Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[chocolatejr9]

imagine if microsoft had bought activision 2 years earlier...haha...crash.... pic.twitter.com/iJ0JbCCKwK

— dille (@nescartridges) January 18, 2022

Man…

To be fair, I don't think the ActiBlizz controversies were NEARLY as bad back then. Keep in mind part of this is Microsoft taking advantage of the fact everybody hates them now, and doesn't want to be associated.

 

[Gengar84]

imagine if microsoft had bought activision 2 years earlier...haha...crash.... pic.twitter.com/iJ0JbCCKwK

— dille (@nescartridges) January 18, 2022

Man…

Yeah, I’ve never actually played a Crash game other than a store demo for the original on PS1 but he would be fun to see just for the possibility of seeing Mario vs Sonic vs Crash. We even have Banjo for a Microsoft platforming mascot even if part of me still thinks of him as a Nintendo character. I think part of me while always associate Crash with Sony even if Microsoft now owns him as well.

 

[Dinoman96]

That tweet is dumb because Microsoft buying out Activision earlier wouldn't of really fixed the main problem Crash had: his popularity didn't take off until AFTER the ballot.

Remember that the Crash IP was completely dormant back in 2015, when the ballot was occuring. Crash didn't really take off as a popular Smash request until his big revival with N. Sane Trilogy in 2017, which was then announced for the Switch in early 2018, literally right in the same Direct where Smash Ultimate was first teased. It's the same with many of the other candidates that missed the boat, like Master Chief, Dante, Doomguy, etc, they all really needed to be popular when it counted the most, just as the likes of K. Rool, Ridley, Banjo & Kazooie, and Sora were.

 

[Lyncario]

You guys probably heard of it already, but in case you haven't, Legend Arceus is leaking right now. A bunch of things was leaked on twitter already, so if you don't want to get spoiled, then don't go on twitter too much.

 

[Gengar84]

You guys probably heard of it already, but in case you haven't, Legend Arceus is leaking right now. A bunch of things was leaked on twitter already, so if you don't want to get spoiled, then don't go on twitter too much.

Thanks for the heads up. I never go on Twitter anyway but I’ll be careful what I click on GameFAQS and YouTube.

 

[Perkilator]

That tweet is dumb because Microsoft buying out Activision earlier wouldn't of really fixed the main problem Crash had: his popularity didn't take off until AFTER the ballot.

Remember that the Crash IP was completely dormant back in 2015, when the ballot was occuring. Crash didn't really take off as a popular Smash request until his big revival with N. Sane Trilogy in 2017, which was then announced for the Switch in early 2018, literally right in the same Direct where Smash Ultimate was first teased. It's the same with many of the other candidates that missed the boat, like Master Chief, Dante, Doomguy, etc, they all really needed to be popular when it counted the most, just as the likes of K. Rool, Ridley, Banjo & Kazooie, and Sora were.

At that point, he could still probably work for Fighters Pass Vol. 1 or 2.

 

[Geno Boost]

imagine if microsoft had bought activision 2 years earlier...haha...crash.... pic.twitter.com/iJ0JbCCKwK

— dille (@nescartridges) January 18, 2022

Man…

I don’t think that would make a difference
I don’t think Sakurai would have extended the fighter pass for Crash like he did for Sora or change his mind
He wasn’t number 1 in the Ballout or in the top 10 and it’s probably not difficult to obtain Crash as much as obtaining Sora from Disney which the developers did indeed thought it would have been impossible
If Nintendo wanted Crash they could probably get him anytime

 

[Digital Hazard]

imagine if microsoft had bought activision 2 years earlier...haha...crash.... pic.twitter.com/iJ0JbCCKwK

— dille (@nescartridges) January 18, 2022

Man…

I'll be honest, even under that scenario, I don't see Crash happening over Steve and Banjo & Kazooie.

