Blizzcon 2009 is fast approaching, but who needs Blizzcon to start spreading rumors of the next World of Warcraft expansion? Apparently not the “source” over at WoW.com, which has it on “good” authority that the next expansion to Blizzard’s cash cow MMO will be World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. This is likely based on the trademark Blizzard filed a while back for that name. Also of note is the rumor of two new races – Goblins for the Horde and Worgen for the Alliance. If this is true, it dashes my past hopes that if the goblins were ever made playable, you would be able to choose which faction they would join after a Death Knight type of introduction story.
I no longer play WoW, but what exactly does it need to keep growing? An MMO can’t keep growing vertically forever, can it? Will they raise the level cap once more from 80 to 90? When will it end? No one except the gremlins at Blizzard knows for sure. My hope was always for a horizontal expansion – one that expanded the game in a manner that would include a lot more content but not expand the level cap up yet again. More playable races is one way to do that. When Burning Crusade came out, for a time the lower level game was infused with new life, because everyone was leveling up new characters so they could experience the new races.
But, why stop there? They’ve already redesigned a few zones in past content patches. Now, let’s take that to a whole new level – there’s plenty more relatively lifeless zones that they could fix up. There’s really no limit to what they could do to expand the game and keep players interested without increasing the level cap for a third time. Let’s also not forget the often-requested redesign of old Azeroth to support flying mounts. This is, of course, only speculation based on rumors. We’ll have to wait until Blizzcon (August 22 & 23) to see if they have any merit.
I tried WoW for a little while and enjoyed it, but there’s no way I have the time needed to level up my character, join a guild, or desire to pay $15 a month to play
WoW is the end all be all of MMORPGs at the present. And being just some dude on the internet, I obviously have no idea how to make it better or worse. But being a dude who played it from beta until about 4 months ago, I have some opinions of how it could be better and it lies in the biggest issue with these expansions which you talked about in your post. With each expansion comes a mass exodus from the previous towns and zones to the new content, leaving vast areas of the game untouched and vacant. It is such a huge waste. Players entering the game now miss 90% of the game. That is just crazy to me. They don’t know where or what anything is in eastern kingdom/kalimdor or outland. They only know northrend pretty much. They power lvl in days to 70 to get to northrend missing all the truly amazing content blizzard spent a decade making. You are absolutely right. there should be no more “here is your new game” expansions. Expand on the richness that the game all ready offers. Fill in all the details, polish it up and give people more to do in the zones that all ready exist. The current business model leaves out giant segments of the WoW gaming population because it can’t keep up with the hardcore, they are exhausting these new content zones in months and then quit playing due to nothing left to accomplish (that is why I stopped, the wait between naxx and ulduar was too long for me). The casuals miss all the original contnet and don’t really get what the game is from missing that experience. So while millions and millions play the game, who is really getting the full experience? Almost no one. WoW will go down as one of if not my favorite game of all time. But while I loved it so much, I hated it for this reason. If they had handled the expansions differently, I would likely still be very active and addicted. But they push so many of us out of the game by shitting on our accomplishments by negating everything we have ever done with these expansions.
FFXI is an excellent example of a game that expanded the content without increasing the level cap. But, that really caters to a different audience. The WoW audience is the “I want it now, gimme, gimme, gimme” crowd that plows through content in months and expects more and more.
I played for damn close to the same length of time you did – from open beta until earlier this year. I stopped raiding hardcore a few months before Wrath came out. Just couldn’t handle it anymore.
There’s so much to do and explore in the zones that are already there, but the majority of the players see nothing but phat lewts and could care less about “old” stuff, so Blizzard builds the game around them.
I played WoW just as long as you guys too. Leveled several characters both Alliance and Horde but I completely agree with what you guys are saying. It’s feels like a joke on how easy the game is now. Turning in marks and reputation to easily get good gear kills the sense of accomplishment of working so hard to get a equivalent weapon from a boss drop.
One of my biggest accomplishments in the game was getting a mount of another faction within the first six months of the games release. It wasn’t long after that when you could get a differen’t faction mount easily by turning in PVP marks.
A horizontal expansion would be a nice idea. Your right, FFXI has made it work out well. As of now I may just continue to let my friends continue doing all the hard work and I may just have to easily obtain better greens after the next expansion. =P
haha yeah Skyler, I created my guild (2nd oldest on our server and definitely one of the older guilds in the game) in dec. of ‘04 and it is still going strong. I let those dudes do all the heavy lifting these days then I can poke in every few months and get geared through 25 mans in a couple weeks and then relax again until the next one haha. Met a lot of good people through that game, a few IRL, and even went to blizzcon in 07 and had a blast watching the starcraft tournaments. I do miss the game and the people, but to be at the top of your game in WoW you have to dedicate more time than I have these days, even with it being easy mode rep. grind bullshit haha.
I only just got wow in may and already have a lvl 80 and lvl 60 and a few low lvl toons but I want them to revamp azeroth because I never spent much time there and I want to do old world raids but no one does them anymore but if they do the revamp ill be able to do all of that and I do like the classic armour a lot