle for Azeroth Features Overview

Also, Classic servers have been announced.

[Ribcrack]

I wonder why the alliance in the trailer features every race but gnomes while the horde are missing blood elves, goblins, and any forsaken who aren't pretty.

[Ribcrack]

it is real nice to see Saurfang finally get a trailer appearance, though, even if Genn stopped him from murdering the crap out of Anduin

[Kunikiko]

So, personal thoughts. I'm digging the renewed conflict. I'm excited to see Sylvanas front and center, hopefully it won't be like Legion, and did you see her go full banshee?! Dear lord, I think I've got a case of the vapors. *fans self*

Blizzard has heavily implied that old gods are going to be a major factor in this expansion and that the war may not be as cut and dry as the 1st and 2nd wars. They've also shown that Teldrassil will burn, and that Undercity will be retaken by the Alliance but that it will be preserved during the leveling process through phasing. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Maybe we'll get it back at the end of the expansion?

No big class changes or profession changes announced yet so there's really nothing to get excited about there.

New Allied Races. So, Blizzard is adding six "Allied Races" to the game, three for each faction. Horde are getting Zandalari(upright Trolls!), Highmountain Tauren, and the Nightfallen. Alliance will get Void Elves(Belves that use void magic and are lead by Alleria Windrunner), Dark Iron Dwarves, and Lightforged Draenei. Frankly, I'm not super excited about all this. However, I really did enjoy the Nightfallen questline and NPCs so I'm feeling like I might roll one. Maybe a Zandalari. Allied races will
be unlocked via questing. So on your 110 character you'll need to go do some quests, that unlocks the race on your account and you can then go level your very own allied race character. They haven't made any information about the process officialy public yet, so we don't know how or when you'll get access to them. A blogger over at WoWplanet has a possible theory based on what he saw at the Blizzcon demo.

Allied races, once unlocked will be available for race change in-game, or you can level one from 20-120 the normal way. Oh yes, Allied Races start at level 20 apparently. If you level one of the new races you'll unlock a special set of cosmetic "Heritage armor" for that race. It's only available on that race though.

Oh, and leveling. Apparently they're doing some black magic wizardry with scaling so that the leveling experience is more cohesive and you don't end up outleveling the zone before getting half way through. Aaaaaaand you'll be able to have some freedom of choice when it comes to post-lvl58 leveling. I forget the exact details but basically they're splitting all the expansions into two tiers. So you have a choice of TBC or Wrath for 60-80 and then MoP or WoD for 80-100(I think). Oh, and this feature is going to be introduced in 7.3.5.

Artifact weapons are gone. In their place is a new necklace that you power up with the new resource Azerite(crystallized essence of Azeroth's world spirit). Powering it up gives you the ability to unlock traits on certain armor pieces. They haven't put out a lot of information on this yet, they swear it won't be as tedious as AP, but I'm dubious.

As far as expansion hype goes, I'm right at an 8. I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic. I like a lot of what I'm seeing, but I've been burned before.

[Kunikiko]

I wonder why the alliance in the trailer features every race but gnomes while the horde are missing blood elves, goblins, and any forsaken who aren't pretty.

I mean, all the archers were Forsaken and they looked pretty grot. Also, all that Troll action makes me not really care that I didn't see any of the other races. Those Elemental shamans blasting the crap out of the Alliance and giving Genn a full jigawatt of lightning made me happy.

it is real nice to see Saurfang finally get a trailer appearance, though, even if Genn stopped him from murdering the crap out of Anduin

I didn't immediately make the Saurfang connection, but yeah, super awesome.

[Vivimord]

I'd have liked to have seen more Forsaken, too, given that it's the Undercity they're defending. But yeah, there were the archers, though they weren't shown in as much detail as the other races.

I agree that seeing the trolls do their thing was great!

I DID immediately make the Saurfang connection, but then second guessed myself and I've instead been thinking "I wish that were Saurfang, instead of this random orc that looks kinda like him". I'm an idiot.

Sylvanas looks... interesting. Bit odd that they've taken away her facial markings and instead given her runny mascara. Her face also looks a little too angelic at times. I picture her with an almost permanent scowl. And with a few more signs of undeath.

Picky parts aside, though, I still thought it was a great cinematic! Sets the scene - quite literally, apparently, as I'm fairly certain the expansion starts right at that moment during the battle.

As for losing the Undercity? As a player, on one hand it's a bit sad, as that's always been my favourite zone and my favourite capital city. On the other hand, I'm glad that they're not afraid to make massive changes to the world - including destruction of capitals - to keep the story moving forward.

As a character, I imagine Vivimord will be outwardly furious at the incompetence of a leader that could lose control of his homeland, but secretly be quite pleased. It's not his perfect outcome - that would be the assassination of Sylvanas, leaving him to pull the strings in Lordaeron and work on reunification of the northern human kingdoms on his own terms - but at least it gets Lordaeron out of the hands of an elf and back under human control. And the destruction of Teldrassil and the deaths of undoubtedly many thousands of night elves is just a little bonus.

