Some people say that the problem of WoW is that there’s not enough content or that new content drops slowly. Others say that the problem is the quality of content that is sometimes empty and repetitive or cool but pointless (not enough incentive to play it).
I personally think the real problem of WoW is the underutilization of content.
Here’s a table of content since it’s a bit too long as a post. I tried to follow a certain logic so my points make sense but you can limit the reading to point 4, 6, and eventually 7 to understand my solution.
- Let’s start by agreeing on a few things
- Let’s now define underutilization
- Debunking all of the reasons above
- Examples of why and how they can do it (and did it sometimes by the past)
- Give them the benefit of the doubt
- What we need is a change in the paradigm
- What was I saying about utilization?
1) Let’s start by agreeing on a few things:
It’s just factually wrong to say that WoW doesn’t have enough content. The world is large, the story is rich, there are so many playable and non-playable races, classes, professions, factions, and more… The content is huge between all the dungeons, raids, delves, quests, and other game modes.
Also, saying that pace is the problem doesn’t take into consideration that pace hasn’t always been the problem. Expansions like Legion or The War Within have really good pace and still have the real problem I want to talk about today.
Finally, I don’t think content has a problem of quality. I think it has a serious problem of substance, which I’ll talk about further down this post, but I don’t think it is fundamentally boring. It can be from time to time but, let’s be honest, it can be quickly fixed if they put the technical resources and that makes it kind of a quick win. My real problem is way harder to solve.
2) Let’s now define underutilization:
Underutilization is a term we use a lot in my field (I’m the finance manager of a cosmetic lab for the context) to talk about machines and equipments that are not used to their full potential. So, basically, the resources are literally here but we’re not using them. The reasons are diverse :
- Not enough employees to run the machine continuously:
- All current employees are busy doing something else
- The salary of a new employee costs more than what we’ll earn from the machine working extra time
- Not enough demand for what that machine produces:
- It’s not worth it to use more of that machine since there aren’t enough customers for what it produces which will lead to overproduction aka surplus
- Here, we’re assuming the machine is not flexible and can only produce one type of product so we can’t change its purpose
- The machine doesn’t take a lot of space:
- There isn’t a huge opportunity cost when not running it
- It’s not worth it to replace it by another machine since we can lose clients that are buying its products but also other products
- A combination of some or all of the above and even more reasons
Now, replace the machine by WoW’s old content (and, by old, I mean anything before the current patch/season).
3) Debunking all of the reasons above:
- All the current employees are busy doing something else like creating new content? We wouldn’t need that much new content if we fructify what we already have! Why design and develop so many new zones for every expansion when we have all that huge world out there?
- The salary of a new employee doesn’t cost more than what you’ll earn from this since you didn’t think about how many new and old players you’ll attract and retain with this new way of doing things
- There isn’t demand? Then, how can you explain the success of WoW classic? The cry for help of the community who wants the game back on Azeroth with “down to earth” storylines? Not only that, but some like me are also advocating for more reasons to play together and roam around the world. Worst case scenario when you have production surplus is you sell it later or repurpose it!
- Also, it’s not safe to assume that the content is rigid and inflexible since the only limit is the creativity of the developers (or their lack thereof)
- There is actually a tremendous opportunity cost of not using pre-existing content since people liked it and will most likely enjoy playing it again
- If it already exists and doesn’t cost that much to store and maintain, that means it’s financially the best content to fructify!
4) Examples of why and how they can do it (and did it sometimes by the past):
NB: By old content, I don’t mean things we already “did” before but things that already “exist”.
As a DK Gobelin, I feel weird that I didn’t have a special questline for DKs during Shadowlands or for Gobelins during Undermine(d). The game has so many ways to create questlines that are cool and push the plot and subplots further but limits itself to the main story and secondary stories that are boring and pointless. The class/spec storylines during Legion were so cool as well as the race armor quests but it’s a one-time thing.
Professions… Not only I still don’t understand how they work because there’s no explanation in game, I feel like they can be way more interesting and complexe (not complicated) with questlines like during Legion and impactful things to produce. Also, they can be cool with mini-games and Minecraft-like craft tables.
Zones and regions in Azeroth and beyond are abandoned as if nothing happened since the moment we solved their largest problems 30 years ago. Even Draenor and the Shadowlands can be salvaged and used for new stories and quests instead of the Siren Isles for example… I just noticed that I didn’t go to Orgrimmar since the beginning of TWW which is crazy since it’s like our capital!
So many game modes and concepts that have been developed and just let down like the battles and islands of BfA, the Garrison of WoD, the Class Domains in Legion, and so on. Some if not most of them were bad content items but everything can be salvaged, repurposed, and utilized. Give me an incentive and a lore-consistent reason and I’ll be back to the worst content they created (they will still have to make it more playable lol).
Give them the benefit of the doubt:
To be honest, they’re doing some efforts. Putting some old dungeons in the current season, the timewalking dungeons and raids, using some old zones for new content from time to time like Zuldazar now or Uldum and Pandaria in 8.3, bringing back things like the Horrific Visions, insisting on staying on Azeroth and old continents for next expansions…
However, there’s still the feeling to be stuck in the same content for two months every new patch. In Undermine(d), there’s already no more reason for me to go back to the raid from the previous patch because it’s not current season’s gear anymore. It’s really crazy that a whole raid is now pointless this fast!
