I first experienced wow back in 2007 during TBC days. A friend of mine introduced me and I made my first character, a blood elf rogue because I was restricted to Horde due to him and his guild. Nelf was always my fav. The experience was really fun, I remember the world feeling very much alive and dangerous, making friends as I leveled, the social aspect felt very natural, you would always just encounter people during quests and travelling across the landscape.
Over the years I’ve thought heavily on this topic, not just on wow but on mmo’s in general and the decline of them over the years. I’ve always had a big passion for game design, I have a degree in it and I currently work as a Concept Artist, so hopefully my opinion has a little bit of knowledge backed behind it.
I’ve come back to wow many times over the years on and off but due to the direction of the game I always got bored after a couple of weeks and left for other things. Now thats not to say that retail wow doesn’t have strengths, it certainly does and I think these strengths AND weaknesses become so much more obvious with the release of classic wow.
Lets start with the release of Classic. I jumped on the bandwagon and brought two friends along for the ride with me. These 2 people have played many other mmo’s previously, their favorites being Star Wars Galaxies and Lotro but they had never actually played wow before. With the hype behind classic they gave in and decided to join me. The immediate first question I got was ‘why didn’t they use the modern graphics for classic? their so much better.’ I had to explain that people wanted classic exactly the way it was before. ‘But upgraded graphics doesn’t affect the gameplay?’ was their reply and something I agreed with. I do wish blizzard had used the newer graphics, their honestly so much better but nostalgia is a strong fuel and something I saw very much apparent when I looked into the reasons why. Graphics are always secondary to gameplay though so its a pill I can swallow for a good game.
And so our journey began. I gave a brief summary of how the classes were to my friends. When I dived into the hunter class and talked about the differences of depth with the pet mechanics and ammo compared to modern wow one of my friends thought it sounded very interesting. I found myself talking a lot about major differences between the games in our first few days of playing. As we began to level we encountered random players that joined us occasionally for quests and sometimes a new person was added to my friends list, I took a boat to eastern kingdoms and was chased by a dwarf for ‘eyeballing’ his gnome partner the wrong way. The world felt dangerous again and alive, its crazy how much larger azeroth feels compared to retail and how relevant everything is down to a single road sign showing you the right way to a quest location.
As we got half way through darkshore one of my friends said the game certainly was starting to feel very dated to him and that he wasn’t enjoying the grind as much. He wanted to try modern wow also just to see the differences and so we jumped on for a few hours. Last time I had tried the game was at the beginning of bfa so I still remembered a great deal of how the game was currently. We decided on going to Argent Dawn mainly due to the lack of cross-realm, the three of us are very fond of a strong community on a server and one where you encounter a player at low level and are likely to see them again later on in the world. I was aware that retail wow had pretty much destroyed this outside of close-knit guilds.
We started leveling, first thing they said to me was, holy **** this is ridiculously easy, why are we 1 shotting everything. I told them thats just the way leveling is these days, the games gone into the direction of rush to endgame to the point where blizzard will give you a lvl 110 when buying bfa. One of my friends jaw dropped - ‘whats the point of everything before then? that sounds terrible.’ We carried on, again they admired the updated graphics and animations, we also all agreed that classes felt more fluid and fun, even though I mentioned to my friend the streamlined differences in the hunter class he was really enjoying just how they felt in moment to moment gameplay compared to the duller gameplay of the hunter in classic. Its just a shame quests offered literally 0 challenge while leveling. We played for a few hours and they both said to me they couldn’t play this anymore, it felt so mindless and dull while leveling.
And so after that little story I’ll give some of my thoughts and what I think Blizzard should try and learn from the fundamental differences between the two games and how extracting the strengths from both could truly make an amazing MMO.
Classic Wow Strengths
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The World
I watched the WoW classic with creators vid that blizzard released recently on youtube. I remember they mentioned that during classics development, a phrase that was preached was that the main character of the game was the world itself and it certainly holds true while playing. The journey to 60 is engaging, the gameplay mechanics naturally bring players together and socializing and making friends just naturally happens. You find yourself speaking to people for various things and really feeling that sense of community early on. When I was leveling my Nelf, there was a player called Lizzie in Teldrassil selling 6 slot bags to players for 10 linen, quickly people were asking for whether she was online in trade chat. Encounters like these I still remember days later, its sad when I think back to the many times ive tried retail over the recent years and cant remember the name of a single player I randomly met while in game since MoP.
