This is another exciting things about WAR. Because of the table top game there is so much possibility for expansion. I would like Lizardmen, Skaven, and Vampires.. they'd all be cool additions and probably will added in the future But Lizardmen if they are order? (sorry not familiar with WAR other than what i'm learning on the Online game and from what i see in stores) but if the Lizards are Order I think it would be nice to have a non human looking race. and vampires and Skaven which is the skeletons right? or is wolves? either way that would be nice to see on the destruction side. Interesting and exciting subject about the possibilites...still though we have a ways to go before that would happen it's fun to speculate.
Yeah, the Lizardmen in Warhammer lore actually are not, despite popular but misinformed belief, evil at all. In fact, they were left as guardians of the Old gods works and defend many relics from falling into the hands of people that shouldn't be messing with. I don't know that they are neccissarily "good" though either, well, as long as we're on the subject, NONE of the races in Warhammer are really "good", it's basically all about the lesser of many evils. That being said though, I would guess if they did add Lizardmen in an xpac, they probably would be on the side of Order.
My hopes for the first xpac?
Order - Wood Elves
The only reason I say Wood Elves is b/c Bretonnia, while slightly different then the Empire, when you get right down to it, they are pretty similar. Bretonnia is based roughly on Arthurian legend, so their units are mostly Knights, crossbowmen and such, a little too similar to the Empire IMO.
Wood Elves though are really quite different the High Elves. While the High Elves are all about Arcane magic, the Wood Elves are more mystical, and earthly. They are really a very cool race and there are a ton of neat classes they could bring to the game.
People said Halflings, which is definitely a possibility. But in Warhammer the Halflings aren't their own army, they are a part of the Empire and there is only one or two possible classes for them, so I doubt we'd see Halflings.
Destruction - Vampire Counts
I'd personally like to see the Vampire Counts. They are such a cool army in the table-top game, and there are enough units of varying types that they could turn into classes in the game. My first choice is definitely the Vampire Counts w/ the Black Knights, Grave Guards, Spirit Hosts, Cairn Wraiths, Tomb Banshees, and the ever-cool Vahrguffs. A lot of depth there.
Skaven would be an awesome choice too, and IMO the one we'll most likely see as the first new race for Destruction. The Skaven are IMMENSELY popular, and they have some really, really cool units that could be converted into some truly epic classes in the game. I mean, Warlock Engineers?!? Oh hells yes; Poison Wind Globadiers? awesome; Gutter Runners, Plague Censers, and Plague Monks? the possibilities for Skaven are all pretty damned cool.
Another neat choice for Destruction could be the Tomb Kings. Roughly based on Egyptian mythology, they would make another awesome addition to the game.
Actually, now that I think about it, they actually could make a third faction....the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings don't really care about the Chaos gods, or the schemes of the Dark Elves, thusly while they certainly COULD be made to fit into the Destruction faction, I think they could be the base for a 3rd faction all their own.
Yes we did have Gnomes in WFRP, they were designated NPCs but any GM with a brain could generate PC gnomes (if any player really wanted to be that small), but halflings would usually fill that role and their resistance to warp (chaos) influence was their advantage- didnt have any genuine rules advantage, it was just stated that they were more resistant (I guess when Rick, Rick, Graeme, Jim and Phil developed the game they had Frodo and co. in mind).
Skaven would be an obvious addition, as already stated they have a great deal of lore built up for them, and they are the most wide spread of all the races (they have cracks and tunnels all around the world) hence it makes sense that they get in the game.
The Lizardmen and their Slann masters would be in my view a third faction, again as already hughlighted they work to keep the good stuff out of the hands of the lesser races (read everyone but Slann), while they use to look upon the High elves as trusted children - those noble lords have already proved their ability to fall (the Dark Elves) and so the Slann would typically only act through the younger races in secret and via agents... I guess they could provide a number of quests without folks realising (initially).
The kingdom of the dead and Nagash are yet another faction, yet again as highlighted earlier they dont see any point in chaos and while chaos is happy to reanimate capable minions as undead they dont actually approve of undead as they are not providing power to the gods in the same way as living followers will. Sure a good battle will provide energy for Khorne, but if half the guys involved are simply automatons then hes getting a lot less than he would like. Hence undead are ok as agents of chaos (destruction) but they are not the answer... in time the chaos gods will need to deal with them. I assume we could have undead forces marching north from the Old Kingdom and I assume they will act as agents of destruction rather than creating a new faction... shame.