[Vivimord]

Oh, and regarding Classic servers, I'm tentatively interested. I wrote on Discord that knowing that the game will be 'finite' (ie. that it will presumably 'end' after you've managed to max out your character in Naxxramas), unlike standard MMO fare, might motivate me to actually play a fair bit of it.

Especially if you lot come along for the ride!

I'm interested to see how it feels to play. We all know that it took much longer to level and that combat while levelling could actually be difficult, but I'm interested to see whether 12+ years of experience has made any of that significantly easier.

[Vivimord]

Oh and if you're interested in some more in-depth details, this panel from Blizzcon (which has been uploaded to Youtube and has not yet been taken down, apparently) has a good amount of info:

[Bladebreaker]

First off, that cinematic was just freaking amazing. Sylvanas going full banshee blew my freaking mind. I was watching it with my kids and I startled them with my reaction, I was ready to jump through the screen. I thought they did a good job with Manduin as well, though, you know... Alliance. But there's a narrative to be explored there.

Although it makes me sad to lose Undercity I'm also in agreement with Vivi that shaking things up is heartening. Also, we get to burn down Teldrassil. Wheeeeeee! I get the impression that this isn't meant to be temporary, they really want to draw a cleaner dividing line between the continents. I'm excited for a change.

Allied races are cool but it does put me in an awkward spot. I want moose horns on a tauren. But Blade doesn't have moose horns. And I have characters at level 100 across the board. So it feels a bit like a feature that I won't get any use out of. Still, I appreciate the addition. I guess I could race change some of my less-used characters just to muck about with them. Does anyone really know whether Lersh is a Blood Elf or a Nightborne? Nah. So I might do that.

I'm interested in seeing how the Horde/Alliance conflict being central to an expansion plays out. The only time we've had the conflict be a major theme for an expansion was in MoP, but I think that was flawed by the asymmetry of the process thanks to one faction leader being the Big Bad for the whole expac. The root of the entire game world is the conflict between Horde and Alliance, and although that has evolved I think it's interesting to invest back into it.

I wonder whether it will cause me to care more about PvP, which I haven't been particularly interested in for several expansions now. I do think that part of my lack of interest is that I've gradually stopped caring as much about whether Horde win. Wintergrasp is really the last time I remember being motivated to PvP just because I didn't want the other side to win, so I would show up to do it even if I didn't get any reward from it. I am motivated by spite, apparently. Maybe this will rekindle that? Or maybe it won't. I don't know.

Classic servers were probably the biggest surprise of the convention (other than rogue-like Hearthstone, woot!). Nostalgia goggles will be put to the test. I know there are people who loved the old Nostalrius servers before they were shut down so there is clearly a population of people who want this. I'm not sure that it would be for me, but I would certainly roll a character, no doubt about it.

[Kunikiko]

Although it makes me sad to lose Undercity I'm also in agreement with Vivi that shaking things up is heartening. Also, we get to burn down Teldrassil. Wheeeeeee! I get the impression that this isn't meant to be temporary, they really want to draw a cleaner dividing line between the continents. I'm excited for a change.

Blizzard has heavily implied that there might be reasons beyond simple war that the Horde burns down Teldrassil. Some folks have inferred this to mean that it might be corrupted, or that the fire might not have been intentional.

Allied races are cool but it does put me in an awkward spot. I want moose horns on a tauren. But Blade doesn't have moose horns. And I have characters at level 100 across the board. So it feels a bit like a feature that I won't get any use out of. Still, I appreciate the addition. I guess I could race change some of my less-used characters just to muck about with them. Does anyone really know whether Lersh is a Blood Elf or a Nightborne? Nah. So I might do that.

I know I'll be rolling a Zandalari and a Nightborne. The whole Suramar questline was great and I really enjoyed the attitude and characterization of the Nightfallen. Zandalari are of course going to be on my plate because we all know how much I like zee Trolls. Currently my plan is tentatively Warrior Nightborne and Shaman Zandalari,

Also, Blizzard is giving us 6 more character slots per server so we'll be able to keep them on the same server instead of rolling alts on SC like we have been. And of course, we'll be able to race change.

I'm interested in seeing how the Horde/Alliance conflict being central to an expansion plays out. The only time we've had the conflict be a major theme for an expansion was in MoP, but I think that was flawed by the asymmetry of the process thanks to one faction leader being the Big Bad for the whole expac. The root of the entire game world is the conflict between Horde and Alliance, and although that has evolved I think it's interesting to invest back into it.

The great thing is that they're going to let us play out the Alliance vs. Horde battle on multiple fronts. Traditional PvP will still be a big focus, but Warfronts will basically be RTS PvP, and then they made it sound like the island expeditions will also potentially be Horde vs. Alliance.

The one thing that could really ruin this all is if they go down the route of making Sylvanas Garrosh 2.0. I wasn't always a fan of Sylvanas, but I think her character has been through enough. I want to see her stay morally gray, or even Lawful Evil, but I don't want her to become a genuine villain. I do, however, want to kill the crap out of Genn Greymane.