I started re-reading some of my first (rather bad) posts when I opened this blog. It was during a time of transition, right before Wrath was about to come out and change the game. My previous guild, Nerfed, had disbanded, crushed by the lack of defined leadership and the inability to recruit new members at the same caliber of the first ones.
And you know what I learned? My writing was bad back then. And isn't much better now! :)
But today World of Warcraft is yet again in transition. A new expansion is looming. There is no more Wrath Content pending (Ruby Sanctum is a joke, at least BC was smart enough to include an actual post-Illidan raid). But Cataclysm is still months out (I'm guessing November). And the summer months have brought on the MMO blues. ICC has been out for quite a while now. Blizzard is quite fond with tinkering with it's game, but this too has stopped--all efforts are focused on the next expansion at the detriment of everything else. And Wrath's post LK content, Ruby Sanctum, is a joke. 1 Boss, with way too much trash does not equal Sunwell.
So, Blizzard is coming off what is certainly the worst expansion WOW has made. While Wrath is very refined, that very refinement is part of the problem. Blizzard played it safe with Wrath. Too safe. And over the course of the two years it has broken many of the things that originally made this game so much fun.
Now, part of Blizzard's main goal has nothing to do with high level characters. Their primary goal seems to be to rework the old world to make it more fun for lower level characters in order to increase player retention rates and update the game to a more modern standard. This is a good idea, and worth a topic of it's own, but for now I'm going to talk about what Blizzard needs to to retain old players.
1. Improve class balance and slow down game play. Class Balance is always a harsh thing, but Wrath has been dominated by various classes (first DK, then Druid and Paladin) to the exclusion to everything else. Mages, my pet class, haven't received much love. And Shadow Priests are even worse off (priests in general often seem to get the shaft). Part of the problem is that some classes just aren't designed around the twitchy game play mechanics that the game now requires. This is true in both PVP and PVE...a Mage simply can't keep up in a lot of fights because of all of the movement (as an example). Slowing down fights across the bored will help make fights more meaningful, and also give some far more interesting options in regards to PVE design. This one Blizzard is tackling directly...so we'll see how well they do.
2. Improve social interactivity. The LFG Tool, while cool, has actually hurt the community and has led to random social experiences being much less pleasant. At best, a good run ends up being completely dead, with no talking or communication at all--people there know everything and just want to get through it as-fast-as-humanly-possible. This is something that I do not believe Blizzard is addressing at all at this point. Honestly, what I would like to see happen is an implementation of Guild Alliances, with a GA-chat. And a direct tie in with the LFG tool. If Blizzard wanted to get real cool, then allow those alliances to form between servers even! That way, a member could start a party in the LFG tool, and fill it with Guild and Alliance members from any server in that alliance. And alliances could help avoid the complete anonymous nature of the current LFG system (of course, the current LFG should also remain as well).
3. Fix the raiding game. Wrath Raiding tended to swing between mind-numbingly boring to frustrating. With each new raid boss, the mechanics became more hectic and more frantic, more twitching. And less fun. Blizzard needs to get rid of enrage timers. And include more dynamic elements to the fights.
4. Making leveling more fun. Blizzard quests are a joke. Sure they may have been liked at the time, but things have evolved. And this is one area that only FFXI has gotten right. OK, so leveling quests don't necessarily need to be super-interesting or dynamic...they exist only for grinding anyway. But more story would help there too. The biggest thing Blizzard needs to learn, though, is that quests don't HAVE to just be about leveling. Quests can be about story too, and this is something that can really add a new element to the game that has really been missing. Long quest lines, with interesting cut scenes and stuff to do can really provide an entirely new element to the game.
5. Introduce a new way to play the game. Or get creative and add several. Right now WOW comes down to PVP, 5-Mans, and Raiding (10 and 25s). This is pretty much the staple. But it doesn't have to be. WOW could consider adding some RVR elements (more complex than, say, wintergrasp). They could add a story-mode (much like FFXI had). They could add things like trials and tests...specific trails which reward epic gear for completing certain trials (as long as they aren't just stupid rep grinds or massive money sinks). WOW is getting old enough that Blizzard really needs to start thinking about adding new KINDS of content...not just updated versions.
Of these things, I do not see Blizzard really tackling many of these things. And while Cataclysm MAY be their most successful expansion in the business sense. Retention of new players is very important, and concentrating on that at this point in the game is probably a good idea. It will certainly help Blizzard retain a large player base in the long run and help them to remain a dominate force in the marketplace. But, will this strategy help retain old players? That, I'm not so sure of. My prediction is that Cataclysm will be wildly successful at first...but will fall off faster than either BC or Wrath.
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