Prediction Sunday!

In the tradition of "Superhero Sunday!" (tm)(r) - a tradition formed by me, last week, of watching superhero movies on sunday afternoon - I present my prediction sunday!

And, because it's a prediction, I'll already do it on Saturday! (tm)(r) - that's how good I am these days.

Now you'll probably have heard by now that another WoW expansion is on the market soon. New races, new level cap, new class, all new stuff. The official trailer video (where the above picture is taken from) can be found here.

And even though I am no longer quite as excited about new expansions as I used to be, I'm not completely bitter about it either. This actually looks quite fun. Punching and kicking in best Kung-Fu Panda style? Sure!

It's not the first time a running MMO has run out of classical medieval content and chosen to incorporate some eastern elements, after all.

Ultima Online did it first (my count - I might be wrong) with The Samurai Empire in 2004.

Age of Conan did it with Rise of the Godslayer in 2010.

So now WoW gets some oriental theme? Fine with me.

Back to predictions, though!

Firstly, I predict cunningly that the new monk healing, tanking and DPSing will be very very strong compared to _all_ other classes. Overpowered, some would say. It's a requirement of the system, because the new class will need fans that go raiding with their little bouncing buddies. To get into raids, they'll need to perform well even though the theorycrafting is new and not as developed as it is for the other classes (even with talent revamps). They will steadily get nerfed in the content patches that follow (5.1 to 5.3), until they perform about equally to the other classes near the end of the expansion.

Source: Deathknights. Exactly the same mechanics. Buffed to high heaven to introduce them, then steadily nerfed until only those who liked them remained with the class. Oh yes, and Blizzard said they wouldn't do it again. I don't believe it.

Secondly, I predict that the Pet Combat will be the new archaeology. Fun for a while at the beginning, something to do while bimbling about, only enjoyed by a small minority of players in the long run. Like fishing. And archaeology (oh wait - we already had that).

Thirdly, I predict that the new expansion will once again overhaul combat completely for almost all classes. This will make the game in general more streamlined and better to play (as it has for each and every single expansion) - but some old die-hards will be resistant to change and will grumble and quit. This won't matter, really, because it'll cause more people to play for longer.

Fourthly (does that word exist?), I predict that raiding will change in difficulty again. Blizzard seems to be interested in making more different difficulty levels available (see: Challenge Mode Dungeons). Entry level raiding will be easier, there will be two seperate harder modes available (possibly three, if we count the LFR difficulty as 1, grouped raiding as 2, hard mode as 3 and challenge mode as 4).

There.. predictions done. I bet they are better than the End of the World predictions.