What if we take the absolute BEST WoW has to offer. And start over.
Its 2025, World of Warcraft II is going to Launch.
Its Azeroth but… different.
It starts off at the same point in time as Vanilla.
Its the same story but a bit more streamlined.
Redesigned Quest/story hubs.
Redesigned dungeons and raids to have them make a bit more sense, less of a maze.
Add some quality of life from the start like the Barber shop and Transmog( by far the best this game has to offer in terms of quality of life improvements)
No flying
How would you think this new World of Warcraft should look like?
What should be the focus point.
Where in time would/should we start?
Is it viable.
What happens to Old WoW, do we let it, just die?
Could it be the same client and we turn it into one massive Timewalking event?
How could Blizzard pull it off and should they?
What would it look like?!
How about no? I believe Wow is near it’s endgame and i rather they invented new ways to design quests. Beside the story of the quest it’s getting a bit tiresome to kill that target, kill 10 boars etc. Wow should have a proper ending and then a full high graphic remake.
I dunno. I think that the game could seriously use a total overhaul from the engine upwards, and it absolutely would end up being a whole new game. But at the same time; some players have 15 years of time investment in the current one, and if none of that transfers… hmm.
Familiar mechanics. It’s ok to have basically the same classes and skill sets and buttons. We want players to feel immediately at home.
But could combat be more than just “mob runs up and repeatedly slaps you”? Yes, absolutely. Do telegraphed attacks, interrupt player casting, make mobs threatening for more than just loads of health and heavy hits. Give players some movement while casting, even if it’s half speed.
And have things where the player can see a positive result from their outcome. We fed the homeless bums in Westfall - so phase out the homeless bums so that it feels like we helped.
I would like to see something carry over from old WoW, even if it’s just transmogs, mounts, and pets.
What happens to the servers is exactly what should already be happening; merge, merge, and merge again as population declines until only 1 is left. Do your best to give a good experience to players who didn’t want to change, for as long as there are enough other people for them to play with.
What you’re proposing is just Classic with extra steps.
It would need to be a continuation of what we have, on a new improved engine, one that properly utilizes the hardware it’s running on, so that we don’t drop below 60 FPS in a 16 years old game at less than medium settings on a PC that runs current-gen AAA games in 1440p at 120fps.
The gameplay and graphics couldn’t change too much because we’ve been playing largerly the same-looking game for 16 years and there’s a reason it’s still the most popular MMO. It has a signature look and feel to it that would need to stay.
The default UI would need to be significantly better so that we wouldn’t need to compensate for lacking features with addons, and there would need to be built in ways to make people play their charcters properly without having to resort to third-party guides or otherwise do things wrong for years.
Open world would need to be engaging and meaningful instead of mobs whose only strenghts are their one cast/auto attack. They’d need to have avoidable abilities that actually do something when not avoided.
A return to being a class without several layers of systems of borrowed power would also be nice. It only makes balancing harder and contrary to popular belief, doesn’t blur meta, but pushes deeper into it.
Although, apart from the engine, all of those are doable in the current game.
I always feel that when it comes to modern design iteration on MMORPG the natural conclusion is typically ARPG and MMO-Lite. Like Diablo IV or Diablo Immortal. So that’s what it would look like.
Faster gameplay. A more narrow design focus. Broader customization design. And more fluid combat design.
I hope if Blizz makes a new MMO, it’s set in a new world. Doing “the same but different” is a waste of time. Instead of banking on nostalgia like all the garbage, creatively devoid corporations do these days, Blizz should focus on looking forward. I personally would really love to see the MMO made by the company who deemed Titan as “not fun enough” and turned it into Overwatch.
WoW should continue moving forward. WoW 2 should never be made. We should want our new games to be… well, new.
And if WoW 2 is ever to be made… it shouldn’t target WoW’s audience. Companies aren’t fond of creating product that serves to cannibalize their already existing product. The ONLY MMO sequels that have ever managed to gain any success… are the sequels that targeted a different audience from the original.
I’d play the vanilla/tbc era style game, but with xmogs and similar collectibles account-wide, with a gold reset and a matching price for riding. Xmogging wouldn’t have such a hilarious price to burn a hole in one’s wallet.
No pathfinders, no borrowed power.
“No flying”.
That alone makes it a big NO to this project.
Besides, we dont need to get back and play a Classic ++ game, what we need is to go forward and have a team of developers to have the freedom to design the game around fun, around game play experience and completly free from the MAU´s focus.
So Classic 2025? Just 2 Continents and even those aren’t complete? Heck no, Classic’s gameworld doesn’t make sense given the WC games, comes to that, -Vanilla-’ Gameworld didn’t make sense due to the glaring omissions of races and entire continents that we knew existed since WCIII.
