I’ve played WoW since Vanilla, and I enjoyed the first expansion: TBC. Which was great. Starting with a Blood Elf, leveling through Azeroth again, stepping through the Dark Portal, Flying Mounts, being a retribution Paladin because you couldn’t pick warrior (Ok, not all was great). Then came Wrath, awesome! And Cata that changed the whole game! And after that I kind off lost interest in the game and started doing normal human things like exploring identity, getting disciplined, and working on my future, and such boring stuff.
Ten years later, during the lonely corona times, I’ve came back to play again, on a RP server. And I’m enjoying both the classic as retail version of the game so far. But what I notice in retail compared to classic is how messy and unfocussed everything is.
There is a lot of new, and old content, cluttered in the game, which is a lot for a newb to get into. A lot of social focus of the game is gone. And gold value has inflated somewhat. What I like is the level scaling, you can level just about anywhere, the bad thing is; you’ll hardly meet a soul through your leveling experience, neither do you need to, since leveling to 50 is hella easy.
What you get is a game that is focust around one thing: The new expansion, and all the old expansions are discarded, dead empty zones with hardly anything going on in them. You can play them, you just won’t have the same social experience.
Then there is the way of WoW storytelling, it ain’t great.
It’s a constant introduction of new zones, new gear, and a new bad guy. And while the suspension rises through the story, in drops down as the threat is eliminated, the bad guy goes down in a raid, Azeroth is saved yet again, and it’s somewhat calm until the next expansion, in which everything will happen all over again but with newer zones, newer gear, and a newer bad guy.
I’m not interested in the story of the new expansion, neither do I need to buy it since I get all my social experience from playing on a roleplay server; in which the old zones are being used for a fun social experience. So I don’t need to buy Shadowlands for a story I’m seriously not interested in, only to be prepared for the next expansion.
And I know I can’t be the only one. I refuse to believe I’m the only one losing interest in a game this fast, even though it implemented many addicting features.
The map of Azeroth have not been updated for ten years. Their zones have updated stories, which aren’t being seen in game. Gadgetzan is a huge city apparently. That’s what I’m interested in! Take me there! But no, my only choice is buying a soap opera of Sylvannas strange motivation to un-dead all of the dead? I don’t know, she’s skipping on a whole lot existential philosophy to jump to her own conclusion. And just hang around the afterlife for a while. I mean, don’t get me wrong. The zones look really great and amazing. But I just don’t see anything cool happening with the old zones.
So here are my thoughts: Why the strange suspension of disbelief? Why having old and new content cluttered in one game? Why paying extra for an expansion you might not enjoy, while you are already paying for a subscription?
Why still expansions at all? Can’t we have the game focust around the world of Azeroth? A game that is being expanded like constantly? Getting each zone revamped and updated, being a focus for new fun gameplay and actual social experience while leveling? Maybe the Barrens becomes a hot spot for a great PVP event because the Alliance invades? Or the great Gadgetzan becomes an actual city for fun cross-faction gameplay? Or there is a new demonic threat in Outland which needs more heroes to fight?
What I’m talking about is getting that feeling of exploration and excitement back in WoW. Of not knowing what comes next. Having only one main story which is the focus of the game, not a clutter of them separated by strange chapters. Not ten different World of Warcrafts. Only one. Which would mean Blizzard should stop focussing on that extra expansion money, and only focus on getting subscriptions. But I don’t know how their marketing works and which is more profitable.
So to end my essay of a post. Are WoW Expansions outdated? Could WoW be improved by not being focussed on expansions? Am I strange for enjoying RP and picking a retribution Paladin to level in tBC. Do you guys have a better idea of a new payment plan for World of Warcraft that would make the game more interesting? I like to hear.
How to improve WoW through a new payment model?