Shhh, it's a secret

This is the second half to the article from last time, you should check it out if you haven't already though it's not important.

I'd like to consider another of the major differences between cataclysm and mists. We knew what was coming for cata. We knew ragnaros was coming. We knew deathwing was going to try and destroy the world. We "knew" that the abyssal maw was going to be a feature once we got through the zone. The entire expansion had this build up and a lot of player foreknowledge.

Mists doesn't do this. Sure we know who the eventual bad guy of the expansion is, and sure it's not that hard to guess even if you don't already know. That said there is relatively little knowledge on how we're getting there or exactly what's going to happen in between.

I think this is a pretty big deal for a lot of games out there. How many games do you know that had promised certain features early on in their development cycle only to cut them later on because they couldn't get it done or found it was a lot more complicated than imagined or just didn't get around to it until it was far too late to do a good job of it so they dropped it from the game?

If we didn't expect the abyssal maw, we would never have been upset about not seeing it. I really do like the way mists is playing out in that I have absolutely no idea what the next raid tier is going to look like. I don't know what instance it's going to be, where on the continent we'll find it or even what sorts of enemies we'll be fighting. My first guess is some faction related thing like champs from ToC but for an entire instance but I have absolutely no basis for that aside from the feeling of escalating tensions between the factions and the content coming in 5.1.

I think this is an important part of MMOs specifically. This is because MMOs are constantly "updating." They are evolving and changing. We need to keep the mystery alive the way mists has been. I really think that not divulging things to the audience is a great way of keeping them engaged and excited. A little bit of knowledge is ok, take a look at the Wrathion legendary quest chain. I'm super excited about demons now. The conclusion I've drawn from that quest line so far is that I should be expecting demons for the next expansion. I am likely to be really disappointed when it hits should it not be demons but the next expansion is a topic for another day.

I know today's post is brief compared to others but I just wanted people to think about how much they know before hand. This can apply to anything including the encounters themselves. If you're a progression guild you really can't afford to ignore the PTR or previous strats but you can try and avoid spoilers plot wise. I try to avoid spoilers wherever I can. Sure I want to know real bad what's coming down the pipe but I find it so much sweeter when I take things in as they are meant to be revealed by those who are producing the content.

Lets hope mists keeps delivering the goods. Now that the biggest part of the progression race (the extra nights) part is over I should get back to a "real" update frequency.