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Michael Here: What Do You Think Of This?
🕑 Added 2021-08-30 16:04:48 +0000 UTC
Hello everyone! Right, so this is a draft script that I've been working on. It's all about Class Order Halls, and I'm quite happy with it at a high level, so I thought I'd share it here early, and see if you've got any suggestions.
Lets be real: the criticisms of modern WoW have been talked about to death. Now, I'm far more interested in where we could go next, and what sorts of game features people would like to see.
Lets go!
Many of us want to touch grass, to get out of the cosmic mire, and return to the Azeroth we know. To the Alliance, the Horde, and a world we've all spent countless hours in. Class Order Halls, first introduced in Legion, are the perfect feature for a new expansion: one that would get people excited. A big, back of the box feature, that rather on borrowed power, focuses on making you happy.
Fantasy
The 4th War is over, and we survived the Shadowlands. What world do we return to? How did we leave it? In Legion, we led the Orders, then, in BFA, we seemingly abandoned them, and they essentially haven't been thought of since, even though the likes of the Silver Hand joined the War.
Azeroth is a mess. Years of war mean that even the Cataclysm's damage is still felt - never mind that of the Legion's 3rd Invasion, or the 4th war. We reunite with old comrades, squash the 4th Wars beefs, and reform our orders - all taking place through, essentially, a class quest.
Did the Paladin Order Hall survive the 4th War - a war that saw Sunwalker and Silver Hand spill each others blood? Or for the Hunters? What of our Lodge? My character is the Huntsmaster, yet she never paid a visit, or helped the Order? Really, once we lost our Artifacts, we just up and left.
We find them a bit worn down, led by those who picked up the pieces after us, and that's the difference. You have touched Azeroth's heart, wielded the power of void and journeyed to the afterlife. You are busy: too busy to lead, so instead, you rejoin as a high ranking member. Why? Well, it removes a number of narrative limitations, and its far less prescriptive, allowing the player more RP options for their character. For the FF14 crowd - it's like how you're very important, but Menfillia leads the Scions.
With a reformation questlines complete, the orders are reformed, and we can begin talking about this as a game feature.
Class Quests
Systemy things will come later: first, Class Quests. Blizzard struggle to tell smaller, more thematic stories in World of Warcraft because Patches tend to be laser focused on the current story. Where's the narrative framing to do smaller, more individual stories that build the world, and support WoW's older fantasies? We don't have it. Green Fire is a fluke. Class Order Halls grant the perfect opportunity for ongoing storylines. They can be big and small, be added frequently or sparingly: the point is they can exist. The stories must be grounded in the traditional fantasy of the classes, and not engage deeply with world ending threats. Here are a few ideas.
Paladins deal with the aftermath of Shadowlands - the launch of which sent the remaining undead feral. Both purging evil, and defending the citizens of Lordaeron, in a narrative that takes places after the more horde centric Sunwalker material of the Order's reformation. Discover the ill doings of a rogue off-shoot of the mysterious Scarlett Brotherhood, who, to support their political goals, perpetrate false flag attacks to undermine Alliance legitimacy.
Demon Hunters. The Dark Portal has mysteriously shut down, and you, aboard the Fel Hammer, travel to Outland, where you find that with the Legion's defeat, Pit Lords are rallying stray demons. With the portal shut down, they've managed to secure new holdings on outland. Why? That's on you to find out.
Warlocks! The Legion has fallen: what does that mean for your Demons? You travel Azeroth investigating strange new demonic activity in a questline that crosses paths with the Fel Hammer's Demon Hunters, and uncover what's really going on.
Rogues expand upon the Defias Brotherhood hints of BFA, delving into the underbelly of Azeroth in a story that spans Stormwind, Booty Bay, Silvermoon, as we work out what Azeroth's criminals are really up to, perhaps even crossing paths with the Paladins, who themselves are investigating the new Scarlett Brotherhood.
Warriors get a special mention, as their larger story is one of forming a new Order Hall, separate from Odyn. One the fantasy of which feels at home to more of Azeroth's warrior cultures, and gets us away from Odyn's rule.
That's just a few examples - my goal is to tell grounded stories that focus on the fantasy of each class, and the established world building of Azeroth. Will the Demon Hunters and Warlocks touch on cosmic stuff? Yeah: but in a way that's in sync with their fantasy.
This feature would ship with Order Hall reformation questlines at launch, ideally with continued storylines across the expansions, such as the ones I've laid out here. There is, however, a twist: Mythic. The endgame campaigns can be played on Mythic difficulty. Much harder, with avoidable damage tuned up, and encounters being made with each class's kit in mind. Not the difficulty or intricacy of the Mage Tower, but enough to make a hunter feel like a hunter through the use of traps, tranq's and more. Completion on Mythic Difficulty earns you a reward. A minimum, a neat Class Tabard, though ideally more. These all feature a rich cast of characters: characters who, over years, we'll get to know very, very well, across expansions.
