But that’s a matter of perspective at the end of the day.
I – as a player – was never in favor of Classic WoW. Dumb idea. Focus on the game we are actually playing instead of branching out.
But if I had been part of the Executive Leadership Team at Blizzard and had seen the market research outlining the potential audience for Classic WoW, I would have green-lighted that project immediately.
So it’s a matter of perspective.
And I think in broader terms you and I vibe quite a bit on our desires for WoW to embrace more of its MMORPG roots, so to speak.
But acknowledging that WoW is a business, and that it is still Blizzard’s main business for years to come, it will inevitably get treated as such.
And if there was a business argument for doubling down on classic MMORPG design, then I’d be thrilled. It just doesn’t seem like that’s the lay of the land, so to speak.
Blizzard has to be thinking 5-7 years ahead in terms of the design direction for the game, and that direction seems to point toward something that’s more Seasonal, opt-in, broadly accessible, structured gameplay, with strong activation points, and approachable gameplay.
Blizzard don’t seem to want to ride WoW out into the sunset as a hallmark of the MMORPG genre. They’re trying to modernize this behemoth into being more of a relevant choice of gaming for a general audience.
And that does make sense from a business perspective. Something has to keep the lights on at Blizzard HQ, even in 7 years.
In that regard, if you look at the competition, you can see that Blizzard are playing catch-up.
It’s a pretty prevalent consumer behavior in gaming these days that everyone moves around. We don’t stick with a single game like many of us likely did with WoW 20 years ago. We play it for a while, then we play something else that has a new Season, then something else, then something else, and if Blizzard has been cooking up something sweet, then we come back to WoW to check it out. But if they haven’t, then we don’t.
And Blizzard’s Seasonal design is just not as strong as that of other games. I mean, it shows. Blizzard’s potential customer base is huge. They should be able to activate a lot more people throughout an expansion than they actually do. The fact that they tout high retention is evidence that they don’t manage to tap into a broader customer base.
And if you’re the poor souls working on WoW who are tasked with figuring out why gamers don’t come to check out a new WoW Season like they’ll check out a new Season in Fortnite, Call of Duty, League of Legends, Path of Exile, Diablo IV, or whatever, then Mythic+ with its archaic Looking for Group system design and its absurd progression curve is an obvious aspect of the game to point at. If your outlook is 5-7 years, you’re going to have to do something there. You can’t just pretend that status quo is going to do anything good for the game direction Blizzard have charted for WoW. It’s not.
And if you’re going to make changes to accommodate a long-term game direction of leaning more into a broadly-appealing Seasonal gameplay design, you’re definitely going to look into the possibility of automated queue systems. Especially for Mythic+ if that’s supposed to be a highlight of your content offering. And it likely is.
I take verything back, and sorry for making it seem like I wanted to impose something I should not.