Banjo & Kazooie are a result of the ballot plus Sakurai being aware of how much they've been requested over the years and negotiations at that point becoming realizable. Even if Crash is a bigger name, the push to have him in Smash hasn't been as historically extensive as Banjo & Kazooie.

Steve is from Minecraft. Enough said.

 

[Dinoman96]

At that point, he could still probably work for Fighters Pass Vol. 1 or 2.

Banjo & Kazooie and Sora were the "fan favorite" character in their respective Fighters Passes, though. They were still clearly using the ballot data from 2015 for it.

 

[Perkilator]

Maybe Crash and Spyro being owned by THQ Nordic would complicate things less (this is my preferred outcome anyways).

 

[Digital Hazard]

Maybe Crash and Spyro being owned by THQ Nordic would complicate things less (this is my preferred outcome anyways).

How so? Steve and Banjo & Kazooie were possible because Microsoft and Nintendo have a close business relationship that they've been promoting. THQ Nordic does publish games on Switch, but don't seem to be nearly as affiliated.

 

[Dinoman96]

THQ Nordic are also very controversial in their own way so that's not really a big step up from Activision lol lol

THQ Nordic did an 8chan AMA and it went as well as you'd think

The marketing team at THQ Nordic woke up on Monday morning, made some coffee, powered on their computers and decided to host an AMA on a website blacklisted by Google in 2015 for hosting "suspected child abuse content."

www.engadget.com

 

[Perkilator]

THQ Nordic are also very controversial in their own way so that's not really a big step up from Activision lol lol

THQ Nordic did an 8chan AMA and it went as well as you'd think

The marketing team at THQ Nordic woke up on Monday morning, made some coffee, powered on their computers and decided to host an AMA on a website blacklisted by Google in 2015 for hosting "suspected child abuse content."

www.engadget.com

Oh…well, as shocking as that was, I still consider Activision 10x worse.

 

[RileyXY1]

Oh…well, as shocking as that was, I still consider Activision 10x worse.

Yeah. It got so bad that entire governments were condemning Activision Blizzard.

 

[Gengar84]

Yeah. It got so bad that entire governments were condemning Activision Blizzard.

I’m really hoping that Microsoft can turn things around for the company. Blizzard has so many great properties but their actions killed a lot of my enthusiasm for any of them. If all of the problematic staff are let go and they are given a fresh start, I’d love to go back to sharing my love for their worlds and characters.

 

[DaUsername]

imagine if microsoft had bought activision 2 years earlier...haha...crash.... pic.twitter.com/iJ0JbCCKwK

— dille (@nescartridges) January 18, 2022

Man…

Activision getting bought two years ago wouldn't have mattered because the entire DLC lineup was already decided 3 years ago.

 

[Perkilator]

I think I’m gonna start hoping for a Direct once February starts. There’s still games between later in 2022 they haven’t announced yet, and I’m curious to see what they are. Like the next Fire Emblem

 

[Digital Hazard]

I think I’m gonna start hoping for a Direct once February starts. There’s still games between later in 2022 they haven’t announced yet, and I’m curious to see what they are. Like the next Fire Emblem

Ah yes, the Three Houses follow-up.

What? You want Genealogy remake? LMAO

inb4 that comment doesn't ages well

 

[Sucumbio]

I think I’m gonna start hoping for a Direct once February starts. There’s still games between later in 2022 they haven’t announced yet, and I’m curious to see what they are. Like the next Fire Emblem

Nintendo Direct February 2022: new leaks suggest what to expect from the Direct | games

to direct from nintendo By February 2022 it could be in process. As shown in...

www.techgamingreport.com

I dunno about NatetheHate tho but fwiw he has been leaking Metroid Prime Trilogy HD remaster, a FE game and other stuff....

 

[Yamat08]

Activision getting bought two years ago wouldn't have mattered because the entire DLC lineup was already decided 3 years ago.

