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World of Warcraft's Next Expansion: Legion
Today at Gamescom in Germany, Blizzard unveiled the next expansion for World of Warcraft, called Legion. The expansion will raise the level cap to 110 and bring adventurers to a new continent: the Broken Isles. This will include several new zones and be the source of a new demonic invasion. The story will delve deeply into the game world's history and let players use customizable 'artifact' weapons. To fight the invasion, Blizzard is introducing a new class, Demon Hunter, who will start out at a high level and can perform tank- and damage-centric roles.
The PVP system will be getting revamped, and they're introducing Class-specific halls and followers. The expansion will contain the requisite new raids and world bosses, of course. Small dungeons will be getting increased focus in Legion. As with the previous expansion, players will be given a free level boost for one character to the current level cap in order to get started on the new content right away. Blizzard has posted an cinematic teaser, and the full announcement trailer on YouTube. A beta test will start sometime later this year, but no release date has been announced. MMO-Champion has a post full of details known about the expansion.
The PVP system will be getting revamped, and they're introducing Class-specific halls and followers. The expansion will contain the requisite new raids and world bosses, of course. Small dungeons will be getting increased focus in Legion. As with the previous expansion, players will be given a free level boost for one character to the current level cap in order to get started on the new content right away. Blizzard has posted an cinematic teaser, and the full announcement trailer on YouTube. A beta test will start sometime later this year, but no release date has been announced. MMO-Champion has a post full of details known about the expansion.
Is this the "bad times" where they:
- are one of the very few MMOs that sustain the subscription model, and
- even if their numbers fall by 50%, they're still comparable if not greater populations than every other MMO out there?
Seriously, if they fall to 2 million players (unlikely) that's STILL an income of $360 million/year.
Yes, they won't be able to afford a staff of thousands and big fancy digs, but mainly what that means is they'll have less 'gravy' to carry other feeble projects.
-Styopa
The problem is that WoW was taken over by the kids who wanted to brag about how powerful they are.
When I started playing WoW (shortly before the first expansion) every region was filled with players - including the level 1 regions. People were running about and enjoying uncovering the *content* in the game. Clearing a region and getting to the point that one could actually venture into that nearby region that looked interesting from the border took time - and that was OK because the enjoyment of the game came from taking the time to go explore all the content. Each region had a fairly unique "feel" to it and something that was new/different from what was seen before. Players would form up groups just to go see what some place looked like and the chat was wry commentary on the content that was being found. The virtual world was huge and not easily navigated, which forced one to actually go through the content and experience it (there were a few, fixed transportation sites for long distance travel, but that was it). I still have pleasant memories of finally finding the hidden path near IronForge that let one get up to the incomplete dwarven airfields. Completely pointless from a "make me powerful" perspective, but completely fun from the figure out how to go find that content perspective.
As the expansions came out, that experience was lost. It became more of a dash to see how quickly one could get to the end grinding game. The content was less and less appreciate and viewed more as a nuisance to get through in order to start grinding the same dungeons over and over again to collect enough tokens to buy the next piece of gear so that one could go into PvP battles and feel "powerful". The joy in exploring the content was lost and the game was dumbed down and streamlined to make it easier and faster to get to the end game (quests to go find an item were made trivial by having the item(s) glow in various ways, etc).
By the time that WotLK came out, the initial starting regions were ghost towns. The only level 1 players to be found were alts for existing players who were typically running through dungeons as fast as they could by having a friend escort them with a level XX character who would blow away everything letting the low level character level up quickly.
Now WoW has completely given up on new players and even having the existing players run through new content. One gets the expansion and *boom* your level is maxed out and you're playing the end game grind without having to go through all that pesky "content".
It is truly a shame. I really enjoyed the experience of having some *new* to go explore - finding new content - wondering what would be in the next area. It was the exploration of something bright and shiny and new (and the sharing of that with the other players who were of the same mind) that made the game fun. The end game grinding so that one can fight other players is just not that interesting - and as a PvP combat game, it leaves a lot to be desired (hence why Blizzard is *constantly* changing the class specs in order to "balance" the game - it cannot be balanced because the game was never a good PvP combat system). I miss the original days of happily exploring new content with my snowshoe rabbit. I wish there was a game that would strive to recreate that original experience again instead of trying to rehash the PvP combat aspect of the game.
I will tell you a secret. It has never been fun, but it has always been highly addictive to some people. You know you do boring stuff, but get rewarded at the end and endorphins are released in your brain and you want more. After a while you only remember the pleasant things from the game. That time you were really lucky to get a real rare item. That other time when you killed 3 better geared characters in a 1 vs 3 fight. The good feelings you got when you finally completed hard content.
The old content was always better, because you only remember the good things about it. But in reality it has always been boring, maybe even more, while trying to achieve your goals. It has always been a grind. Boring grinding, but simple and hypnotizing enough to keep on going, while being reward from time to time, filling your brain with the endorphins you were hunting for in reality (and not that particular drop).