How to bring back the nostalgia

[Anprionsa]

I have read a lot of forums in the past 9 years that I have played WoW. I've stopped and started so many times (which may have helped overall). And every time that I played the game after a break I felt like I needed to learn it all over (I missed about 75% of TBC). One common theme I've seen and read over this long time is that people missed the "experience", the "noobness", the "exploration". A lot of these people (myself included) want a new game without WoW becoming a new game. We want everything we have now with everything we had then. And for developers I'm sure they see something about the same, maybe. How do you attract new people to the game, while keeping your current members happy? Well I've thought a lot about that, and today it dawned on me. Make WoW 2, inside WoW 1. Or in other words, make a game release as large as the first within the current model (and not just an expansion). I'll explain below.

So, we have a new expansion coming out soon. It will be WoWs 5th expansion. And all of those expansions have carried the same theme of change, of new areas, of new bosses and challenges. Every single expansion has had this structure. Well, it may be time to change that. Perhaps now is the time that Blizzard needs to make a "new" game within WoW. And what I mean by that is making an expansion that moves forward in time (a lot), that makes shakes everything up (more on that below), and is double what any other expansion was/is. This is going to be radical, it's going to be hard, and it's going to turn peoples head.

So here it is!

1) Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms cannot be used. It's time to cut off these continents that we love so much. Stormwind/Ogrimmar and all the capitols need to be not used, they can't. We are so used to them, so used to everything about them... they are too comfortable. All the zones that we know and love have now become enemies to our nostalgia. It would force users to move out of their permanent homes in the old capitols.

But what about all the pets, mounts, raids, my achievements??? Well...
a) You still have alts under a certain level? They are still in that zone, still in the old world that your max level toon cannot be at. Once the new expansion hits, it takes you away once you do certain quests etc...
b) All old raids are now in the CoT. You still want that legendary, still want those pets from those raids... well you can still do it here. You just can't fly to those raids anymore.

2) Level Cap is raised by 20! That's right... 20. Half the fun of vanilla/tbc was the leveling. You got to explore your character, the new zones, etc... and it was long. You had to learn a lot of stuff. This goes into the next one. Also, flying is not allowed until max level, and a quest (not just gold) to unlock.

3) Complete class redesign. Now there are plenty of good class redesigns out there, so I won't really go into that field. Suffice it to say, in order to bring back that level of awesomeness we had. It's time to change the way certain things work in the game. Not completely radical here, but something that throws people for a loop.

4) More than just 1 continent. We need more than just a big area to explore. We need vanilla size here. They need to be big, expansive, and immerse. Where can this be? Well many theories out there about the other side of Azeroth or other planets. All which would be able to explain while in this expansion we wouldn't be able to get to our homes.

5) Different story. Same story, same villains, same mojo. Time for something new, but that feels like we already know about it. What made WoW great from the start was it's connections to Warcraft RTS. We knew the characters, we knew a lot of things, but we still had to learn quite a few more things. This one may be the most difficult as it requires a setup that players enjoy.

These are just some of my ideas. Would this be hard to do... yes. It would be like creating a whole new game. But if Blizzard wants to remain at the top, if they want to really push and give players a new "nostalgia". Then something massive needs to happen. The status quo has been in place now for 6 years. It's time for something different from the expansions of the past. It's time to force players to try something other than what they have used for years.

Just an idea.

Give me your ideas on how to make the game feel like it did when you first played it. They got to be big too!

[Kapadons]

The issue here would be that there are a certain amount of people that like WoW that is today. They have made a huge amount adjustments and upgrades to the game. You cannot force nostalgia. It is different for every single player. That is an impossible model to maintain. The issue with a WoW 2 is the same that plagued EQ2. Any thing that is different gets met with a "well in WoW1 we could do so and so, add that to WoW 2" so you end up with the exact same game or one that is so different the audience for it will be different than what it is now.

[Anprionsa]

The issue here would be that there are a certain amount of people that like WoW that is today. They have made a huge amount adjustments and upgrades to the game. You cannot force nostalgia. It is different for every single player. That is an impossible model to maintain. The issue with a WoW 2 is the same that plagued EQ2. Any thing that is different gets met with a "well in WoW1 we could do so and so, add that to WoW 2" so you end up with the exact same game or one that is so different the audience for it will be different than what it is now.

This isn't a WoW2, new game, different all together game. This the same game, with a feeling of WoW 2.

[Deleted]

Wouldn't work.. I think WoW 2 might though. Updated graphics and instead of adding more, boil everything down so all classes, and all skills would be unique again, with amazing effects and useful for several purposes. More is not always better, it just creates that "cheap" effect.