Indeed. Just a reminder to everyone, two years ago, Byleth was already revealed. And we know that all of Fighter's Pass 2 had already been decided on at least as early as Terry's reveal (and if the leaks about Minecraft content being planned for the base game are true, and if the lack of base game Final Fantasy VII content was deliberate, it's possible that FP2 was planned out way earlier than that).

 

[Guynamednelson]

Indeed. Just a reminder to everyone, two years ago, Byleth was already revealed. And we know that all of Fighter's Pass 2 had already been decided on at least as early as Terry's reveal (and if the leaks about Minecraft content being planned for the base game are true, and if the lack of base game Final Fantasy VII content was deliberate, it's possible that FP2 was planned out way earlier than that).

I'd say most of the pass was planned around 2015.

• Steve was in negotiation for five years
• The compromise with Square-Enix which would've allowed Cloud to get in while Squenix continues to earn the combination of DLC+FFVII bucks would've been planned in 2015
• Kazuya was based off Smash 4 plans to make Heihachi playable
• Sora was based on ballot results

 

[Dinoman96]

I still certainly wouldn't be shocked if Spring Man got AT'd and Rex got Mii'd because they always intended on adding other ARMS/XB2 characters like Min Min and Pythra later on.

 

[Chuderz]

Speaking of Warcraft characters in Smash here's a mockup somebody did of Thrall's specials:



I kind of love all of Blizzard's properties. I'm a Torbjorn main (even after the awful rework neutering his kit for seemingly no reason) but I'd love Tracer to be in Smash. I think her abilities would translate well to Smash especially in Overwatch where you have like 3-4 abilities max.

Warcraft characters I think should be Thrall or Sylvannas. I'd actually prefer Sylvannas because she's an archer and I think Smash needs more of them.

Diablo should be repped by Diablo or Tyrael. I actually lean more towards Diablo himself being some stupid heavy-weight bigboi.

For Starcraft I'm less picky. Sarah's fine and probably the most likely out of the bunch.

With this buyout I'm really hoping for WOW2. PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE. It's freaking time. Put a billion no 2 billion dollars into development. Give it a 5-8 years development cycle and support the end of WOW1 and release Warcraft 4 in the meantime while that's going on. It doesn't mean WOW1 has to be shutdown either. In fact it shouldn't. It'd be great for WOW1 to finally be capped and just let you collect mounts, transmogs (bring back all the content Blizzard annoyingly time-gates) and the like. We can PVP and do that time-travel thing to do old raids with the old levels/equipment. I think we'd all be just fine and bring that **** over to consoles and make the subscription part of GamePass.

A properly AAAA WOW2 would be a subscription seller like no other and so I hope Phil Spencer is already plotting this.

 

[Yamat08]

With this buyout I'm really hoping for WOW2. PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE. It's freaking time. Put a billion no 2 billion dollars into development. Give it a 5-8 years development cycle and support the end of WOW1 and release Warcraft 4 in the meantime while that's going on. It doesn't mean WOW1 has to be shutdown either. In fact it shouldn't. It'd be great for WOW1 to finally be capped and just let you collect mounts, transmogs (bring back all the content Blizzard annoyingly timegates) and the like. We can PVP and do that timetravel thing to do old raids with the old levels/equipment. I think we'd all be just fine and bring that **** over to consoles and make the subscription part of GamePass.

Or make an offline version (hell, since you bring up time-travel events, why not just make NPC allies modeled after prominent players?).

 

[Chuderz]

Or make an offline version (hell, since you bring up time-travel events, why not just make NPC allies modeled after prominent players?).

That'd be cool. I've never thought of an offline WOW before. Back in the Burning Crusade days I did love to mess around on private servers though. There was a really cool one where everyone basically got GM powers and I could teleport to all the stuff in-game that was abandoned by the devs like the Emerald Dream, their testing levels, and GM Island.