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Challenge up until max level
Honestly I hate the aspect of trying to rush to max level to experience the ‘real content’. Why would I waste my time with a game if I have to endure tedious boredom until endgame. Thats just bad game design and something developers should never try to enforce and players should never try to tell other players that thats okay, its not plain and simple. A game should be designed to be engaging from the beginning and offer challenge and fun from the the start of the journey, not be 120 levels of tutorial. Typically if you respect players that their intelligent enough to overcome challenges as they level, people will enjoy your game more. Classic does this well. You have to be careful how many mobs you pull, you have to make sure that you have food and water or bandages while questing, manage your resources and watch your movement. The game begins at level 1 in classic, not level 120. -
No crossrealm, no sharding. Your server is your community
Remember Lizzie that was selling those 6 slot bags, I saw her later on in darkshore, BigSteve the irish warrior that helped me for a couple of quests then logged off to watch the Rugby, he charged into a spider cave and saved me from certain death from mutilple aggro’d mobs. Players gain a reputation, that a**hole ninja looter, that great healer, that enchanter that scammed you in stormwind. Reputation on a character, you get to know players on your server even if you dont directly interact with them. This in turn creates strong community and is one of the pillars of creating a long-lasting mmo that players want to stay in. -
Class Diversity
If you’ve ever played DnD, you will notice parallels between it and classic wow. Each class has unique aspects it can bring to the table and help add unique utility to a group. Rogues making a living from picklocking boxes in capital cities, mages creating food and water or charging for their portal service. -
Professions Matter
Got that tailor in your group that can make your bags for you, great. Your a leatherworker that can make your own armor, fantastic. Your a herb/alchemist on your rogue, better start aiming for that thistle tea. Every profession in classic is useful and adds benefit. Early quest rewards don’t just give you everything, your gear doesnt get outscaled so quickly that creating your own gear is meaningless, it all matters and you better save for that mount later on. -
World Pvp
There is no button that turns this magically off, your on a pvp server, pvp can happen, ‘naturally’ (key word). Better watch your back in neutral territory. I love this. It adds more engagement and danger to the world, creates new social experiences. ‘Crossroads is under attack!!’ Better call the bois for backup! And that brings me to my next point. -
Immersion
All of the points above add to this. Theres no dude driving around on a motorcyle at level 1, one-shotting everything. Bosses feel like bosses, everything matters in classic and righfully so. Theres people on your server that are known as the go to enchanter or blacksmith. Things felt more grounded in classic, you could easily get immersed into the world and the challenges that lie ahead right from the beginning. Theres a reason why strong friendships were made in this game and mmo’s of this type.
Classic Weaknesses
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The Grind
Theres certainly a few quests that come to mind from my recent experiences in Darkshore when I think of grind. Killing 20 bears that are scattered widely across the northern area that have a chance of giving you a 10minute debuff known as rabies. Or a quest to claim some pelts with an extremely low droprate so your there for an hour for just 4. These unengaging quests are one of the big aspects of classic that feel very dated for 2019 and definitely feel boring after a while. -
Graphics
From seeing some peoples opinions on the matter, I know there will be some that disagree with me on this and thats okay. I just ask you to look at yourself and question how much of that is nostalgia. I personally think Blizzard did a great job of upgrading the graphics bit by bit in retail. Its a big improvement over the olden days and something I think should have been incorporated in the classic launch. The art department is amazing at Blizz and something i personally strive for as a concept artist. But again, good graphics don’t make a good game but they certainly help. -
Finding Quest Locations
I was on the fence about this at first, but how fun is it really to read or skim through a wall of text after accepting every quest to find the vague location of something. On the plus side it can be a further push into players socializing with one another to find a quest location but with the way modern day internet is most people will just google anyway so that point usually becomes null. It does encourage the player to learn the locations and follow up on some of the lore but in 2019 this is not the ideal way to tell the story of an area. We can see blizzard really improve on this in their storytelling methods of late-game retail wow. As such I think for these kind of quests that are in classic its an improvement to have quest locations marked on the map like retail.
