The Press Tour is Complete!

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鬼殺し wrote:

Either way, this rebranding of league blocks was a long time coming. It's a good way to get more people on board the ever-necessary hype train -- updates sound ho-hum. Bug fixes, skill balances, maybe an item or two. But an Expansion!? WOW. Expansion means it's getting bigger! Bigger is better!

Also, if they call it an expansion and that expansion includes ambitious league elements, this probably mentally prepares people to have those elements added to the core game...

Honestly I'm just guessing that GGG is tired of explaining to the press and to people who don't know about PoE what a "league" is. Leagues are somewhere in between seasons in Diablo and expansions in WoW. The reset is a part but not the main selling point of the release. The added mechanics are novel but not a complete rework.

Early on, expansion-like content would be accompanied by a low-key league mechanic (Sacrifice of the Vaal - Ambush/Invasion, Forsaken Masters - Rampage/Beyond, Ascendancy - Perandus). Now the two kind of blend together; assuming that the leaguespansion mechanic actually gets merged into core. And since this decision is made long after the update is released, the distinction between a temporary league and a permanent expansion does not really exist at the time of the announcement.

It might be upselling the quantity of added content somewhat, true - that depends on what exactly we're getting. Another Harbinger would not really be worth calling an expansion. Another Prophecy might well deserve the name.

Going back to the first point though - after the scheduled three (?) "expansions" until the release of 4.0, I am not sure how will GGG try to sell that as something of an entirely different grade.