Details About A Supposed Expansion Have Emerged Online

"World of Warcraft" was changed significantly last year, as the "Legion" expansion brought numerous additions and adjustments to the game. And now, a new rumor is hinting at the next expansion that may be released for this MMORPG.
                                               

The latest lore article on the World of Warcraft community site has been published, this time centered around the new king of Stormwind, Anduin Wrynn. It does contain a number of spoilers, most especially for Alliance characters, but also features some developer commentary about the creation of the story line as well as some profiles of notable Alliance leaders.

According to the post, the Horde and the Alliance will need to join forces in order to fend off the attacks of the surging Naga Empire. The post adds that Azshara and N'zoth will be the main villains featured in this expansion.

Notable additions that may come from this supposed expansion include a new race known as the Naga as well as the Tinker class. Boats are also apparently set to be introduced as mounts, according to the post, and a new neutral city known as Undermine may be included.

As interesting as the contents of this rumored "Rise of the Naga Empire" expansion may be, there are some "World of Warcraft" players that are casting doubt on the legitimacy of the post, while others are hoping that it is detailing a real thing.

While players wait to see if the "Rise of the Naga Empire" will turn out to be real, they can still take part in the many events that are going on right now and that are still set to happen later this month.

For instance, players can still participate in the Pet Battle Bonus event and the "Deepwind Dunk" PvP brawl that are expected to remain live until May 22. The Cataclysm Timewalking Dungeon event will then begin on May 23, while the "Glowcap Festival" is set for May 27. The last event of May is the Arena Skirmish that will start on the 30th.

Is World Of Warcraft Not A “Game” Anymore?

One of the hardest things to do in an MMORPG like World of Warcraft is to keep the player base happy. It’s not enough to just release new content, new expansions, and new events, the developers have to keep the quality of the game up. If the quality doesn’t match the content, then why should people play it? This is a growing question that fans are asking themselves because although World of Warcraft Legion has been good (certainly better than the last major expansion, Warlords of Draenor), some people are noticing continually bad things happening.

One of the hardest things to do in an MMORPG like World of Warcraft is to keep the player base happy. It’s not enough to just release new content, new expansions, and new events, the developers have to keep the quality of the game up. If the quality doesn’t match the content, then why should people play it? This is a growing question that fans are asking themselves because although World of Warcraft Legion has been good (certainly better than the last major expansion, Warlords of Draenor), some people are noticing continually bad things happening.

For them, the last straw was patch 7.2, which has been getting a lot of flak from fans since release. In their opinion, there’s nothing significant in the patch, mainly because a lot of it is time-gated. “There is nothing.  Alts are locked inside of Dalaran, otherwise you want to use hours of the same storyline you have already completed.”

Watchmeheal went on to note about how the main PVP content just isn’t appealing in any facet and PVE isn’t doing much better. Thus, they’re unsubscribing and again, hate doing it as they love World of Warcraft but hate what it’s become. They feel they might come back, but it’s not going to be right now, and they fear where the game could be headed in the future.

Blizzard eSports team are “very interested” in WoW PvE as a competitive environment

This will be good news for Method, Serenity and Exorsus as they continue to fight for the top spot, but may come a little late. Several guilds have announced their intention to stop raiding in Legion, citing the grind, which doesn’t look to be getting much better come 7.2. Even Danish Terrace, one of the guilds hitting targets and building a fanbase in Legion, have hung up the damage meters.

As for how Blizzard might implement it, no announcements yet. “We've been doing the live raid races for a long time, just to see which team can do it better - that's still competitive. It's not your traditional eSports where it's two teams head to head, the dungeon races is another one. Even though you're not going head to head with another player, I think that's exciting to see.

“We have experimented last year and we're going to continue to experiment this year. Now, whether or not we make it a big program with prize money and all of that stuff - I don't think that's the only thing that defines eSports anymore. For me, eSports is just being able to watch to see who the best is at something.”

Phan and Blizzard are well aware of the challenges surrounding it too, with new raid content being the most interesting but also the most competitive when it comes to strategies and secrecy. “I think it is important to make sure, at the end of the day, there is integrity in the competitive landscape,” she continues, pointing out that ‘tournament servers’ are becoming much more popular for having a consistent environment for players to compete in. Something like that may work for WoW PvE too.

If and when it happens, it’ll take some time to get it right. “I think in order to support it more widely, especially if it's going to be big and successful, we always start off with a test, see how it goes, do some broadcasts on it, get the feedback from everyone - do they enjoy watching it, is it fun to watch? Do we have the tools in place in able to support it?

How a guild of deaf players conquered World of Warcraft's toughest raids

Joseph Antle has raided World of Warcraft for a long time. His first guild was called Blackguard in vanilla, and he carved his way through Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Ahn’Qiraj with his trusty Tauren hunter. “I can’t recall if I was any good back then, but I have a memory of accidentally pulling Hakkar and wiping the entire group,” he says. “The team wasn’t too pleased with me, but I got over it.”
                 

You can’t understate the coordination demanded by high-tier Warcraft raids. You and 24 friends are the only things standing in front of a boss deemed too difficult for the vast majority of the player base. Each encounter cycles through four or five central mechanics that need to be handled perfectly. If you do something dumb, like forget you’re the living bomb, or stumble through the Flame Wreath, or accidentally aggro the Blood God Hakkar, you’re looking at a long walk back from the graveyard.

Most serious raiding guilds use voice chat to bark orders or refine strategy between wipes. In an age of Discord, built-in microphones, and automatic audio channels, connecting with your fellow players outside the chat box is easier than ever. But Antle is deaf, and wasn’t afforded the luxury of coordinating over voice comms. He still plucked ultra-rare loot off of Warcraft’s fiercest horrors, but his experience was far more isolated—the only guy in the group left out of all the jokes.

A small community of deaf players who knew each other outside WoW formed the Undaunted guild (known until recently as Durus Veritas) in the spring of 2011. All of them had experience raiding, and wanted to use their skills to clear high-end Warcraft encounters without voice chat. And they were successful, progressing through the stringent demands of Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor. On January 15, 2017, they cleared the Emerald Nightmare on the highest difficulty—the first major raid of the Legion cycle.

Antle was recruited into Undaunted in 2013 by a close friend who needed a DPS for their alternative 10-man team. Today he’s guild master, playing a Blood Elf protection paladin.

World of Warcraft to be the only game featured in Californian exhibit on world-changing tech

The Computer History Museum in California, USA, will be featuring Blizzard's long-running MMO, World of Warcraft, in an exhibit based around software that's changed the world. It will be the only game featured.
             

The 'Make Software: Change the World' exhibition "explores the impact of software on the lives of people everywhere, through seven game-changing applications", says the official site.

Visitors will be taught about the creators of the tech, as well as learn about the users whose lives have been impacted by their release.

As well as World of Warcraft, the exhibit features interactive displays and multimedia information blasts on technology such as car crash simulations, Photoshop, MRI, MP3s, Wikipedia and texting.

"Gaming has been a major part of computing and has pushed many of its technical developments forward," says the official overview from 2012, via Gamasutra. "MMORPGs are a major commercial venture, of which [World of Warcraft] is the most successful, and take up massive amounts of time for a large number of people."

Make Software: Change the World is due to open on January 28, 2017, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.