If official support for WOW1 was ever ended it'd be really cool if Microsoft followed the Bethesda ideology and gave the community the modding tools to play around with it and create their own stuff. In fact reverse that draconian bull**** Blizzard (Activision) put on the Warcraft 3 remake and let that community thrive again. Maybe just fix that game (Warcraft 3 remake) in general because that'd be a good start to cleaning up that organization.

Thinking of this reminds me of all the times I should have gotten banned back then because even on the official game I did that wall jump-climb exploit all the time to get to unintended areas like inside instances like Zul'Gurub, and the place in Stormwind where you spend your PVP tokens without actually porting in (uninstanced) and under Stormwind to get to that one impossible house on the far outskirts of Westfall where you'd be guaranteed to fatigue die trying to swim to otherwise. Oh and of course Old Ironforge. When they finally fixed that exploit (wall jump-climb) a whole lot of the game's magic vanished for me.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

If Activision under Microsoft did get in the next Smash, even beyond characters, just seeing other kinds of representation from the various franchises pop up would be nice.

An old school Activision tribute level with the likes of Pitfall in the background would be a pretty solid tribute to a period way before the company became a dumpster fire.

 

[Chuderz]

If Activision under Microsoft did get in the next Smash, even beyond characters, just seeing other kinds of representation from the various franchises pop up would be nice.

An old school Activision tribute level with the likes of Pitfall in the background would be a pretty solid tribute to a period way before the company became a dumpster fire.

I'd love Pitfall Harry to get in. I'd also love for his series to come back. The Gamecube game both laid the foundation for his moveset would be and also the groundwork for how his series could work today. Like a cartoony more fantasy-driven Uncharted.

 

[SPEN18]

I still certainly wouldn't be shocked if Spring Man got AT'd and Rex got Mii'd because they always intended on adding other ARMS/XB2 characters like Min Min and Pythra later on.

Well, supposedly there was a failed attempt or at least an experiment with Rex but having him and Pyra both featured prominently in the moveset wasn't workable.

 

[Shroob]

For Starcraft I'm less picky. Sarah's fine and probably the most likely out of the bunch.

With this buyout I'm really hoping for WOW2. PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE. It's freaking time. Put a billion no 2 billion dollars into development. Give it a 5-8 years development cycle and support the end of WOW1 and release Warcraft 4 in the meantime while that's going on. It doesn't mean WOW1 has to be shutdown either. In fact it shouldn't. It'd be great for WOW1 to finally be capped and just let you collect mounts, transmogs (bring back all the content Blizzard annoyingly time-gates) and the like. We can PVP and do that time-travel thing to do old raids with the old levels/equipment. I think we'd all be just fine and bring that **** over to consoles and make the subscription part of GamePass.

A properly AAAA WOW2 would be a subscription seller like no other and so I hope Phil Spencer is already plotting this.

Don't count on it.


We're already getting murmurs of 10.0 and the game's sub numbers are probably in the worst spot they've ever been and really only holding strong due to Classic existing.

 

[Gengar84]

I would love to see an offline standard RPG based on the WarCraft franchise. Despite my love for the world and characters, I’ve never actually played World of WarCraft, mostly because I never really had enough time to invest in an MMO to be worth the monthly fee. I did play quite a bit of WarCraft 3 in high school though.

As far as Smash goes, my top two picks are for WarCraft are Illidan and Arthas. Illidan has one of my favorite character designs in all of video games and has a ton of moveset potential. Arthas is really cool in his own right and is the main character from WarCraft 3 as well as the main villain in early WoW. We also don’t have many ice themed characters in Smash yet.

StarCraft has a ton of awesome characters itself. Zeratul might be my favorite design wise but I’d go with Kerrigan personally. Out of all Blizzard’s characters, I feel she is the best representation of the RTS genre. I made a whole moveset for her based on resource management and summoning various Zerg units for her specials.

