Warcraft: Infinite Dragon Corps
What do you want to do this time, Cerebrus?
Same thing we do every time, Roseaus - try to take over the time continuum!
Since Murozond’s defeat, the Infinite Dragonflight went into hiding, or so assumes the heroes of Azeroth. Two of them though, have been stalking the world, observing closely. Known as Cerebrus and Roseaus, these two make an unbreakable couple: Cerebrus is very intelligent, but too ambitious and Roseaus…is in love. He follows Cerebrus everywhere and despite her attempts, Cerebrus wasn’t able to get rid of him: Roseaus is persistent. Also, he doesn’t seem to care about Cerebrus’ plans to take over the continuum.
Eventually, they end up raising several whelplings and form the Infinite Dragon Corps. It is unknown if these eggs were laid by them, or if they somehow got ahold of eggs. It is also unknown why these dragons follow the two. Is it out of love for parents? Is it a magical compulsion? No one knows. At least, not yet.
WIDC is a light-hearted action-RPG that takes place in the Warcraft world. Players take on the role of Infinite Dragon Corps, who take missions from their leaders to visit different times in Azeroth and Outlands, even traveling to alternative timelines including but not limited to the alternative universe visited by WoW players in Warlords of Draenor.
WIDC story is divided into chapters that are not necessarily chronological. In fact, consciously not so. I mean, it’s an adventure about time travelers. Time is blurry. Each chapter is another plan by Cerebrus that is divided into sub-chapters that are indeed chronological, ie you need to proceed through them from start to finish and each of which have some missions. Similar to Destiny ( I just noticed this actually, wasn’t my intention!), each area has some free travel capacity and some instanced parts. Missions can take part in the “roaming” world or in instances. At the end of each chapter, the players complete a final mission and… actually, they are usually defeated and Cerebrus’ plans are foiled. But never mind! They will fight again. It’s the curse of being a villai- I mean, misunderstood genius.
The Experience
You launch the game. You appear in the Infinite Cavern or in your home if you have one. You can change to one of the appearances you have unlocked (via completing missions etc), with the cosmetics you unlocked. The default one is a basic humanoid form that you choose at the start.
You can walk around in the caverns, visit some NPCs, etc. When you feel like it, you can go to one of the chapter portals and hang out there or do some solo missions.
If your next chapter zone includes a class or race you haven’t played before, you’ll go to NPCs to teach you about that class or race.
Once you are in the mission zone, you polymorph into whatever’s relevant and complete missions. If you went to “First Horde Invasion” portal, maybe you’ll turn into a warrior from Stormwind. You’ll complete missions in that timeline. Or maybe you entered to “Fall of Auchindoun” and you become an orc warlock that mistakenly brings Murmur to Draenor. If you’ve done the end mission for a chapter, you’ll have an in-game cutscene that shows how you are defeated once more.
You can also form a party or sign up to pug a mission from the Infinite Cavern. You complete it, you get some experience/unlocks.
Either way, you check your items, you customize your lair and eventually go for more missions. Maybe invite a friend to yours at some point or visit the guild hall.
Sample Adventures
These are some of the potential briefs by Cerebrus. You’ll notice his plans may be a bit too indirect at times.
The Horde Invasion
“Years ago, the Orcish Horde invaded Azeroth but they failed because of Alliance resistance and Horde fighting among each others. No longer. We’re going to change that.
You’ll be one of the Horde: An orc warrior, hunter or shaman, an ogre warrior or mage or even a halfbreed warrior or hunter. You’ll fight the Alliance where it counts and you’ll take out some key people that will change the outcome of Horde in-fighting.
Why? Simpleton! Because when you do, the Horde will WIN. They’ll take over the world with no knowledge of Azeroth and we will seize titan artifacts in the future of this timeline and take over the time continuum!”
Forsaken’s Blight
“Sylvanas Windrunner, the Banshee Queen of the Forsaken, took over the Val’kyr after she died and started raising new corpses for her army. We’re going to change that.
You’ll be one of the Scourge. A Death Knight, a Lich, a san’layn… And you will make sure the assault on Northrend ends in a tie. The Scourge will be defeated but Arthas will remain the Lich King. You’ll start by organizing Scourge with the knowledge of future… and end up sabotaging them just enough.