So Classic 2: Electric Boogaloo, but this time -with- changes, that the original Classic crowd were insistent they didn’t want?
Hmm, some of them do badly need updating, The problem there is, the ones that need updating, wouldn’t be in the Gameworld Until TBC: 2027. It would be playing a crippled, stunted game that some of us will have played twice over.
Nah, Dungeons have been simplified enough for the ‘GOGOGO’ generation, Now they -used- to be proper dungeons, where they took a bit of navigating. But people didn’t want that, they wanted quick and simple. You can’t really redesign Dungeons to be less of a maze than they are now, without essentially just turning them into a scrolling tube where you start at one end of a tunnel, and end at the other. Sure, it’s neat for those with a short attention span, but it does kind of ruin the point of it being a dungeon.
Agreed, I think to take those elements out of the game would be ridiculous. WoW doesn’t have as much in the way of customisation as some games as it is, right now, to -not- have those in would be like amputating a limb for no reason,
As would be…
Aww hell no. I play an MMORPG, I like my Game world to make sense. We know the Alliance and Horde use Aerial Cavalry ever since WC2. Now they should make people -work- for it, not get it for free, but to take it out diminishes the world. Not having flying doesn’t make the Game world Larger. That isn’t physically possible. The zones are the same size anyway. Lets be fair, the people who generally complain about flying making the world seem empty are usually those who will happily just sit in Capital cities waiting for queues to pop, Alt-Tabbed. Hardly social… If anything, they clog up the gameworld for those who -are- trying to play it as an MMORPG as opposed to just an MMO.
Remember WoD, when they said there would be no Flying.
People were not happy, they’d gotten used to be able to explore the game world in ways they had not been before, and saw more of it, they were able to play characters that made sense in the setting. Why take that away?
A -Lot- of people were not happy, it was perceived as throwing a lot of people under the bus, just to appease the ‘Flying Kills Wpvp’ gang. Lets remember, PvE, whether questing, or raiding, is the main game, PvP is a side game to that.
Clearly the backlash at removing an element that made sense ever since the WC2 games, kept the game world logical, allowed more exploration, and was popular, was tangible to Blizzard, and for once they listened to the customers, and Flying was back on the menu. Why get rid of it? Again, it’s like cutting off a limb or putting out an eye when you don’t have to. Why neuter the game in that way?
How could they implement it?
Change things up. some of the NPC’s are fine, but a new cast is needed in some cases, Bin Jaina, Bin Sylvanas, both are Memes now, Stop having any reference to Arthas, Thrall too, Maybe set it in ten or twenty years from the last WoW Expansion before 2025. Sure, Those old Characters from WoW 1 existed, but in a way that King Llane Isn’t really thrust in our faces in the current game, They’re a thing of the past, a new generation of rulers (Or changes to them as they age) are the important names now. We don’t have to see the same characters all the time.
Jaina? She’s probably still Lady Admiral of Kul Tiras, if still alive, but she’d be about 60, there would be a younger, more prominent Kul Tiran who is the driving force for them. Sylvanas? Either Destroyed, or has taken on the role of Jailor at the end of Shadowlands. Either way, she ain’t around on Azeroth anymore. Sure, the Elves and Draenei, Gnomes and Dwarves to a degree are all gonna be ok with ‘20 years in the future’ But some of them would have changed. Is there still a Council of the Three Hammers? Has Moira’s agenda, now that the Bronzebeard, Dark Iron and Wildhammer are one people, and after 20 years, are the dwarves now indeed ruled by Emperor Thaurissan II.
Assuming he lives (We know he will) how much will a now 38 year old Anduin have changed, after -literally- having been to Hell and turned into one of it’s resident horrors. Is he going to end up more like his father?
They could do a lot if they just let some of the characters who are overused to saturation point currently fade into the background and a next generation of rulers or just important NPC’s in some cases, take to the fore.
Let me stop you there. Dead on arrival. Nobody of the old guard will play it because it won’t be the same game. They will lack their years-long investments in every aspect of the game.
On the one hand I’m looking forward to see the MMO that Ghostcrawler is working on. He has shaped WoW a lot and he’s had time since WoD to think about what went well and what could have gone better. But that’s most likely another couple of years away.
On the other hand, no matter how awesome it will be - I won’t ever put the same amount of time and effort into another game again. Simply because my life now doesn’t allow me to nolife it the way I nolifed it during my WoW “peak”
For me one thing I think would refresh wow, as others have said, is that some overused characters are dropped or used only for reference.
I’d like the idea of us finishing the expansion and being thrown some 20-30 years into the future on Azeroth. Where we again need to go to the aid of the world.