 

[CapitaineCrash]

Speaking of Warcraft characters in Smash here's a mockup somebody did of Thrall's specials:

View attachment 343192

I kind of love all of Blizzard's properties. I'm a Torbjorn main (even after the awful rework neutering his kit for seemingly no reason) but I'd love Tracer to be in Smash. I think her abilities would translate well to Smash especially in Overwatch where you have like 3-4 abilities max.

Warcraft characters I think should be Thrall or Sylvannas. I'd actually prefer Sylvannas because she's an archer and I think Smash needs more of them.

Diablo should be repped by Diablo or Tyrael. I actually lean more towards Diablo himself being some stupid heavy-weight bigboi.

For Starcraft I'm less picky. Sarah's fine and probably the most likely out of the bunch.

With this buyout I'm really hoping for WOW2. PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE. It's freaking time. Put a billion no 2 billion dollars into development. Give it a 5-8 years development cycle and support the end of WOW1 and release Warcraft 4 in the meantime while that's going on. It doesn't mean WOW1 has to be shutdown either. In fact it shouldn't. It'd be great for WOW1 to finally be capped and just let you collect mounts, transmogs (bring back all the content Blizzard annoyingly time-gates) and the like. We can PVP and do that time-travel thing to do old raids with the old levels/equipment. I think we'd all be just fine and bring that **** over to consoles and make the subscription part of GamePass.

A properly AAAA WOW2 would be a subscription seller like no other and so I hope Phil Spencer is already plotting this.

I'm not really a big Blizzard fans, but I felt in love with Overwatch. I spend more than 500 hours into that game (to be clear this is a huge amount for me because I'm more the type of game that plays solo game and when I play online games it's usually a few hours, and I'm usually not into fps).

I think Tracer would be the logical choice for Smash because she's usually consider the mascot and I agree that her abilities would translate well. But honestly they could do something like Min Min and just go with a more random picks that is still popular. D.Va comes to mind, she's extremely popular and I think having a Mech characters would be very fun. I also think that Torbjorn, Doomfist, Brigitte and Genji (among others) could work very well in Smash.

But realistically, I don't see Overwatch getting in, at least not as the next big third party. I think they would want to add other Blizzard properties (like Diablo who seems to be pretty popular on Switch) and also other FPS rep before Overwatch (like Doom and Chief).

I also wonder if Overwatch has enough staying power. I wouldn't say that the game is dead, but it's certainly not as popular as it was 2 or 3 years ago. I know that Overwatch 2 is coming but it doesn't seems like it's going to add a lot of stuff (I think the multiplayer portion isn't even a new game but will be a big update from base Overwatch or something). If the next Smash in in 5-6 years, I do wonder if Overwatch is still going to be see as viable choice for a Blizzard of FPS rep. Of course we can't predict the future, but that's something to think about.

 

[Gengar84]

I'm not really a big Blizzard fans, but I felt in love with Overwatch. I spend more than 500 hours into that game (to be clear this is a huge amount for me because I'm more the type of game that plays solo game and when I play online games it's usually a few hours, and I'm usually not into fps).

I think Tracer would be the logical choice for Smash because she's usually consider the mascot and I agree that her abilities would translate well. But honestly they could do something like Min Min and just go with a more random picks that is still popular. D.Va comes to mind, she's extremely popular and I think having a Mech characters would be very fun. I also think that Torbjorn, Doomfist, Brigitte and Genji (among others) could work very well in Smash.

But realistically, I don't see Overwatch getting in, at least not as the next big third party. I think they would want to add other Blizzard properties (like Diablo who seems to be pretty popular on Switch) and also other FPS rep before Overwatch (like Doom and Chief).

I also wonder if Overwatch has enough staying power. I wouldn't say that the game is dead, but it's certainly not as popular as it was 2 or 3 years ago. I know that Overwatch 2 is coming but it doesn't seems like it's going to add a lot of stuff (I think the multiplayer portion isn't even a new game but will be a big update from base Overwatch or something). If the next Smash in in 5-6 years, I do wonder if Overwatch is still going to be see as viable choice for a Blizzard of FPS rep. Of course we can't predict the future, but that's something to think about.