Using same areas is fine too, actually using only a few would be great, just scaled up in size significantly. For example they could initially only give Stormwind, Ironforge, Elwynn, Westfall and maybe a few more areas to the Alliance and do the same with Horde while leaving the rest for expansions and content patches. But make them closer to their real size, lots or areas to explore, small towns, villages, islands.

[Immitis]

lol you are suggesting max level toons be unable to go back to the old world? thats stupid

[Anprionsa]

Wouldn't work.. I think WoW 2 might though. Updated graphics and instead of adding more, boil everything down so all classes, and all skills would be unique again, with amazing effects and useful for several purposes. More is not always better, it just creates that "cheap" effect.

Using same areas is fine too, actually using only a few would be great, just scaled up in size significantly. For example they could initially only give Stormwind, Ironforge, Elwynn, Westfall and maybe a few more areas to the Alliance and do the same with Horde while leaving the rest for expansions and content patches. But make them closer to their real size, lots or areas to explore, small towns, villages, islands.

Yes, but that would defeat the purpose of doing something completely new that DOESN'T use the old world. In order for a new experience, it may be time to let go of the old for a while (but not forever).

[Sierra85]

But make them closer to their real size, lots or areas to explore, small towns, villages, islands.

It should be on a scale of 1:1 with earth, so it takes days to travel by horse to get to an instance.

[Anprionsa]

lol you are suggesting max level toons be unable to go back to the old world? thats stupid

I am. Like I said, it's to make it completely new.

[Deleted]

It should be on a scale of 1:1 with earth, so it takes days to travel by horse to get to an instance.

Well thats too much to wish for:P I meant making the areas a bit larger so there would actually be places to explore and discover too. If you just need to travel between towns or areas you could use portals, flying mounts or something else to do that. Plus it would be an excellent starting point for real player houses.

[Vilert228]

This goes back to the idea of, entering old azeroth through the caverns of time. Which would make the most sense to do, for lore reasons.

[Karnige]

TO get in the mood i'll create a new class I rarely play and know and start on a completely new server. no gold. brings back the challenge

[Anprionsa]

TO get in the mood i'll create a new class I rarely play and know and start on a completely new server. no gold. brings back the challenge

That is the spirit! But wouldn't you want to do that with a new class they make that you have to get 20 levels for, in zones you aren't familiar with, and not being to return to your comfort places (at least not on that particular toon, you can always go back if want on an alt)?

[Deleted]

Yes, but that would defeat the purpose of doing something completely new that DOESN'T use the old world. In order for a new experience, it may be time to let go of the old for a while (but not forever).

I guess so but it would still be the same game, same engine, oversaturated classes, skills, gear. They simply cant upgrade everything any more, there's just too much of old baggage already. I guess they could just "blow up" Azeroth though.. or say it was irreparably damaged after the legions invasion and send both the Horde and The alliance through a portal to a new unexplored planet and close it behind them. But it still needs to be WoW 2, not just another expansion.

[Anprionsa]

I guess so but it would still be the same game, same engine, oversaturated classes, skills, gear. They simply cant upgrade everything any more, there's just too much of old baggage already. I guess they could just "blow up" Azeroth though.. or say it was irreparably damaged after the legions invasion and send both the Horde and The alliance through a portal to a new unexplored planet and close it behind them. But it still needs to be WoW 2, not just another expansion.

Oh I know! This would be a very large undertaking. It would have to be set up well, it would need a lot of things. What I listed is very, very basic. I'm looking for good ideas to add to it.

WoW 2 really is just going to be a very big expansion (on par with vanilla). It may come with an upgraded engine, who knows.

[Pull My Finger]

Honestly: it's just not really possible to adress people's nostalgia, and I also don't think it's even a problem. People just shouldn't be so backward all the time. It's not a problem of the game, it's a problem that people have in their heads. It's like having a steak on monday and really liking it, and then complaining about your ice cream on tuesday because it has NOTHING to do with the remarkable steak you had yesterday.

Every expansion has something unique about it - a certain feel of its own. The zones, the music, the lore. It's got it's own content and that's the way it should be. What connects them and makes the game homogenous is the continuity. It's different flavors of the same game, where you progress gradually. All expansions rest upon the same inherent systems design, but take the game in slightly different places from there.