Here you see a slice of narrative content, but what about the rest? Well that's where I think this gets better and better.
Class Trials
WoW has a problem: it doesn't teach it's own mechanics to players, instead relying on excellent community support. it has another problem: the Proving Ground is under used, not really maintained, not expanded upon, and is specifically themed to one expansion. Oh, it doesn't have class based elements.
Proving Grounds V2 takes place at each Class Order. Initially, only the basics are unlocked, but as you ascend the ranks, you grow your order's proving ground, taking it from a small rough patch of dirt, to the perfect training ground. To make this doable, each Proving Ground has an identical base in terms of mobs and mechanics, albeit with a reskin. Then, a sprinkling of class specific mobs and mechanics are added, such that someone with Platinum Rank Hunter Order Hall IS a good hunter. Like with MoP proving grounds, and endless mode with achievements and other rewards would be great, and unlike the MoP proving grounds, these would teach the common raid mechanics of Warcraft - stacking, spreading, interrupting, and so on.
Class Challenges
Remember the Mage Tower? That. Just that, when does as a part of Class Order Halls, such a feature always makes narrative sense. Production considerations are important - 36 unique and hard bosses is not feasible, so here's the framing. Class Order Halls strike up an Alliance to defeat the strongest foes in the land. This would allow encounters to be shared between specs, just like in Legion. All Blizzard would have to do is add 1 fight per expansion, and keep them updated with scaling. Heck, when a new expansion comes out, you could rescale or tweak the past bosses, remixing them such that they're a fresh challenge for a fresh reward.
Duty Board
What's the point of an order of Hunters if they're not able to hunt the worlds greatest beasts, aid in conservation work, and track down the cryptids of Azeroth. The Duty Board mixes daily and weekly quests, along with seasonal or expansion spanning goals, giving you content to do for Order Hall currency. What does that currency do? Well, it lets you buy cosmetic rewards that are themed around your class and it's specs. This could be expanded to Order Hall Upgrades. It'd be a cool narrative: the Orders work for the good of Azeroth, and so her great Kingdoms funds and support them.
Personal Quarters
Full player housing is hard. Not insurmountable, but hard. Loads of assets. Item placement systems. Probably loads more. Well, a high ranking Paladin needs somewhere to wind down and plan their next move, right? Personal Quarters are a new feature that's essentially player housing-lite.
At a minimum, you have a set upgrades that you can make. These add more furnishing options. If granular placement of items isn't possible, then this can just be premade 'kits' - almost like in Oblivion. Included in your quarters are an armoury, where you can display your favourite transmog sets, and room to display your achievements, such as trophies from boss kills. The more the merrier here.
To step it up a notch, granular placement of furnishings, and even customising of room layout would be ideal. Let people add in windows, and mix and mash furniture gathered from across WoW's many different styles. Between Legion and BFA, much of the asset creation work is. I want to see what a cosy office aboard the Fel Hammer is like: can a Demon Hunter still hold on to their roots?
While not for everyone, this would dip our toes in the player housing water, allow for more character progression, and let people see their achievements represented in a way that isn't a number of a UI panel.
Order Hall Facilities
Order Halls are more than just a building, though they will start of like that: just the core building and a training area. Players help their order grow and expand. Ascend the ranks of the training area, and you'll build it up. Complete Duties, and earn currency to kit out and expand your personal quarters. What else though? Well, this is where we go back to class fantasy. Can Hunters fast travel to the various Lodges found across Azeroth? Can Demon Hunters use the Fel Hammer to travel to captured Legion encampments across Azeroth? Can Shamans traverse the Elemental Planes to travel great distances across Azeroth? Those are a few travel options, but it could be pushed past that. Each new expansion will see players establish their orders outpost on that new continent, bringing a bit of home along with them, and travel options. Perhaps each Order has an area for dueling? Perhaps the Order Hall proving ground has a PvP mode featuring juiced up version of the Comp Stomp AI?
Here's the point: start of small, and slowly add over time. This isn't a build-around feature for an expansion, it's a part of the World of Warcraft. A platform for player fantasy, neat thematic features, and continued storytelling that delivers players a boots on the ground classic Warcraft fantasy, regardless of if we're in the 8th Fractal of the Great Cosmic Jellyfish or debating the finer points of philosophy with a talking Cloud that's actually the consciousness of a First One sucked into a nebula.
Rewards
Let's talk rewards. First, Warlock Green Fire was awesome. How can we do that again? Let's take my main, the hunter, as an example. Want to be a Dark Ranger, where your disengage is a shadowy backflip, and your projectiles have cool black swirly magic? Or, want a different fantasy, like elemental coloured projectiles? What about cool new quivers, or ammo pouches that hang from your belt? Perhaps different sound effect choices for your weaponry? Look at this Legion Paladin gear. All voidey. ...shall we give the light the green fire treatment? Because hey: that void paladin ship has sailed. More zombies for the Death Knights? Stealth effects and poison effects for Rogues? Class thematic cosmetic weapon enchants? More class sets, with tints for each spec. A 'mythic' version for completing the Class Challenges? Class Tabards. New titles. New pets. Class Mounts. New unlocks for your personal quarters. And more: I've crammed this proposal out in 1 late night thinking and an afternoon writing, I'm sure a full team could do much more!
