Is Boa Gonna Make Wow Good Again

Source: Blizzard

Globe of Warcraft (WoW) holds a special place in my center. I have more than than 10,000 hours played, and I've watched the aging MMO evolve from RPG powerhouse to shallow MAU harvester for Activision'southward quarterly shareholder reports. Like much of the community, I long for a render to ameliorate days for the game, and recently, there has been a ray of hope.

Microsoft is attempting to purchase Activision Blizzard, and thus World of Warcraft in the process. There's no guarantee the deal will actually go through, but I for one hope that information technology does, since Activision Blizzard desperately, badly needs a change in leadership. Grossly overpaid Robert Kotick has overseen ane of the biggest drops in user retention in Blizzard history, seeing World of Warcraft become from industry staple to limping joke, all in the space of a few years. A scandal at Blizzard, coupled with brain bleed from a mass staff exodus, has certainly hit all of Activision Blizzard'due south games. Today, though, nosotros're here to talk well-nigh WoW.

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in a contempo interview that he wants World of Warcraft to grow again, and obtain more than players than ever in the process. Given the land of World of Warcraft in 2022, I'd fence that'due south a tall club.

If the stars align, and Blizzard does end upwardly costless of Activision'southward dire shareholder culture, here's how I recall WoW needs to realign to non only survive just thrive.

Make information technology a video game again

Source: Windows Central

My biggest issue with mod Earth of Warcraft is its recent and aggressive focus on time-gating mechanics. Blizzard has walked some of these back in the latest Shadowlands expansion, but it ignored literally all of the criticisms from of the mechanics from the previous expansion, and also ignored all criticisms from the Shadowlands beta. It was just after players started quitting over it en masse that they sabbatum up and said, "Nosotros hear yous." Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice ... you know the residue. After Boxing for Azeroth and Shadowlands, Blizzard seems intent on making fools of its community repeatedly. Training players to expect to be ignored isn't a good await.

Activision'south concern model seems to hinge entirely on marketing, nostalgia, and hype, hoping that its more egregious gameplay designs slip through and perhaps get a few players addicted without alienating others in the procedure. Unfortunately, they've overstepped the mark in recent years, doubling down on these kinds of mechanics in the latest expansion.

Time gating generally refers to the practice of artificially blocking content from players until the following week. Every layer of the latest WoW expansion committed to this do, with story elements gated, equipment upgrades gated, and character progression mechanics gated. Non behind skill or time spent actually playing, but by specific dates. This actually incentivized players to but log off, rather than actually play, and ironically seek out other games that will really, you know, allow them play.

Source: Windows Fundamental

Blizzard as well went way too far focusing on a weekly reward chest, rather than getting loot from, you know, killing bosses. What made me quit recently was the fact that I counted no fewer than 40 boss kills without getting a single item. Forty. That's dozens of hours of play, across irritating community interactions trying to get groups as a class role that isn't in as loftier demand as others. Blizzard instead wants me to look until the following Wednesday to loot the Mythic chest, which gives you a random class reward based on your "appointment" with the game the prior week. This mechanic feels wholly designed around padding on-going engagement figures, with bosses relegated to a numbers game rather than a rewarding feedback loop. Blizzard's de-emphasis on boss kills has backfired, though. Instead of waiting for Wednesday to get rewards and unlock activities, I only unsubscribed.

Blizzard's de-accent on dominate kills has backfired, though. Instead of waiting for Midweek to get rewards and unlock activities, I simply unsubscribed.

Various other aspects of WoW make the game feel more than similar a task than a game these days. The scheduled loot drops on a weekly timer. The scheduled activities on a weekly timer. The abrasive Raider.IO addon ranks players based on their time spent in-game and luck in groups, rather than their individual skill. Every layer of WoW has started to make me feel like I was just a statistic, rather than a player, with the game no longer respecting my free time or my will to actually take fun.

Past comparison, Last Fantasy Xiv has plenty of side content that can be experienced in between pre-made raid groups, with permanently embedded features like thespian housing to keep gamers interested in the game's world. Blizzard expansions operate on this very Activision-similar "borrowed power" philosophy, where expansion features are thrown away betwixt retail purchases, leaving a graveyard of pointless and abandoned content that could've been adult into interesting rolling gameplay features. Mists of Pandaria had a cool farming organisation that felt similar a consolation prize for players who had been asking for role player housing. All the same it lays abandoned, much like the Warlords of Draenor Garrison arrangement. Both of these features had their problems but could have evolved to be something more interesting tied to your graphic symbol growth, giving players something "RPG" to do outside of waiting for Blizzard'due south lame timers to actually play.