I wouldn't call every single WoW expansion my favorite expansion, but I welcome the fact that they all feel different to me. There is a certain classic WoW feel to the vanilla stuff. That's great. It's there, I don't need it a second time. BC feels completely different - it has this ... BC thing to it. Which is completely different from what WotLK feels like. And so on. It's not Blizzards fault that people have this common habit of always measuring things against each other. It's the stupid man's way at looking at life. Less is less and more is more. The bigger the better. If it's more expensive, it means it's better. If you earn more money, it means you're more succesful in life. They view life on a scale, not as a spectrum.

It's not just a WoW thing. People do that all the time. Just like they somehow feel compelled to reject something because they like something else. If you're a fan of sports team A, that means that you hate their rival team and everyone who likes them is a moron. If you like Sony or Sega, Nintendo sucks. If you're a Horde player, Alliance are douchebags. If you drive an american car, japanese cars are garbage. If you like passive guitar pickups, the active ones suck. You get the picture. It's moronic, but for some reason, people are like that. They just don't get the concept of variety and embracing it. It's like when a band releases a new album - there's always so many fans that just aren't able to take it for what it is. They instantly have to compare it to their favorite album of that band. Also a stupid man's way of navigating life. A dumb person measures, a smart one analyzes traits and qualities.

You can't win that situation. If you're doing the only right thing - doing what feels right at the moment - people accuse you of straying too far away from your "roots", doing it wrong, ruining what the whole thing is about, yadda yadda. And if you try to tap into the nostalgia and give people more of the same, they give you crap for ripping yourself off, repeating yourself, rehashing old stuff, not being innovative, doing a cheap copy of what used to make you great and failing at it, etc.

I'm always for radical changes and novelty. Keeps things fresh and things interesting. But whenever Blizzard does something comparably radical, there's all these idiots that go completely berserk over it. They tried something radical in Cata and redid all of the old areas, and was it universally welcomed? No, people bitched. They radically redid the talent system, and a lot of people still can't get over it. So, I don't think it would help the whining and nostalgia if they reset the game completely. Actually, I think it would make the glorification of the "good old WoW" even worse.

[Anprionsa]

I have the same opinion as you Jimmy. However, I think that a lot of people also like the new, the refresh. But you can' really do that when you can always return to where you came from. Sometimes a game or, in this case, the experience needs something more than just the basic "expansion" feel. Which is where I am really coming from with this idea. It's to create something more than just... level up, raid, do new stuff they came out with, go back to home city, sit around, etc...

[Deleted]

I think the problem now is them grasping at straws. More of the same, more of the same.. 10 years.. 20 years. There are limits. New zones and playing sound or music from previous expansions doesn't really help that. More levels and more zones with samey quests doesn't work either. I had my hopes on Titan, WoW at the end was more like a force of habit and even though I did get a little excited about the expansion, it happened less and less every time.

I couldn't wait for TBC, Wrath was amazing too at the start. Cata was already meh.. but I still bought it (maybe being in beta was to blame for the lack of excitement) and MoP.. yeah, no comments. This is why I think they should go for the same route they did with WoW. Completely new game, next gen graphics, engine and very well thought out gameplay with unique classes and abilities.

To bring back nostalgia they could just use music from Vanilla WoW-Wrath, atmospheric settings, some characters from Old WoW.. or their graves or monuments could be around. I'm pretty sure Blizzard could pull this off if they wanted.. but then again that would probably take 10-20 years knowing them.

[yjmark]

imho - Creating a LOT more of the same will not create a "new" feeling. A huge new world with tons of levels will just make it more of a pain in the neck to get to end game raiding (which is what most people want). People complain about 5 levels. Imaging 20 levels......and then alts........yikes! I can't see how that would really be beneficial.

I don't want to seem like a negative Nancy, but I really don't think people just want more to do. There is already a ton of stuff to do in the game, and people don't want to do it all. Vastly increasing the amount of content will not give the game a new feeling.

My personal opinion - they would need to really change how things go. Example - people seem to enjoy raiding. So why not make raiding an effective part of the leveling process? There are a ton of raids out there. If they adjusted the way raiding xp works at lower levels, you should be able to raid your way (effectively) from lvl 50-90. Things like that.

[Nadev]

This is going to be radical, it's going to be hard, and it's going to turn peoples head.

It'd also be expensive as fuck with no guarantee on return. Not that they're bad ideas.

Story has been as big a fun factor as gameplay for video games for me and WoW's story has always been pretty mediocre. The raids don't do a very good job of telling the story (even the ones built up throughout the zones/expansion) and that's probably what drove me away.

[Anprionsa]

Yeah I realize that it may never happen.

Would most of you not enjoy another experience like the one that you initially had? Or do you like the current status quo? I mean, it just seems that people liked the old days, but does that mean you want another experience that is similiar?