African reserve?

[SoftShoe]

What I find interesting in regards to huntable animals is games like RDR2 have not only unethical animals to hunt but ones that are endangered & even now extinct. Do you think they paused for even moment to consider the morality of it?
They gonna make over a billion dollars off that title alone & here we are getting wound up over the ethics in a title that most gamers will never hear about.

I've got an idea. Make a Classic Classic. Release an African map but set the clock as somewhere around 1950 when hunting in Africa was still idealized. Release a line of guns, gear & clothing commensurate with that time period & make it a requirement to hunt on that map you have to use them. There ya go EW, guaranteed revenue stream on gear plus a significant incentive for past players to come back. You would probably even draw in some new ones assuming you advertised it.

[INTIMID883R]

Africa will never happen. I think they are afraid of the increase in memberships.

[Tanngnjostr]

The longest time between two reserve releases was 14 months (TGT -> PB) and now it's already been 11 months since the release of Piccabeen Bay and no word of a new reserve so far. We're into the 10th year of the game, active player numbers seem to decline. If you were a developer and had to decide what to use your resources on, would you rather develop a new, pretty demanding African reserve on an engine that dates back to the stone age - or would you develop a vehicle that you can monetize big time and that gets you revenue, even if there's only one or two years left in the game?

Personally I wish they had spent their resources on a better engine for Classic. But WoW is 14 years old and still seems to be going strong, so one can always hope!

[Mills]

Been asking for Africa since day 1. Was admittedly happy to see it release in COTW. However, after playing it it just isn't the same without lions, elephants, zebra, giraffes, etc. I get that giraffes are not typically a hunted species but it would be nice to see them big ol' long necks stompin around. And the reasoning for going with lesser kudu over greater kudu I don't quite understand. In all honesty, it's starting to look like we may never see Africa for Classic. Who knows though, maybe the reason we aren't seeing a new reserve this year is because they have something huuuge in the works and it's taking a little more development time. Lots of other areas I'd like to see too but nothing would compare to being able to hunt on a "true" safari like map with the Big 5 and other plains game animals. It would have to be a very large reserve to fit them all in appropriately. Some difficult decisions might need to be made come membership renewal time. Would be nice if some communication could come out regarding the future. First time I remember in a long time we haven't had any info on upcoming reserve releases this time of year. I get that their hands are probably tied on what they can announce but I'm honestly starting to doubt the future of this game and I've been around a long time. Time will tell.

Mills.

[INTIMID883R]

The longest time between two reserve releases was 14 months (TGT -> PB) and now it's already been 11 months since the release of Piccabeen Bay and no word of a new reserve so far. We're into the 10th year of the game, active player numbers seem to decline. If you were a developer and had to decide what to use your resources on, would you rather develop a new, pretty demanding African reserve on an engine that dates back to the stone age - or would you develop a vehicle that you can monetize big time and that gets you revenue, even if there's only one or two years left in the game?

Personally I wish they had spent their resources on a better engine for Classic. But WoW is 14 years old and still seems to be going strong, so one can always hope!

easy answer. Africa....only then would a motorized vehicle make any sense, no reserve we have now is big enough for anything bigger than a bicycle.

[caledonianblues]

no reserve we have now is big enough for anything bigger than a bicycle.

I agree. Although I do think for new players it would be a useful tool for setting up reserves. I remember insane amounts of running around placing equipment. A vehicle would be great for speeding up that process. For anything else though, I don't really see the point, in fact I see more downsides than benefits. I also can't imagine it will be good for tent sales.

[TheSheWolf]

But WoW is 14 years old and still seems to be going strong, so one can always hope!

ABOUT THAT

I and most of my friends have all quit. The current expansion is a trash grindfest, unfortunately, and has lost a LOT of subs. HOWEVER, the point I wanted to make is that graphically, WoW doesn't get outdated. It's a cartoonish game and they constantly update the models. Constantly. The animations, polygon count, lighting system etc are always being upgraded. As an example, here's the vanilla (14-year-old) hyena versus the ones released this year--and bear in mind they've been remaking all models, gradually.





Now, remember that this is with ALL models, first--so the game looks a lot more polished all the time. Second, it's cartoonish, so they don't really need a massive new engine for new models. They're still cartoonish.

EW could really, really do with a rework of their own models. Some of them--the alpine ibex comes to mind--are really fantastic. Others, like red deer, are catastrophically unlike their real-life counterparts; others, like wolves, generally look good but have anatomical oddities that really drop the quality level (the long, curved tails and broad chests--also the weird, small heads on bears). I'd also love to see them rework behavior/AI entirely. But I don't think they'll do any of that and I don't think it'd profit them. I doubt they'll tackle Africa any time soon, either. I don't care about Africa, personally. I love deer hunting games and would be satisfied with a very realistic whitetail-only hunting simulator myself, really (though I adore red deer and elk, too) but I know the game has to cater to many hunting styles. Unfortunately, though, the outdated engine will become an issue for them far before Blizzard will ever suffer from it--assuming WoW survives long enough for their own engine to ever be sub-par. (Which... it's not lookin' good, boys.)

[INTIMID883R]

I remember insane amounts of running around placing equipment. A vehicle would be great for speeding up that process.

Oh I have done some running around too, but actually if you slow down and actually hunt your way to where you want to place gear, it can be very enjoyable, and sometimes even very rewarding. Half the problem with the World today is that every body is in such a damn hurry. The absolute best way to get thru this mad house World is to walk slow, and drink a lot of water. Don't hurt anything to harvest a few critters along the way.

[Tanngnjostr]

Thanks for the insight, TheSheWolf. I've never been playing WoW to be honest, I just thought it would still do well after all these years. So you pretty much explained why the outdated engine will be more of a problem for tH:C than for WoW. IIrc They tweaked a few things when TGT was released (lightning, shadows and such) and the bear models were updated, but that's pretty much it. And that probably means that the management of Avalanche has accepted the game's fate at one point - my guess is when they started to develop CotW.

[SoftShoe]

Lets face it folks, an Africa map is a non starter. Sure its fun to consider the possibilities but its not going to happen in the current environment. The only way to change that environment is for Classic to reinvent itself as SheWolf shows with WOW. Classic already has the community to keep it going but EW needs to continually invest in it to keep the community interested. I am sure there are many of us that would stick with Classic if they didnt add a single bit of content to the game. Many/most arent like that. They need to see changes & improvements to keep their interest up.

EW is up against the wall with the current game engine I am given to understand, its clunky & not at all user friendly. To perpetuate the brand the way I see it they have 2 options.
1) Start over with a new engine. They could buy the Unreal engine for example, spend some time & effort porting everything & have a solid well known engine. The boost in graphics alone would give new life to the game & I would expect it would draw many more players.
2) Release a SDK & let modders have at the game. On the negative side they would lose the revenue from the purchase of new equipment but by the same token they could eliminate that aspect of their development team & retask them elsewhere, new maps mayhap? Game that are modder friendly typically have long lives.

I could say a great deal more about each option but this should be sufficient to prime the pump.