Do you expect a brand new class in the next expansion?

[Uda-uldum]

@Corrmak-argent-dawn

In Vanilla WoW, the concept of “endgame” didn’t even exist because players were more focused on exploring, socializing, and role-playing in the open world. Raids emerged as an aspirational goal from building strong, engaged communities.

Raids and dungeons did not emerge. They were there when the game launched. And a couple of months later, they opened up new raids. Because they were in the “pipeline” sort of speak since launch.

And then, yes. Originally people focused on exploration and socialization and role-playing in the open world. Untill they reached level 60.

And then all that “socializing” always ended up in : “Lets do something toguether”.

What is that something ? Eventually you saw all the open world. You saw all the zones and all the quests. It took ~ 4 months.

Then what ? What do you do once you ding level 60 ?

@Corrmak-argent-dawn

As the game shifted its focus towards raids

As I said. Molten Core was there on launch. With Onixial Lair.

It was part of the plan from the beginning.

But as I said. If you want to raid, you need to farm gold. You need to farm dungeons. You need to “focus on DPS” basically.

@Corrmak-argent-dawn

fostering the social cohesion that made WoW special

This is something that makes me laught. Really. This is what I had to say about the “social aspect” :

@Uda-uldum

Endgame… M+ for example. Its what I do most.

I usually play with 2 buddies that I have in whatsup. And we pug the rest.

But I dont treat the pugs as NPCs, I actually talk to them and many end up in my friends list. Which is 210 people long by now, of which 176 are connected right now.

And I have atleast 10 active whisps the moment I get online.

I also raid in a Friends and Family guild. With 32 people I met in wow, and later personally in gatherings. We have a common Whats-Up channel where we talk. And do a ton of content together.

Is that social enough for you ?

I can tell you the secret : The social aspect of WoW begins with YOU. If you have to talk to people. Engage with people. Be proactive with people… and most importantly, patient and respectful of people… you will have an amazing social aspect in WoW.

And blizz cant force anyone to talk to you, or force you to talk to anyone. All they can do is put 2 people in the same place and hope they get along. The rest is up to you.

WoW did not change. People did. And there is nothing Blizz can do about it.

Let me be real here : the main reason wow became a “lobby game” as you call it… is 100% players did not want to socialize. They begged for LFR and LFG because they did not want to post on /trade that they were looking for a group.

PLAYERS did not want it. Blizzard just delivered.

In other words. Blizzard cant force or incentive people to socialize if they dont want to socialize.

@Corrmak-argent-dawn

The only solution is to shift to a lobby-based game model, like Darktide, where players sign up and are instantly placed into lobbies with either bots or random players.

I play a lot of darktide. With my buddies. What are you talking about here ?

Like I said. Daddy “Fatshark” cant force people to talk to other people. I installed the game. Entered my first random match and instantly started to add people to my friends list. Now im in a Darktide discord and I can always play with people at any moment and socialize with them via Discord.

Fatsharc CANNOT force people to take initiative. Im sorry… Its people that dont do it.

Same as in WoW !

@Corrmak-argent-dawn

In this model, guilds would become mere chat channels for buffs and fail to fulfill their intended purpose of fostering community and collaboration. This approach streamlines gameplay but sacrifices the rich, community-driven experience that traditional MMORPGs aimed to deliver which is what has happend.

Il just quote this to repeat once again : Guilds are, and were chat channels. Most of the socializing happened in Ventrilo (from back then). Discord today.

In my 20 years of WoW experience, I find that people join guilds and (A) dont talk in /guild. (B) dont install Discord and dont talk to people.

They expect people to talk to THEM, with out doing any effort. Or worse, they join a guild expecting some material “gift” or some rush or something…

That is 70% of people that join guilds. In Vanilla. And today.

Not blizzards fault. And this "rich comunity driven thing… " that was the 30% of people that did take the initiative. In Vanilla. And today.

@Corrmak-argent-dawn

Some of the original designers have also acknowledged that this emphasis on optimization and convenience undermined the game’s social fabric, replacing a community-driven experience with a more individualized, achievement-focused mentality.

No that is not what developers said.

What they said is that shifting from Server only to Cross-Realm killed the “comunity driven experience”.

But again. Cross-Real was a required change to save the game. Because you had a few overpopulated servers and a lot of empty servers. With majority Horde, or majority Alliance.

And this by the way is human nature. Not game design. Its the same reason we live in cities.

So atleast do your reserch…