As for Sigmar Heldenhammer being a space marine.... would make some sense actually. The warhammer world is supposed to be one of the many worlds visited by the ancients and the Slann (if they arent the ancients) and so is supposed to be in the same timeline as 40K, but the issue is when: the collapse of the slann in warhammer was over 7000 years ago while in 40k it was long long before... therefore warhammer is in the past as regards 40k, hence the marines would not of been created for many thousands of years when sigmar was knocking about... and to be fair most would assume that the two (warhammer and 40K) are seperate. Like I said it would make sense as regards his enhanced abilities but I dont believe its canon, I guess its fanboy generated.
PS: go for Wood elves, sneaky elves will be a great addition and would balance the sneaky ratmen that the skaven bring to destruction.
If an expansion came out with wood elves i would reroll my character straight away. Oh god i would love to be a waywatcher. Does anyone know if there has been any hints or anything on exps? have they said there will be?
If an expansion came out with wood elves i would reroll my character straight away. Oh god i would love to be a waywatcher. Does anyone know if there has been any hints or anything on exps? have they said there will be?
In one of the release interviews, I believe it was w/ MJB, they mentioned that they are only in the planning stages of the first xpac and only have 4 or 5, out of a team of 250, working on it. But that they do have some really cool things planned that a lot of Warhammer fans will be very excited about. IMHO that would lead me to think they are reffering to the Skaven as people have been talking about the Skaven in WAR almost since it was announced.
Lol, I 'm afraid that halflings is the choice of order, in the RPG the playable races are Human, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling. But Wood elves or Humans from Bretonia or Kislev is also a possibility. Skavens or beastmen is my bet for Chaos.
Except if you've read past interviews with Mythic youd know they're not going by any of the RPG sources they're going by the original Games Workshop Table Top Miniatures lore....if it dosen't exist in the Miniatures it won't exist in Warhammer Online. So there are no stupid Haflings or Gnomes (there are haflfings in the table top but they're not a complete Race).
Id sooner like to see Black Guard, Hammerer, Knight of the Blazing Sun, and Choppa return to the game before they implement more races. But since you asked... New Expansion exploring Lustria with... Destro:Skaven Order: Lizardmen or the realms of Bretonnia and Ashel Loren... Destro: Vampire Count/Skaven Order:Bretonnia/Wood Elf
What ever the combination will be, it's already set in stone. Why? A third of Mythic's WAR work force is a team dedicated to the next expansion and they have been working on it for at least a year.
Mythic has already signaled an aggressive expansion strategy. Much more so than WoW, but I'm not sure if it will be as aggressive as SOE has been with EQ2. That's on top of free content additions, which is the responsibility of another third of their people.
I'd like to see Wood Elves and Skaven. What ever the combination will be, it's already set in stone. Why? A third of Mythic's WAR work force is a team dedicated to the next expansion and they have been working on it for at least a year. Mythic has already signaled an aggressive expansion strategy. Much more so than WoW, but I'm not sure if it will be as aggressive as SOE has been with EQ2. That's on top of free content additions, which is the responsibility of another third of their people.
I do hope you are right and it wasn't just some clever marketing to state things like that about their aggressive expansion plans before the game got released.
I also opt for wood elfs and skaven. Though Skaven would add even more cool factor to destro while Wood Elfs should have been part of order since launch in my opinion.
Them cone headed high elfs just don't cut it for me ... style wise.
Then there are the existing races with potential new classes. To bad the Slayers have their non-armored rule/thingy which is very typical of them. I don't know if many folks would love equipping new tattoo's every few levels instead of a nice chest piece. They do have the right haircuts and attitudes though ....
Order- lizardmen.......(more neutral but having to help the order races for preservation)
Destruction- Skaven
There are more "bad guy" races than good ones. They would literally have to drop the order / destruction alignment subjective to accomodate or come up with a new alignment alliances.
Order- Dwarves, Empire, High elves, Wood elves, and bretonians
Chaos- beastmen, Deamons of chaos, and 4 chaos orders (Nurgle, Tzennch, Khorne, and Slannesh)
Destruction- Dark Elves, Skaven, orcs and Goblins, Ogre Kingdoms
Undead- Vampire counts and Tomb Kings
Problem is with wood elves and bretoinians is that it would introducing some of the same. Bretonnians would be different lvls of tanks. Wood elves would resemble too much like the high elves classwise w/o alot of creativity.
What i'd like to see is more open world exploration, All 4 Chaos powers represented, and Bring back the tank classes they dropped earlier.