Refocus on community wellness

Source: Windows Central

I touched upon Raider.IO and how I feel like it has had a spooky effect on the community at large, only information technology's merely really i piece of a much larger puzzle. When Blizzard activated cross-realm play and LFG and LFR random matchmaking for dungeons, they effectively killed server communities in the procedure. Players you lot saw running effectually on your screen by and large were not actually from your server, leading players downward a path of disconnection from others around them. At that place's probably a wider analysis that could factor in hither, with changes in consumer habits, the evolving internet, and the way social media has practically dehumanized everyone online, but I'1000 not sure it would totally hold weight for WoW. Why? Because Final Fantasy 14, a competing MMO, generally seems to have a far nicer, kinder, and more supportive community than the one Blizzard has curated effectually WoW in contempo years.

Blizzard's insistence of turning WoW into a MAU-padding machine "job" rather than game probably goes some manner to making players somewhat resentful of the time they spend within WoW. If you're not playing absolutely optimally 100% at all times in a group, players tin can very easily meet from your talent choices or gear, or Raider.IO mod score, and judge you for having besides much fun rather than expediting their speed through a dungeon. Indeed, Mythic+ dungeons all come with a timer fastened to them, adding a sense of urgency that is supremely fun to beat with friends, just dire and toxic with random players — who cheers to cross-realm play, are largely bearding. I suppose the argument would be, "Well, play with your friends," simply that's a whole other trouble worth addressing.

Source: BlizzardThe controversial and contradictory writing of Shadowlands has go something of a long-running joke among WoW fans.

Blizzard'due south blueprint around the Horde vs. Alliance faction war has also been impacted by this full general modify in player behavior, fostered by Blizzard itself or non. Equally players increasingly seek to play WoW in the about "optimal way" possible, rather than having fun, servers have go increasingly lopsided between Horde and Alliance players. Horde and Alliance players cannot play or even communicate with each other, at least as of writing. At that place are signs that Blizzard is gearing up to break open the barriers between the ii factions, allowing Horde and Alliance players to raid and group upwards with each other for the first fourth dimension in the near future. I'd debate that this doesn't go far plenty, though.

I logged into my WoW server this calendar week for the first time in a year, saddened to find it was practically empty.

Given the way the WoW story has evolved, I think simply dropping the faction carve up entirely would solve the faction imbalance issue across servers, and let communities to abound again in a more logical way. If you're a Horde player on an Alliance-favoring server, chances are none of the Horde players you'll cease up in a group with are actually from your server. I logged into my WoW server this week for the first time in a year, saddened to find information technology was practically empty. Yes, people are waiting for the big 9.2 WoW patch and many are probably checking out Lost Ark and FFXIV, simply even during peak times, finding people to play with has go harder than ever in modern WoW. Partially considering players are quitting, but also because the faction imbalance, coupled with dead and empty servers, are killing server communities.

In that location are obvious and easy ways to solve the faction carve up in the story. Raise a armistice treaty between the Alliance and Horde. Allow players to learn the language of other races in-game (gameplay features, wow!). Perhaps allow opposing faction players to acquire a passport to other cities via the most-abased reputation organization. Permit players who enjoy PvP to join radical and secretive sub-factions loyal to Genn Greymane or the late Garrosh Hellscream who still hate their opposing Brotherhood or Horde enemy, and reposition battlegrounds equally a war for supremacy between those sub-factions, and open-earth PvP as a bounty-hunting bump-off system betwixt these aggressors. The manner the faction war has go central to the customs server infrastructure health simply doesn't work in 2022.

Make Blizzard a powerhouse again

Source: Windows Cardinal

Finally, perhaps the most important and complicated piece of the puzzle — make Blizzard a desired place to piece of work again. It's no cloak-and-dagger that Blizzard has undergone a massive exodus in longtime staff in recent years, with some of the company's brightest stars heading to competing companies like Tencent's Anarchism and so on. I'chiliad reluctant to link the dip in WoW's quality to the churn of personnel at the company, only I dubiousness it's had a positive result on the game.

The worlds Blizzard has created take inspired millions upon millions of players.

Blizzard was one time (and still is) one of the virtually honey developers in gaming history. The worlds Blizzard has created have inspired millions upon millions of players, created lasting connections and friendships, and touched the lives of so, so many people. Watching the scandal unfold over the past couple of years has been disheartening as an onlooker, only I can't imagine the stress and hurting information technology has caused people internally, particularly the victims of Blizzard's poor workplace culture. Many of the perpetrators have been removed, but it remains to be seen whether Blizzard can turn things effectually now, but getting rid of CEO Robert Kotick should go some way to begin repairing the damage.

This article just really touches on a very small number of issues with Globe of Warcraft. There are, of course, many, many more, from poor story delivery to weak advantage mechanics, unrewarding course design, and bad expansion features. With ex-Xbox CVP Mike Ybarra at present leading Blizzard, who himself is a hardcore WoW raider, I can merely promise that Blizzard will notice its feet over again from a game design standpoint, focusing on fun rather than appointment. From a culture standpoint, there's a articulate opportunity for Microsoft to bring a moving ridge of positivity and benefits to anybody at Blizzard, WoW dev or not, in a sorely needed reprieve from months of poor handling from the summit downwardly at Activision Blizzard.

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/if-world-warcraft-grow-again-it-needs-change-philosophy