Retail WoW Strengths
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Stronger storytelling
I touched on this a little earlier but I think its evident that the storytelling has become stronger over time, with the cutscenes showcasing pivotal moments in a characters story along with voice acting and dynamic changes to the landscape during a quest. A lot of this comes down to modern technology allowing for better systems perhaps and I just think over time Blizzard were able to incorporate new ideas into how to best tell a compelling story in an MMO Setting. Its far from perfect but I personally haven’t seen an mmo do it better than retail wow thus far. -
Level Design
I think its obvious Blizzard have gotten better at creating more interesting zones and dungeons. The visuals and designs are better which is obviously mostly down to the art department but also the way an area is structured for the player to navigate and complete quests is better, backtracking for a quest is nullified a great extent to eliminate tedious downtime (though again one has to be careful with this as you can quickly make the world feel a lot smaller.) I remember the first time I went through the pandaria starting area, it was by far my favorite leveling experience for a new character. -
Graphic/Visuals
This was touched on earlier so I wont go over it again. Obviously technology advancements over time allow for better visuals as with any game but I think Blizzard certainly got better with art design. -
Group Finding / LFG
This may turn some heads but I think group finding is the better approach for a modern mmo. Lets start with structured pvp. I really enjoy queuing up for BG’s and Arena to get placed into a game and feel it brings no harm to the game. Then we move onto dungeons, by queuing for a dungeon with a group we eliminate the 30mins-1hr time spent spamming chat for a group, running to the dungeon, Billy the Dwarf gets lost on the way and Fred the Gnome gets attacked by the horde. You might say but this creates stories and is interesting and you’d be right. However, we don’t all have unlimited time and this could add on another 1-2hrs of downtime before you even arrive. Someone might have to leave for dinner, another has to leave to pick his kid up from school. For me personally I just dont have the time for spamming chat for LFG that is tedious and not fun. You could take away the porting to the dungeon entrance and just have a group put together through group finder, then the team have to make their own way to the dungeon and that would be a decent compromise.
Now onto the argument players make that Group finder eliminates alot of the social aspect of dungeons. I’d say their wrong here, what eliminates the socializing is Cross-realm and dungeons being so mind-numbingly easy in retail wow during leveling. Its just a means to an end to grind xp right now, nothing provides challenge. If we add some challenge back into dungeons and some downtime for mana/healing between fights like classic we now have windows of time where people socialize and have to co-operate. If you remove cross-realm play people also feel more of a desire to get to know their group as they may encounter them again in the game, this also helps to encourage politeness as your in the same server, if someones an a** to the hunter in the group it may follow them around later. -
Events & Side-activities
Fun events and side activities can be a nice aspect to an mmo. It adds another layer of depth and diversity to the game. The Darkmoon faire or pet battle systems. Not every player will enjoy these and it shouldn’t be mandatory but it can add some fun diversions to enjoy and get involved in if the player wishes to. -
End-Game
Admittedly I don’t have as much knowledge with retail wow when it comes to current endgame, especially with BFA but I know that theres a lot of diversity with mythic dungeons, raids, arena, rated bg’s etc. Boss mechanics are more interesting compared to the olden days and overall I feel like Blizzard do a fairly good job when it comes to retail endgame compared to the old days. -
Combat Gameplay
Class combat gameplay is a big step up in how fluid and fun it feels compared to classic in my opinion. My rogue felt a lot more enjoyable leveling when i jumped onto retail compared to leveling in classic, same with warrior/hunter etc. The flow of combat just felt really fun. The issue was the lack of challenge as mentioned earlier, with everything being close to 1 shot or posing no threat, where I don’t really have to think until I reach max level, thats what makes it mindbogglingly dull. But the flow of gameplay when fighting mobs, thats a definite step up and I think Blizzard certainly got better at upgrading the feel and flow of gameplay in combat.
Retail Weaknesses
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The World
Due to the lack of challenge when questing through the world and the way Blizzard have enforced rushing through this content to reach endgame, the majority of the world now feels dead, barren and mostly empty of players. There is little challenge to be had out there, people stick to 1 or 2 city hubs, mostly port to their dungeons/raids and only communicate with their guild. The world becomes lifeless, its almost pointless for it being there at this point. What would fix this is if leveling had the challenge of classic again and gaining xp was slower paced like back then. Players wouldn’t mind this at all if the leveling experience was engaging and fun like the olden days, if players were scattered around the world and it felt immersive seeing players doing all sorts of things once again. Players have only been preaching to level faster and just get to endgame content now because of the initial problems mentioned, its mindnumbingly easy and empty of players which in turn makes it so boring. What these players dont realize is their slowly destroying the game when asking for the mechanics to head into this direction. The RPG of this modern mmo has disappeared. -
Heirlooms
I cant stand Heirlooms. Ever since they were first introduced I knew they were bad for the game long-term. Their not friendly to new players and quickly boost characters to max level further emptying the majority of questing zones of more players. Want to queue into Battlegrounds with some new friends you’ve introduced to the game? Prepare to be destroyed by the majority of players stacked in heirlooms with the most optimized gear for their level right up to endgame. This is another practice that Blizzard introduced to promote characters to rush to max level, ‘get to the new content as fast as you can!’ this destroys an mmo’s world. -