I really like the idea of Overwatch and the character designs are cool but I’m trash at competitive games so I never really gave it a chance. If they end up making a sequel with a couch co-op campaign, I’d love to give it a shot. I don’t have anything against Tracer or Overwatch but I’d personally prefer a character from WarCraft, StarCraft, or Diablo since I’m more familiar with them. Tracer is also a bit less interesting visually to me compared to their other designs. Blizzard makes some of the coolest nonhuman characters in gaming and Smash doesn’t really have any non-cartoony humanoids of other races other than Ganondorf.

 

[Simnm]

I really hope that call of duty gets some representation in smash.
Its one of the most influential fps games of all time heck it might be one of the most influential games of all time

 

[Gengar84]

I really hope that call of duty gets some representation in smash.
Its one of the most influential fps games of all time heck it might be one of the most influential games of all time

It is definitely important enough to get some representation but I have no idea what that would be. As far as I know, it doesn’t have any standout characters that would make for great fighters.

 

[PeridotGX]

I really hope that call of duty gets some representation in smash.
Its one of the most influential fps games of all time heck it might be one of the most influential games of all time

Generic American Soldier is my most wanted, right next to composite Football player from Madden.

 

[Geno Boost]

Ngl I think Clippy would be cool to have as Microsoft rep however he is a software character like Hatsune Miku which is kinda in a grey area but it would be insane if gets to be presented in some form in the next smash game such as a spirit

 

[Chuderz]

Don't count on it.


We're already getting murmurs of 10.0 and the game's sub numbers are probably in the worst spot they've ever been and really only holding strong due to Classic existing.

I would never count on it but if there was ever a shot this is the best it's ever been.

I hope Microsoft actually want to develop these IPs even further. A-B were perfectly capable of just coasting by on the properties and turning a profit even with the loss of subscribers. Why would Microsoft just want to eat up somebody elses' profits when they (Microsoft) are perfectly capable of turning their own massive profits? Is Microsoft in a tangibly better position in the gaming industry having bought A-B and doing nothing but the A-B brand of business of usual minus the ethical violations and toxic company culture? Yes they would but I still feel a strong sense of why would they even bother if they truly planned on not altering the course these IPs were on?

The IPs and the employees are the value. DO SOMETHING WITH THEM. It's fine that old players want to play WOW1 until they die but does Gen-Z want to? Will Gen Alpha want to? I'm going to resoundingly no Gen Z and Gen Alpha do not want to play a game rooted in 2004 no matter how pretty they make it because that engine will ALWAYS hold the game back until they drop it and move on. A-B made it their function to pander to and service WOW1 forever fans. Look how that's turned out. They hate it. Truly as ironic as it is to say in regards to this game and Blizzard but the WOW1 forever fans truly do not know what they want. Nothing you can slap on that circa 2004 mess can fix the root issues with it. Limited NPCs, limited greenery and buildings, graphics, the tab-targeted combat and all the balancing issues of maintaining a game for that long. It's caught up to them. Let WOW1 cap in 2024. 20 years of active support is a massive achievement. Let the game stay alive by letting player farms cosmetic goodies and PVP/raid with their cherished characters forever, bring it over to consoles, make its subscription a part of GamePass and maybe, just maybe give the community the modding tools they need to let it thrive forever.


WOW2 hopefuls aren't making this binary mutually exclusive. I support the best outcome for WOW1 in a hypothetical world with WOW2. It's the WOW1 forever police that are toxic about keeping their game to the detriment of progress for the series.

And also yes I agree with Gengar84 that a offline single-player game set in the universe would be a treat. Whether you play as a notable character or your own custom character. I also support fixing Warcraft 3 remake and a potential Warcraft 4. Hell maybe a solid remake of Warcraft 1 and 2 while they're at it because **** it let's go all in. It's be a tremendous treat to play all those games again with modern graphics, voice acting and quality of life adjustments.