The only counter-argument that might make sense is that it’d be too much content, things will feel scattered, players will feel overwhelmed, and there won’t be a clear way to gear up your character. Then, if you get bored, just make a new character with a new race/class combination and play old content as much as you want no one will stop you. But, I’m hear to debunk it again!
What we need is a change in the paradigm:
First, there is no such thing as too much content. The problem only exists because content is timegated daily or weekly and it’d be too many things to do in so little time. That exists because it’s easier to create repetitive content and make enough of it to fill the player’s week and make them return next week. But I’d personally play this week, next week, and the one after if there was too much content. It will take the time it takes, there’s no rush when there’s no timegating and I’m paying the subscription anyway.
Some would say that it’s a way to control how fast a character can become strong so we need to limit how much they can do certain things per week and per se limit what are those things. I think the problem comes from the fact that developers want us to take our time and play more before having the max gear and that is because the only way to play the game is to gear up.
I think the paradigm that people only play to gear up and become stronger has to change. Give us other ways to “win” the game! Achievements are a cool way that existed for so long and now collectibles are increasing, especially with the housing system where we’ll be able to display them. But, I have so many other suggestions:
- Influence: Improve the reputation (and renown) system. Make it harder to win influence and make non-influential players need influential players. Bring back negative reputation that impacts the way the whole environment interacts with you like sending random NPCs to attack you. Make some factions hate you because another one likes you so it’s a whole thing to manage. Make playable races, including from the opposite faction, and influential organizations like the SI7 have a reputation system with the player (imagine Alliance rogues and why not other classes being able to have random spying quests around the world). Also, please we need the two main factions to be back to war or at least have some tensions here and there like now between orcs and humans in the Arathi Highlands…
- Wealth: Make gold harder to get and more important so poor players need rich players. There are so many currencies in the world that are not used anymore that it’s ridiculous. Make them exchangeable to gold with a rate that depends on how hard they’re to get and people will be back to playing old content. I don’t have specific ideas but imagine you can only access dungeons and raids with some gold so it’s sometimes worth it to have a weak but rich player with you who’ll pay more than others in exchange of being carried the content. Or that a very important consumable is needed but it’s very rare, hard to make, and costly so you either need someone who knows how to do it or who can buy it which will make the player valuable outside of his ilvl.
- Knowledge: Whether for classes or professions, knowledge should be rare and sharable. It should be harder to learn a new spell or patron with the (limited) possibility to teach it to someone else. This will make people work harder for their spells and patrons then not only sell their products but also their knowledge, limiting that so it doesn’t become a farm. Also, can we bring back archeology and make something serious out of it?
- Skill: Gear is nice but it shouldn’t be the only way to show that you’re skilled. How fast did you run a dungeon or raid, how many people of the other faction you’ve killed, how good are you at flight racing… These should be easily displayable so people have incentive to compete over them and be the best.
- Gear: It will still be important to gear up in order to play the “fight” content both PVE and PVP but even that should change. The ilvl system makes gearing so mechanic. As much as I understand why it exists, I think they need to find a more interactive and engaging way to do it. Enchants, gems, and all make things cool but not enough. I just feel like the culture of Best in Slot kills the game.
People won’t only play the current season’s content to get the strongest gear but they’ll invest time elsewhere to get rich, smart, influential, or just famous. Each of these should give you an advantage on others so players would have to make decisions about where to invest their time and resources. It should never be possible to play all the content and be the best everywhere because that’s exactly what makes an mMoRpg boring (emphasis on multiplayer and role).
Instead of adding huge expansions and patches every few months/years, maybe reduce their size and invest in adding weekly smaller content all around the world(s) that will move the subplots further and constantly give all type of players reasons to play new and old content. Make zones more interactive, the role of the players more impactful, factions have more layers of interest, and already existing content playable and replayable instead of new zones with farmable currencies and reputations through boring repetitive quests.
Add to these: secrets here and there, hidden chests and treasures, extremely rare legendary items, collectibles, and patrons, cool stories…
One final note: we seriously need the game to get harder. Give the DPS a reason to have a Tank or a Healer with them out there, make it impossible to solo play all the content without killing all the fun for solo players, we need players to still have reasons to gear up but also to play together.
PS: For the counter-argument about feeling overwhelmed by the quantity of content, I think it’s time WoW invested in a real interface or WoWpedia that helps you decide what content you want to play. Also, not everything has to be clear otherwise there’s no need to ask for help from the community and other players.
What was I saying about utilization?
To be back to utilization, this is an image of what is happening now vs what I think should happen in terms of resource allocation within the dev team if they had 10 employees:
- Now: 1 person fixing the current patch, 4 working on the next patch of this expansion, 3 on the next expansion, 1 on the one after, and 1 overseeing that everything stays coherent.
- Hope: 2 fixing the current patch that has less content that a patch used to have before so they also have time to fix all the new content around the world, 2 working on the next patch of this expansion that will feature less content and doesn’t have to drop something new every two months, 1 on the next expansion because they’ll have plenty of time to develop a big piece of content especially if joined by the two before after the final patch of this expansion drops, 0 on the expansion after because it’s still too early and there’s no rush like before, 4 on weekly new content all around the world(s) for all type of players, races, classes, professions, and 1 overseeing that all makes sense both from a gameplay and roleplay point of view.
Any objections?