Originally Posted by
InfiniteCharger
The issue I have with the game is more around the evolution in the idea of what an MMO is and the feeling that, in general, the emergent game play that was promised with most MMOs just hasn't panned out for WOW specifically and has caused some of the growing pains. More and more MMOs just seem like online multiplayer static games on rails. This isn't how things were originally envisioned way back in the day. But unfortunately ideals and theory have to live in the world of business and profit so of course things will change.
So starting from the top:
1) Classes. In Vanilla, they went with the old school approach of the D&D classes (based on Warcraft Lore). Classes had unique spells and abilities and generally all had niches. This meant each class had particular strengths and weaknesses. Ie, magic users could wield powerful spells, but could be easily smacked down by physical attacks because they wore no armor. Tanks had all sort of ways to mitigate damage like blocks, parries and shields but really couldn't heal themselves. And so forth. Giving rise to the trinity of tank, heal, dps for most group encounters. And the underlying philosophy is that there was supposed to be imbalances between classes and specs in various areas. And this 'class fantasy' was reinforced by flavor spells and abilities unique to certain classes. Hybrids, such as druids, never could keep up with dedicated classes by design. But, over time just like with D&D, more classes became hybrids, starting with the first Hero class, which had the ability to heal themselves through combo attacks. And eventually more and more class specific spells and abilities were lost and more classes gained healing abilities, to the point where in WOD, some tanks and DPS classes were topping out the healing meters. Not sure that these kinds of changes are really for the benefit of the game. And then of course with Legion comes a whole new set of class changes revamping a lot of class abilities that were still present. In my opinion, some of these core class design philosophies have swung too much towards the wrong end of the spectrum and classes should absolutely have strengths and weaknesses and the game play should reflect that. An example is how back in the day, certain bosses and mobs were immune to certain forms of magic and had various forms of resists to damage. That has all but been removed from the game. Part of the fantasy of the genre goes back to the tabletop where the fun is in being able to decide the outcome of an encounter based on the mobs present and the strengths and weaknesses of the party composition.
2) The world. Obviously the original game was an entire world or series of zones spread across multiple continents. But that was the beginning and end of the concept of the MMO being a dynamically changing world, especially in WOW. Most MMOs just do expansions and create new zones only for paying customers. And typically these are only for top level players at that. Therefore, over time, the rest of the world goes stale as the events of the new expansion rarely have an impact on these old zones. That really goes against the original idea and philosophy of what an MMO was supposed to be and diminishes the sense of immersion in an open virtual world. Flying would not be the boondoggle it currently is (at least on the forums) if there was actually an entire world to navigate around. There is no rule in place saying that it has to be like that in an MMO and mostly I see it as a business decision to provide incentives for customers to pay for new content on top of a subscription fee. But the problem is what happens when a game is 20 years old and you have areas that are stuck in a time warp? That really doesn't help promote the fantasy of what an MMO is supposed to be. World Building has suffered because of this having the disastrous side effect of limiting the viability of what can be done in the world. The original RTS had no such issues and therefore each version featured tremendous amounts of world building building on and creating much of the established world. But most of those world building/defining events would never have happened in the same way if they happened in WOW, where each expansion does not have the world impact it should have or would have if it was done in the RTS.
3) Lore and Story. Most of the good lore and story for WOW actually comes from the RTS. And the best bits of that were actually interactive parts of the game. What made story and the lore so great was the sense of loss and great suffering during these conflicts of the original games. Given that these bits of lore happened during the RTS, this means it was generated within the game itself. Unfortunately just like world building, this ability to define deep meaningful lore and stories is lost with WOW. You could never have an Arthas or even the scourge if done in WOW versus the RTS. Whole zones and cities could never be destroyed because players would be to worried about losing a flight path, or even better because the arthas expansion would be in a separate zone not connected to the old world and therefore never have the lore and story impact as the original game. This is why Wrath was the pinnacle of WOW in many people's eyes, as it wrapped up a major lore point and story established from the events of the original RTS. The issue then becomes how to generate new lore and stories that are just as meaningful as things introduced in the RTS. (note orcs, the horde, the scourge, demons and so forth all came from the events of the original RTS). The key thing lacking in WOW is that as expansions move along, major lore and story points are abandoned or take a back burner and hence never get updated, which only reinforces the idea of a dead world with little world building.
4) Lack of a serious sense of threat. In the RTS, the events of the game showed that the good guys didn't always win and sometimes very bad things happened that had a devastating affect on the world. This meant that the bad guys actually presented a clear and tangible threat. Take the scourge for example. That was one clear threat introduced from the RTS and continued in WOW to the present day. You have not seen anything like that introduced in WOW itself. Because in the MMO, the champions will always go in and save the day because the bad guys always stay in one place and wait for you to 'get gud' and beat them. This never happened in the RTS. Bad guys did bad things out in the world and either you stopped them or you just got steamrolled. Most times folks got steamrolled. The MMO format doesn't necessarily cause this, as opposed to the way most MMOs have been designed. To most MMO designers, a persistent world means zones, towns and NPCs stay in place forever and therefore nothing bad ever happens to them, which means baddies don't just roam around and wreck shop like they would in the real world. Threats stay in artificially walled off areas called raids and never venture out into the world and DO anything of consequence. Hence they are never a threat. They stay contained in their little theme area and you get to go in and kill them at some point. No massive plagues can be unleashed on towns and citizens. No massive waves of demonic minions laying waste to whole zones, no massive fel asteroids destroying whole areas. Nothing that would naturally induce a sense of threat and danger. And of course you the player can never die so the game play philosophy of WOW as an MMO weakens the emergent game play opportunities that would keep content relevant for a longer time.
I doubt that most of these things were thought about in a serious way when WOW started because most people didn't expect the game to last this long. But given that it has and if they ever plan on keeping it going in one form or another, certainly these kinds of things should be addressed. There are plenty of ways of addressing this, such as option for 'evil/bad guy aligned' factions and for mercenary or pirate factions. WOW currently doesn't support this, but there is nothing that says you couldn't have them in a traditional MMO. Player vs player has more emergent and long lasting game play than purely player vs AI. But all of these things come with hindsight and most folks weren't aware of what would take place over time after most people hit level cap and the game reached centuries old.
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