WOW1 forever fans sort of lack imagine. It's not like I support ending WOW1 in favor of a WOW2. It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive and to pretend otherwise is a false dichotomy.

EDIT: Also a quick aside. I don't really know about the state of Classic but while I guess it's fine as an option I was always of the opinion that people MASSIVELY overstated its capabilities as an option. It was never going to fix the game and you were always destined to burnout when you reached the end of Classic era WOW.

Early WOW was a time and place. You just had to be there for it. It was impressive relative to its time. You go from playing Oblivion on your Xbox to WOW and it was like "HOLY **** THIS GAME IS ****ING HUGE AND I CAN BE ANYBODY" and it was literally all-caps exciting because you'd never played a game like that before and the best part was you were experiencing it with all your friends. Trying to replicate these conditions was always a fool's errand. Like those kinds of gamers are literally just adult-children. They absolutely no clue what they want. They were just using WOW as a platform to throw gamer-tantrums about how hardcore their gamerscore is and how much cred they have for playing when things were haaaaaaard. Playing an old version of an old game endlessly is not the solution.

Just felt like gloating a little bit because I had this opinion before and after Classic servers and to be honest I actually forgot Blizzard even actually implemented them until now that was I reminded of their existence.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

Generic American Soldier is my most wanted, right next to composite Football player from Madden.

Vince young joins Smash.

 

[Shroob]

I would never count on it but if there was ever a shot this is the best it's ever been.

I hope Microsoft actually want to develop these IPs even further. A-B were perfectly capable of just coasting by on the properties and turning a profit even with the loss of subscribers. Why would Microsoft just want to eat up somebody elses' profits when they (Microsoft) are perfectly capable of turning their own massive profits? Is Microsoft in a tangibly better position in the gaming industry having bought A-B and doing nothing but the A-B brand of business of usual minus the ethical violations and toxic company culture? Yes they would but I still feel a strong sense of why would they even bother if they truly planned on not altering the course these IPs were on?

The IPs and the employees are the value. DO SOMETHING WITH THEM. It's fine that old players want to play WOW1 until they die but does Gen-Z want to? Will Gen Alpha want to? I'm going to resoundingly no Gen Z and Gen Alpha do not want to play a game rooted in 2004 no matter how pretty they make it because that engine will ALWAYS hold the game back until they drop it and move on. A-B made it their function to pander to and service WOW1 forever fans. Look how that's turned out. They hate it. Truly as ironic as it is to say in regards to this game and Blizzard but the WOW1 forever fans truly do not know what they want. Nothing you can slap on that circa 2004 mess can fix the root issues with it. Limited NPCs, limited greenery and buildings, graphics, the tab-targeted combat and all the balancing issues of maintaining a game for that long. It's caught up to them. Let WOW1 cap in 2024. 20 years of active support is a massive achievement. Let the game stay alive by letting player farms cosmetic goodies and PVP/raid with their cherished characters forever, bring it over to consoles, make its subscription a part of GamePass and maybe, just maybe give the community the modding tools they need to let it thrive forever.


WOW2 hopefuls aren't making this binary mutually exclusive. I support the best outcome for WOW1 in a hypothetical world with WOW2. It's the WOW1 forever police that are toxic about keeping their game to the detriment of progress for the series.

And also yes I agree with Gengar84 that a offline single-player game set in the universe would be a treat. Whether you play as a notable character or your own custom character. I also support fixing Warcraft 3 remake and a potential Warcraft 4. Hell maybe a solid remake of Warcraft 1 and 2 while they're at it because **** it let's go all in. It's be a tremendous treat to play all those games again with modern graphics, voice acting and quality of life adjustments.

WOW1 forever fans sort of lack imagine. It's not like I support ending WOW1 in favor of a WOW2. It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive and to pretend otherwise is a false dichotomy.