This is just my opinion
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR. Playing EVE Online and AOC. Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
I'd like to see Wood Elves and Skaven. What ever the combination will be, it's already set in stone. Why? A third of Mythic's WAR work force is a team dedicated to the next expansion and they have been working on it for at least a year. Mythic has already signaled an aggressive expansion strategy. Much more so than WoW, but I'm not sure if it will be as aggressive as SOE has been with EQ2. That's on top of free content additions, which is the responsibility of another third of their people.
This isn't true at all, you're going on old information. In a recent joystiq launch interview, Jeff Hickman has said that only a handfull, like 4-5 members of the current 250 member team are working on an expansion and that it's still only in the preliminary planning stages.
For for those that don't want to click through, he's a brief summation:
"So, again I can't give you dates or anything like that but I can give you an idea of how we're structured and what we do. We've been looking at an expansion for two months now. I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea when I say that - we got four people out of 250 (Mythic Entertainment staffers) who have been doing pre-production on an expansion."
"We know what we want to do. We know when we want to do it. We know what it's going to entail. But, it is going to be months, months, before that team expands beyond those four or five people and we actually start going "balls to the walls" working on an expansion."
the lizzies (ord) and skaven(dest) pairing would make sense lore wise, would open up Lustria for play and would give order a bunch of cool dinosaur badass looking guys to play to make up for the lame loking high elfs
btw.... I got my classes prognosticated (word?) for lizzies. (one of my tabletop armies)
Healer.... Skink prophet of Sotek
Ranged Damage... Chameleon Skink
Tank... Saurus temple guard
melee DPS... naturally the Kroxigor!
hell, i might roll order at that point jusssssst to ssssssslay the mammallllsssssss......
itchmon
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
I'd like to see Wood Elves and Skaven. What ever the combination will be, it's already set in stone. Why? A third of Mythic's WAR work force is a team dedicated to the next expansion and they have been working on it for at least a year. Mythic has already signaled an aggressive expansion strategy. Much more so than WoW, but I'm not sure if it will be as aggressive as SOE has been with EQ2. That's on top of free content additions, which is the responsibility of another third of their people.
This isn't true at all, you're going on old information. In a recent joystiq launch interview, Jeff Hickman has said that only a handfull, like 4-5 members of the current 250 member team are working on an expansion and that it's still only in the preliminary planning stages.
For for those that don't want to click through, he's a brief summation:
"So, again I can't give you dates or anything like that but I can give you an idea of how we're structured and what we do. We've been looking at an expansion for two months now. I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea when I say that - we got four people out of 250 (Mythic Entertainment staffers) who have been doing pre-production on an expansion."
"We know what we want to do. We know when we want to do it. We know what it's going to entail. But, it is going to be months, months, before that team expands beyond those four or five people and we actually start going "balls to the walls" working on an expansion."
Well, that completely contradicts what they said a few weeks before launch (I believe it was Mark that said they had a third of the work force working on expansion).
So, was it marketing hype? Or is Jeff being hyper-sensitive to potential complaints that they should be working on fixing bugs and bringing the missing classes/cities online before they start working on a paid expansion?
It could even be competitive concerns that have them backpedaling on information they feel they never should have made public?
IMO, Blizzard did a horrible job reinvesting profits into expansion development. I really hope Mythic won't make that same mistake.
I'd like to see Wood Elves and Skaven. What ever the combination will be, it's already set in stone. Why? A third of Mythic's WAR work force is a team dedicated to the next expansion and they have been working on it for at least a year. Mythic has already signaled an aggressive expansion strategy. Much more so than WoW, but I'm not sure if it will be as aggressive as SOE has been with EQ2. That's on top of free content additions, which is the responsibility of another third of their people.
This isn't true at all, you're going on old information. In a recent joystiq launch interview, Jeff Hickman has said that only a handfull, like 4-5 members of the current 250 member team are working on an expansion and that it's still only in the preliminary planning stages.
For for those that don't want to click through, he's a brief summation:
"So, again I can't give you dates or anything like that but I can give you an idea of how we're structured and what we do. We've been looking at an expansion for two months now. I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea when I say that - we got four people out of 250 (Mythic Entertainment staffers) who have been doing pre-production on an expansion."
"We know what we want to do. We know when we want to do it. We know what it's going to entail. But, it is going to be months, months, before that team expands beyond those four or five people and we actually start going "balls to the walls" working on an expansion."