Why? Bonehead! Because when you do, Sylvanas will not commit sacrifice. Forsaken will lose numbers and eventually, Horde will be overpowered by the Alliance. Without the power of the Horde, the Alliance will be weaker to outside attacks and we will defeat Alliance easily to dominate Azeroth, unlock all it’s secrets and take over the time continuum!
Home sweet home
The base of operations will be the socialization part of this game. The Infinite Caverns, home to Infinite Corps, will be the common point that has vendors, NPCs that start chapters and points to socialize. “The town”, so to speak. Also, before playing each race and class, they’ll need to find an NPC that will teach them about that race or class. This way, players will have an idea about what they do before going to missions and also learn about the lore. The chapter NPCs will usually have useful information and between them and the class/race NPCs, they will explain the differences of the same race/class between different timelines/missions. These NPCs will all exist in the caverns.
At a certain level, players will be able to complete a quest to take over a part of the continuum in the form of a player housing, an instanced area customizable by the player. At higher levels, players will be able to complete additional quests to acquire more. Of course, bands of players can form mighty dragonflights, akin to guilds, that can take over even larger parts of the continuum.
However, these actions will be met by their cursed enemy, the Bronze Dragonflight, which will attack directly or via Azerothian agents to take back the personal and guild housings. Presented to players as special quests, succeeding in defense will have special rewards.
The Protagonist
While the main character is a singular Infinite Dragon that players create at the start, the players will rarely be in this form: Each mission they will blend in their surroundings and this will almost always mean turning into a humanoid. They can choose their class and race, with some restrictions. For example, in the era of warlocks’ rise in the Horde, players may not be an orcish shaman. As they complete missions they may gain 3 types of experience:
- Character experience: This will make the character stronger overall, allowing tackling of higher difficulties (think Diablo difficulties)
- Class experience: This will unlock extra abilities for classes, but not necessarily always stronger ones. The actual strength is defined by character level. Of course, these abilities are only available when turning into that class.
- Race experience: Similar to class, but for races.
Each mission will have several difficulties that might have experience or achievement requirements. Higher difficulty will mean more interesting loot and loot can be for the character or a certain class or race, all of which have different slots.
UNLIMITED… POWER
The increase of power is something to be considered carefully. Without it, players may not have enough motivation to go on. Being too dependent on it not only causes constant devaluation of existing items but also changes player psychology to be only satisfied with power levels, a major example being WoW itself.
Instead, the power levels may be steadier. In a such concept, “interesting loot” would not necessarily mean higher numbers, but different play style options. Maybe the ability to sacrifice lesser loot to make earlier items more powerful, like Destiny (this time consciously inspired), could exist. Also, more cosmetics can always be included of course.
An important concept here would be to limit items and powers to a chapter. Similar somehow to Warhammer Online’s local reputation, players would kind of start from scratch with each region.
Some alternatives to power increase
- Race and class experience only unlocks cosmetics and each chapter need to be re-earned. Cosmetics can be anything from armor to furniture for housing. Player level would only change with character experience.
- There is no power increase and all rewards are cosmetic.
- There is no power increase, but leveling unlocks different playstyles (you unlock 3 spells in time, they aren’t necessarily more powerful but offer different ways to play the class)
- Your power increases with everything: Numbers increase with levels, stronger abilities appear with class levels
- Character level is cosmetic/convenience and race/class levels are power, but they are per chapter and not carried between levels.
In the end, the point is that you switch between the actual character playstyle between chapters and you can also play the same chapter with different “characters”. Classes and races may have different attributes depending on the chapter.
Chapters&Missions
Chapters could be rolled out part by part, or all together. I think what would be interesting is that several chapters continue at the same time, but from what I see, best way is not to make everything so darn systematic. If a chapter will make sense to take a year to roll out, do that. If another doesn’t even need subchapters, do that too. One subchapter may have more play time or quests then the other. Focusing too much on a perfect formula kills creativity.
Most of the missions in chapters can be completed solo. Some require a party. Higher difficulties work the same way: If you want to play solo, you can do that… mostly.
Summary
While I didn’t get into how the core loops would work (It could be interesting to get into at some point), I think the concept has potential. It allows a lot of story telling without the need to tie it to something big like WoW expansions do. Since there are alternate realities, all kinds of fan theories and crazy ideas can be explored. Plus I think it will be fun to play and in line with today’s gamer expectations: Launch, play a short session, decide if you want to do more or leave; have some sort of progress.
So Blizzard, please do it. Or another developer, please do it with a different IP.