I think the question for an MMO specifically is why does it 'need' a sequel? Sequels for MMOs have historically been either upgrades of old games, like Runescape, or after the original game died.


Cause, like, expansions are effectively sequels, and WOW's about to hit its 10th expansion probably by next year.



That's kind of the beauty of an MMO compared to a normal game, in that instead of making an entirely new game, you can add onto the existing one forever, and if things get outdated, you simply update the existing assets to become more graphically up to date. Cataclysm took a ton of old zones and revamped them to be different, and old models get updated to meet modern standards all the time.




Like, my big hangup is I fail to see why a sequel MMO needs to happen when you can basically do anything that you could do in it in the existing game. Like, WoW's basically tapped into every piece of existing lore it had set up in WC3 and is now needing to create brand new lore, so it's not a matter of new stories because, we're getting those.



Now, disclaimer, I don't play WoW, like, at all, but I've followed it since basically Cata, and it feels like it's much too late for a WoW2 to come out. WoW isn't the king of MMOs anymore, that's FF14, and making a WoW2 just, well, I don't trust Blizzard, even with this buyout. All the old guard of old WoW are gone.

 

[Chuderz]

I think the question for an MMO specifically is why does it 'need' a sequel?


Cause, like, expansions are effectively sequels, and WOW's about to hit its 10th expansion probably by next year.



That's kind of the beauty of an MMO compared to a normal game, in that instead of making an entirely new game, you can add onto the existing one forever, and if things get outdated, you simply update the existing assets to become more graphically up to date. Cataclysm took a ton of old zones and revamped them to be different, and old models get updated to meet modern standards all the time.




Like, my big hangup is I fail to see why a sequel MMO needs to happen when you can basically do anything that you could do in it in the existing game. Like, WoW's basically tapped into every piece of existing lore it had set up in WC3 and is now needing to create brand new lore, so it's not a matter of new stories because, we're getting those.



Now, disclaimer, I don't play WoW, like, at all, but I've followed it since basically Cata.

You would need to have released Warcraft 4 + expansions before a WOW2 absolutely. That's your opportunity to introduce new lore.

You'd also need to transition WOW1's expansions into a place where Warcraft 4 can get started as seamlessly as possible.

I think it needs a sequel to improve the overall engine. More trees, more enemies, more buildings, more NPCs, a dynamic camera, fresh start to balancing, better graphics, a bigger more fully realized world, real-time action-oriented combat, a rework of existing structures in-game like the Alchemist and Engineer professions being scrapped to make way for Witch Doctors and Tinkerer class (in Tinkerer's case I'd prefer it just be called Engineer) and basically just a fresh start for everyone. That fresh start into new world would be the closet thing you could ever get to recapturing WOW's former glory in the current era. Not to mention if a hypothetical WOW2 of this nature was tied to GamePass then I truly believe that THAT is a subscription seller. THAT will get people interested in GamePass.

I also don't see expansions in the case of MMOs as sequels. More like enhanced-super-patches.

I largely agree with you about the beauty of MMOs being that you can keep supporting them for a long time but where I disagree is the timeline being forever. 20 years is more than enough. Like I said the newer generations are not going to care about a game inherently stuck in 2004 in the current gaming climate and the old players are leaving anyways.

You want WOW (not you specifically btw) to return to its former glory? Stop appealing to aging players that are living in the past. Present the new generation with an equally as new generation of Azeroth in all her splendor and more fully realized than ever before and they will come. I bet you that the older players wouldn't be able to help themselves from checking it out as well.

Also would just like to say that Microsoft is currently about pushing for the power of their machines and making their machine kind of like the standard "easy" alternative to just building a PC. Well a huge part of WOW1's initial appeal was that it could be played on almost any PC. As long as WOW2 could be played in some way on Microsoft's machines then that's kind of "reboot" (if you will) of this old selling point and it's one that's directly in the interest of Microsoft moving consoles. Just something I thought of now.