Well, that completely contradicts what they said a few weeks before launch (I believe it was Mark that said they had a third of the work force working on expansion).
So, was it marketing hype? Or is Jeff being hyper-sensitive to potential complaints that they should be working on fixing bugs and bringing the missing classes/cities online before they start working on a paid expansion?
It could even be competitive concerns that have them backpedaling on information they feel they never should have made public?
IMO, Blizzard did a horrible job reinvesting profits into expansion development. I really hope Mythic won't make that same mistake.
Yeah, while I was trying to find the article that I read the info in I came across the interviews where they said that they had the team split into 1/3s, it seems to have been Paul Barnett that said it originally. I think what probably happened was that the 1/3 idea was their original plan, but during the course of development they switched things up and probably moved, or kept, the 1/3 of the team they had intended to work on an xpac back into development of the release product. That would make sense considering how the beta, and late development cycle was broken up, and all the delays, and changes that were made to the game during beta.
I agree w/ Blizzard doing a piss-poor job on their xpac development. That being said, I also don't think that EQs one-time dev-cycle of an xpac every 6-months was right either, I think the sweet spot lies somewhere between the two. One xpac a year is, IMHO ideal, w/ decent free-content updates peppered in every couple months.
Only time will tell what strategy they will go with for WAR xpacs,
Comments
Yeah, the Lizardmen in Warhammer lore actually are not, despite popular but misinformed belief, evil at all. In fact, they were left as guardians of the Old gods works and defend many relics from falling into the hands of people that shouldn't be messing with. I don't know that they are neccissarily "good" though either, well, as long as we're on the subject, NONE of the races in Warhammer are really "good", it's basically all about the lesser of many evils. That being said though, I would guess if they did add Lizardmen in an xpac, they probably would be on the side of Order.
My hopes for the first xpac?
Order - Wood Elves
The only reason I say Wood Elves is b/c Bretonnia, while slightly different then the Empire, when you get right down to it, they are pretty similar. Bretonnia is based roughly on Arthurian legend, so their units are mostly Knights, crossbowmen and such, a little too similar to the Empire IMO.
Wood Elves though are really quite different the High Elves. While the High Elves are all about Arcane magic, the Wood Elves are more mystical, and earthly. They are really a very cool race and there are a ton of neat classes they could bring to the game.
People said Halflings, which is definitely a possibility. But in Warhammer the Halflings aren't their own army, they are a part of the Empire and there is only one or two possible classes for them, so I doubt we'd see Halflings.
Destruction - Vampire Counts
I'd personally like to see the Vampire Counts. They are such a cool army in the table-top game, and there are enough units of varying types that they could turn into classes in the game. My first choice is definitely the Vampire Counts w/ the Black Knights, Grave Guards, Spirit Hosts, Cairn Wraiths, Tomb Banshees, and the ever-cool Vahrguffs. A lot of depth there.
Skaven would be an awesome choice too, and IMO the one we'll most likely see as the first new race for Destruction. The Skaven are IMMENSELY popular, and they have some really, really cool units that could be converted into some truly epic classes in the game. I mean, Warlock Engineers?!? Oh hells yes; Poison Wind Globadiers? awesome; Gutter Runners, Plague Censers, and Plague Monks? the possibilities for Skaven are all pretty damned cool.
Another neat choice for Destruction could be the Tomb Kings. Roughly based on Egyptian mythology, they would make another awesome addition to the game.
Actually, now that I think about it, they actually could make a third faction....the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings don't really care about the Chaos gods, or the schemes of the Dark Elves, thusly while they certainly COULD be made to fit into the Destruction faction, I think they could be the base for a 3rd faction all their own.
Just a few points:
Yes we did have Gnomes in WFRP, they were designated NPCs but any GM with a brain could generate PC gnomes (if any player really wanted to be that small), but halflings would usually fill that role and their resistance to warp (chaos) influence was their advantage- didnt have any genuine rules advantage, it was just stated that they were more resistant (I guess when Rick, Rick, Graeme, Jim and Phil developed the game they had Frodo and co. in mind).
Skaven would be an obvious addition, as already stated they have a great deal of lore built up for them, and they are the most wide spread of all the races (they have cracks and tunnels all around the world) hence it makes sense that they get in the game.
The Lizardmen and their Slann masters would be in my view a third faction, again as already hughlighted they work to keep the good stuff out of the hands of the lesser races (read everyone but Slann), while they use to look upon the High elves as trusted children - those noble lords have already proved their ability to fall (the Dark Elves) and so the Slann would typically only act through the younger races in secret and via agents... I guess they could provide a number of quests without folks realising (initially).