Flying-Mounts
Another aspect that empties the zones in the overall world of players. This and portals conveniently laid out in cities eliminates players travelling the traditional ways through the world by zepplin, boat and train. Flying mounts are bad for the game. They further eliminate naturally random player interactions that are one of the core aspects of an mmo. They make the world feel a lot smaller and destroy world-pvp. The issue at this point is that its very difficult to close this door in a game when its been opened. Imagine Blizzard removing this now after players have collected all their flying mounts. The backlash from the community would probably be pretty big even though it would be the correct decision. When making a new MMORPG, dont add flying mounts to the game. -
Professions
Professions have become almost pointless at this time in the game. Gone are the perks of crafting your own gear as you leveled, the big differences they applied to a characters strengths ingame. Quest rewards will give you everything you need and more, you’ll make more gold from simply doing random dungeons and questing than you ever would from crafting/gather mats until endgame. Gone are the players that are known for their professions and someone you would seek out to craft something for you. People in Classic, TBC sometimes would centre their gameplay around the economy and crafting. Theres very few if any that do that anymore. -
World-PVP
Once again due to the huge push to rush everyone to endgame and eliminate the player activity in the rest of the world open world-pvp is so much worse off and pretty much dead compared to earlier times. Get rid of warmode, bring back pvp and pve servers with no crossrealm. Open world pvp that naturally happened as I quested has always been one of my favorite aspects of an mmo. One thing I always loved was exploring the enemy factions territory while having to watch my back, setting up little expeditions, trying to fish in stormwind without being caught by the enemy players. The great times in stranglethorn vale during tbc. Defending the crossroads etc. -
Class Design
Now this can be a pro and a con for retail WoW. Some design choices theyve made have been great changes. My two current favourite specs in the game are Outlaw Rogue and Survival Hunter. One of the big issues I think is that classes dont feel as unique in their skillsets as they once did and its something ive seen others mention. Everyone pretty much has a heal, utility, cc and can do everything at this point. Pretty much gone are those aspects of rogues picklocking special chests and doors, warlocks summoning players, mages making much needed portals for people. The new talent system is sleeker and more modern, it has some nice aspects but eliminates truly making your character spec unique to others. Committing to your spec due to costs of changing. The old glyph system taken away. Bring back more customization for a players character class, adding more theorycrafting for players to enjoy. -
Race Design
Something that is always present in a good rpg is diversity in races within the game. Racial skills and stats for a race that are relevant and show diversity in skillsets. I remember when undead being able to eat corpses to regain health and breathe underwater indefinitely was a big strength and lore-friendly. Now every race pretty much has an unlimited underwater breath meter because it goes down so slow. Why is it even in the game anymore at this point? I remember reading through my wow instruction manual as the 4 disks installed onto my computer, checking out the stat differences and what would suit the class and character I wanted to make. Bring back certain classes being locked to a faction like the shaman and paladin. This adds diversity to factions and adds more interesting player decision making. When every race can be everything and the only difference is purely cosmetic it becomes a lot more boring and further takes away from the RPG of the game. -
Lack of RPG in this MMO
Its been an echo as I’ve listed retails weaknesses. There is very little RPG in modern day WoW, to the point where its become a different kind of game. Bring back this core aspect, its why so many people fell in love with WoW and the mmorpg genre in the first place. -
Immersion
And in direct contrast to classic WoW. The weaknesses listed above are all the major reasons why the immersion is all but gone from the ‘world’ of warcraft. The original idea that the world was the main character has been pretty much destroyed, now the game panders to the players every need and assumes you cant handle any challenge and need to be overly rewarded at every turn. Blizzard need to make the whole game relevant again, not just endgame. That isnt what an mmorpg is. The journey to max should be every bit as relevant as endgame. Players should be busy travelling across the entirety of the world, not sitting in city hubs teleporting to a dungeon and interacting with little else. Allow the player to truly get immersed while their exploring and adventuring out in the world again.
And so closing point. Its difficult to fix problems to a 15 year old game at this point that have slowly built up from some bad game design decisions along with bloat of content layered continually on top but I dont believe in any way its impossible. I sincerely hope that Blizzard take a strong look at why Classic is currently being successful and had such a strong outcry to come back in the first place. Learn what made that game good, learn what doesn’t work so much and try and extract the strengths from both games to move the modern game forward, or at the very least I hope outside developers take note of whats happening here and learn what truly makes a great mmorpg for the modern day.
There may be some things I missed in listing, some points that will come to mind later but I wanted to put down my thoughts in a forum post, even if just a few people read this, hopefully it can give some insight and create a small ripple.
Cheers.
but maybe that’s just me.