Getting more mechanical, I am tempted to revive my Class Mastery idea which was essentially a second talent tree that starts off small, is added to slowly over time, and is for your class - allowing you to unlock cool non throughput based class abilities. Can a hunter call a big bird to airlift them anywhere in a 1000 yard range, when not in combat? Can a Paladin permanently avoid being dazed while mounted, instead dazing mobs who attack them? Can Rogues have their pickpocketing minigame be expanded upon, or Shamans harness the elements in new, out of combat ways? Sure, most of this would have to be disabled in instanced combat, but the idea is alluring: a way to deepen class fantasy over spec fantasy, and make the basics of your character feel different because of your class. This would, however, be tricky to pull off!
Faction Restrictions
Many players want faction restrictions removed. If done via something like Mercenary Mode, then that's... our characters being mercs. Not much sense for a Paladin, and being a merc carries connotations. If Class Order Halls exist, then cross faction gameplay makes far, far more sense. It would just work. PvP could even be framed as Wargames - but I'll admit: keeping WoW stacked with PvP content while also loosening faction restrictions is hard, so perhaps we'll have to allow for some narrative dissonance, or at least let players be the edgy member of their hall who totally still fights for The Horde or Alliance.
What Does This Accomplish?
For the casual, fantasy driven player, this provides new storylines, new grinds, and new ways to customise their character. You may not be the top raider in your Order Hall, but you've helped the Order, done your Duties and got cool rewards, all while seeing neat visual progress! For the raiders, dungeoneers and PvPers, well they're actually also regular people who often like ALL the stuff casuals do! But, they also do really hard content: and damn straight their Order Hall will reflect that! Mount the nipple-rings of a defeated Zovaal atop your hearth. Be the local god of dualing in the order's arena, and the Paladin who bested the great Challenge boss earliest, being the among the first to unlock an incredible new transmog weapon.
If Blizzard wanted, they could get progression via Order Hall upgrades that'd build out the various buildings, granting new cosmetics and functionality, and this'd be achieved by doing the story quests, and by doing the Duty Board content. Perhaps the Duty Board progress would gate legs of the storyline, like the progression of Patch 5.1. Perhaps even give the player a personal rank with their order hall that correlates to a new rep bar, and have doing content in Azeroth help that? Hell: what about this idea that just came to me mid script - do a Paragon rep bar, where you get rep by doing almost anything in the game. Each time you fill the bar, you get a Token currency, and those can be spent on new rewards. Some people might do daily quests and duties to fill up that bar, others may fill it up by doing PvP, and other by raiding. Either way, if you're a champion of the Hunter Order Hall, then be it doing duties, training in the proving ground, or fighting the latest raid bosses, you're carrying the banner of your order and doing good stuff.
...yeah: this is basically a non power version of Paragon levelling, one that would pretty much for ever, not being tied to an expansion.
There's much more you could do - what if all these organisations are affiliated with a reformed Champions of Azeroth that's led by Khadgar - a group pledged to come together for the greater good.
Problems!
- Risks drawing people out of cities. How large of a problem would this actually be if transport to cities was easy, and cities still contained core game features like the AH?
To what degree has this ship sailed? - Blizzard would have to commit to a system, for once.
To Conclude...
Why did I bother? Chances of this being a thing are tiny, and Blizzard seem more focused with telling their cosmic story. Simply put, I think stuff like this is what most players, and a great many lapsed players, actually want. For the game to return to the fantasy of Azeroth and it's peoples.
Comments
I would make door knocker out of Zovaal's nipple rings. But for real - I'm not much of a brain for systems, but I see the class halls as a 50/50 for me. I'm not entirely bought on the idea, that this should overarch the whole game like permanent system to build upon (if I get the idea of this post right). It's the narrative part, that my brain fights with. Don't get me wrong, all above sounds good. More visual customization for classes - double yes. Also triple yes to class trial section. On the other hand - I can't think of better system at this time. Faction neutrality - yes, in way we are in peace state of things, not entire dissolve of the faction. I would prefer race narrative, but don't really know how to put it into class halls or any system. Examples - some races are basically homeless. Whats up with Silvermoon rebuilding? That guy hammering there since TBC must be tired. etc. Anyway - overall feel of the post - good stuff, I can see people bee happy with this.
Warcraft desperately needs more evergreen content as opposed to the next “build around” feature. Something like this would fit that bill and keep people playing. One of my regrets from the legion era is not doing all the class stories and mage towers. I know I can go back and do the order hall stories but it just isn’t the same.