The kingdom of the dead and Nagash are yet another faction, yet again as highlighted earlier they dont see any point in chaos and while chaos is happy to reanimate capable minions as undead they dont actually approve of undead as they are not providing power to the gods in the same way as living followers will. Sure a good battle will provide energy for Khorne, but if half the guys involved are simply automatons then hes getting a lot less than he would like. Hence undead are ok as agents of chaos (destruction) but they are not the answer... in time the chaos gods will need to deal with them. I assume we could have undead forces marching north from the Old Kingdom and I assume they will act as agents of destruction rather than creating a new faction... shame.
As for Sigmar Heldenhammer being a space marine.... would make some sense actually. The warhammer world is supposed to be one of the many worlds visited by the ancients and the Slann (if they arent the ancients) and so is supposed to be in the same timeline as 40K, but the issue is when: the collapse of the slann in warhammer was over 7000 years ago while in 40k it was long long before... therefore warhammer is in the past as regards 40k, hence the marines would not of been created for many thousands of years when sigmar was knocking about... and to be fair most would assume that the two (warhammer and 40K) are seperate. Like I said it would make sense as regards his enhanced abilities but I dont believe its canon, I guess its fanboy generated.
PS: go for Wood elves, sneaky elves will be a great addition and would balance the sneaky ratmen that the skaven bring to destruction.
If an expansion came out with wood elves i would reroll my character straight away. Oh god i would love to be a waywatcher. Does anyone know if there has been any hints or anything on exps? have they said there will be?
In one of the release interviews, I believe it was w/ MJB, they mentioned that they are only in the planning stages of the first xpac and only have 4 or 5, out of a team of 250, working on it. But that they do have some really cool things planned that a lot of Warhammer fans will be very excited about. IMHO that would lead me to think they are reffering to the Skaven as people have been talking about the Skaven in WAR almost since it was announced.
Only time will tell though.
Except if you've read past interviews with Mythic youd know they're not going by any of the RPG sources they're going by the original Games Workshop Table Top Miniatures lore....if it dosen't exist in the Miniatures it won't exist in Warhammer Online. So there are no stupid Haflings or Gnomes (there are haflfings in the table top but they're not a complete Race).
I would kill to see a third faction added. Just Lizardmen.
If not, Lizardmen, Skaven, Brettonia and the Vampire Counts.
lizard man awsome XD
you must be joking about the wood elfs...
I'd like to see Wood Elves and Skaven.
What ever the combination will be, it's already set in stone. Why? A third of Mythic's WAR work force is a team dedicated to the next expansion and they have been working on it for at least a year.
Mythic has already signaled an aggressive expansion strategy. Much more so than WoW, but I'm not sure if it will be as aggressive as SOE has been with EQ2. That's on top of free content additions, which is the responsibility of another third of their people.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
I do hope you are right and it wasn't just some clever marketing to state things like that about their aggressive expansion plans before the game got released.
I also opt for wood elfs and skaven. Though Skaven would add even more cool factor to destro while Wood Elfs should have been part of order since launch in my opinion.
Them cone headed high elfs just don't cut it for me ... style wise.
Then there are the existing races with potential new classes. To bad the Slayers have their non-armored rule/thingy which is very typical of them. I don't know if many folks would love equipping new tattoo's every few levels instead of a nice chest piece. They do have the right haircuts and attitudes though ....
My brand new bloggity blog.
I would say at this point.....
Order- lizardmen.......(more neutral but having to help the order races for preservation)
Destruction- Skaven
There are more "bad guy" races than good ones. They would literally have to drop the order / destruction alignment subjective to accomodate or come up with a new alignment alliances.
Order- Dwarves, Empire, High elves, Wood elves, and bretonians
Chaos- beastmen, Deamons of chaos, and 4 chaos orders (Nurgle, Tzennch, Khorne, and Slannesh)
Destruction- Dark Elves, Skaven, orcs and Goblins, Ogre Kingdoms
Undead- Vampire counts and Tomb Kings
Problem is with wood elves and bretoinians is that it would introducing some of the same. Bretonnians would be different lvls of tanks. Wood elves would resemble too much like the high elves classwise w/o alot of creativity.
What i'd like to see is more open world exploration, All 4 Chaos powers represented, and Bring back the tank classes they dropped earlier.
This is just my opinion
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR.
Playing EVE Online and AOC.
Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
This isn't true at all, you're going on old information. In a recent joystiq launch interview, Jeff Hickman has said that only a handfull, like 4-5 members of the current 250 member team are working on an expansion and that it's still only in the preliminary planning stages.
here's the link
For for those that don't want to click through, he's a brief summation:
"So, again I can't give you dates or anything like that but I can give you an idea of how we're structured and what we do. We've been looking at an expansion for two months now. I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea when I say that - we got four people out of 250 (Mythic Entertainment staffers) who have been doing pre-production on an expansion."
"We know what we want to do. We know when we want to do it. We know what it's going to entail. But, it is going to be months, months, before that team expands beyond those four or five people and we actually start going "balls to the walls" working on an expansion."
the lizzies (ord) and skaven(dest) pairing would make sense lore wise, would open up Lustria for play and would give order a bunch of cool dinosaur badass looking guys to play to make up for the lame loking high elfs
btw.... I got my classes prognosticated (word?) for lizzies. (one of my tabletop armies)
Healer.... Skink prophet of Sotek
Ranged Damage... Chameleon Skink
Tank... Saurus temple guard
melee DPS... naturally the Kroxigor!
hell, i might roll order at that point jusssssst to ssssssslay the mammallllsssssss......
itchmon
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
This isn't true at all, you're going on old information. In a recent joystiq launch interview, Jeff Hickman has said that only a handfull, like 4-5 members of the current 250 member team are working on an expansion and that it's still only in the preliminary planning stages.
here's the link
For for those that don't want to click through, he's a brief summation:
"So, again I can't give you dates or anything like that but I can give you an idea of how we're structured and what we do. We've been looking at an expansion for two months now. I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea when I say that - we got four people out of 250 (Mythic Entertainment staffers) who have been doing pre-production on an expansion."
"We know what we want to do. We know when we want to do it. We know what it's going to entail. But, it is going to be months, months, before that team expands beyond those four or five people and we actually start going "balls to the walls" working on an expansion."
Well, that completely contradicts what they said a few weeks before launch (I believe it was Mark that said they had a third of the work force working on expansion).
So, was it marketing hype? Or is Jeff being hyper-sensitive to potential complaints that they should be working on fixing bugs and bringing the missing classes/cities online before they start working on a paid expansion?
It could even be competitive concerns that have them backpedaling on information they feel they never should have made public?
IMO, Blizzard did a horrible job reinvesting profits into expansion development. I really hope Mythic won't make that same mistake.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
This isn't true at all, you're going on old information. In a recent joystiq launch interview, Jeff Hickman has said that only a handfull, like 4-5 members of the current 250 member team are working on an expansion and that it's still only in the preliminary planning stages.
here's the link
For for those that don't want to click through, he's a brief summation:
"So, again I can't give you dates or anything like that but I can give you an idea of how we're structured and what we do. We've been looking at an expansion for two months now. I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea when I say that - we got four people out of 250 (Mythic Entertainment staffers) who have been doing pre-production on an expansion."
"We know what we want to do. We know when we want to do it. We know what it's going to entail. But, it is going to be months, months, before that team expands beyond those four or five people and we actually start going "balls to the walls" working on an expansion."
Well, that completely contradicts what they said a few weeks before launch (I believe it was Mark that said they had a third of the work force working on expansion).
So, was it marketing hype? Or is Jeff being hyper-sensitive to potential complaints that they should be working on fixing bugs and bringing the missing classes/cities online before they start working on a paid expansion?
It could even be competitive concerns that have them backpedaling on information they feel they never should have made public?
IMO, Blizzard did a horrible job reinvesting profits into expansion development. I really hope Mythic won't make that same mistake.
Yeah, while I was trying to find the article that I read the info in I came across the interviews where they said that they had the team split into 1/3s, it seems to have been Paul Barnett that said it originally. I think what probably happened was that the 1/3 idea was their original plan, but during the course of development they switched things up and probably moved, or kept, the 1/3 of the team they had intended to work on an xpac back into development of the release product. That would make sense considering how the beta, and late development cycle was broken up, and all the delays, and changes that were made to the game during beta.
I agree w/ Blizzard doing a piss-poor job on their xpac development. That being said, I also don't think that EQs one-time dev-cycle of an xpac every 6-months was right either, I think the sweet spot lies somewhere between the two. One xpac a year is, IMHO ideal, w/ decent free-content updates peppered in every couple months.
Only time will tell what strategy they will go with for WAR xpacs,