We. Need. Warcraft. 2.

[XDurionX]

I could, easily.

Off the top of my head:

• Clean up the lore inconsistencies.
• Clean up the time hopping between expansions.
• Implement a dynamic world from the get-go, where everything scales up and nothing is ever left behind to collect dust.
• Implement modern class systems with more freedom in terms of character building and skill customizations.
• Improved character customization.
• Fewer skills and more action-oriented combat.
• Bigger but fewer zones, with more natural transitions between different environments and climates.
• More impressive raid encounters and dungeons.
• Cities that come to life with better visuals, audio, and so on.
• Dynamic weather patterns and day/night cycles.
• I could go on.

Now, some of these can technically be achieved in WoW. But they probably never will be, because they are such drastic departures from what we've got. WoW, at this point, is something Blizzard would rather not meddle too much with -- even if a change here and there would make a lot of sense. WoW 2 would open up so many doorways for them.

...none of which couldn´t be done in WoW. And vast descriptions like "improved (...) and better (...)" won´t do.

[Mectrid]

I'd like WoW2 one day. Not for lore reasons, as you yourself said there's nothing wrong with creating new villains in game. I would like the main story to not be accessed via novels/raiding though, or have an alternate way to see it atleast.

The thing WoW needs most is a new engine and combat system. All the end game stuff still needs tweaking as it's never been quite perfect for every crowd though I feel like if they focus on feedback a bit more in terms of what players want they're already on their way there with the introduction of flex raids and the new quest tracker bars as opposed to kill 15 piggies. They just need a little more variance than just today it is this daily quest, and tomorrow it is this one, hooray!

Still, WoW is plenty healthy enough for now to keep us satiated until Blizzard decide to develop it, if they indeed do which I believe they will assuming they have someone just as dedicated take over for Metzen when he wants to start giving input on other projects more. Sure it's his baby but I believe that change is good and we'll maybe see the focus on other lore characters than we're used to now and the introduction of strong new ones rather than them becoming a Garrison follower (seriously I had such high hopes for Thisalee Crow and now she's just fetching me oil.)

And for those talking about WC4 and what it could entail, literally anything that happens in any of the next 3 novels, along with some of the previous ones, Emerald Nightmare campaign? Yes please. (Though on that note.. Emerald Nightmare Caverns of Time raid/dungeon? Yes please.)

[Deleted]

Edit:
Regarding the thread title, I obviously mean World of Warcraft 2.

What ho,

It has to be said. WoW isn't just suffering because of one poor expansion. WoW is suffering because its core gameplay loops are dated. The gameplay and style which accumulatively made WoW great back in the days has mostly vanished, and the features which remain (like raiding and repeatable grind content) aren't that good to begin with. They might appeal to you, who's been doing this for 10 years with your tightly-knit group of friends. You do this out of habit. But to the average gamer out there? Nope.

WoD might have lost the biggest amount of subscribers yet, but the graph on the front-page doesn't just show that. It shows a steady decline of interest beyond the opening questing experience, ever since the days of Wrath of the Lich King. People want the grand adventure, but WoW isn't offering it to them anymore. They come in with the launch of an expansion, and they leave. But with each expansion, they leave in greater numbers, and earlier in its life-cycle.

If Warcraft is to have a future as a big open-world game, it needs to re-invent itself in a drastic way. X6 might end up fantastic, but I'm willing to bet you there'll still be grind, there will still be a lack of meaningful world content and lore, and we'll still be spending most of our time doing things which truth be told aren't that much fun by today's standards.

We need World of Warcraft 2, or just Warcraft, or what ever you prefer calling it. A fresh perspective on the Warcraft-universe, not just trying to appear as if it's a modern game, but actually being one. (Note: Modern doesn't have to imply League of Legends. It can also mean The Witcher or Skyrim.)

Yep i agree we need wow 2.
But we might have a problem in getting our wow 2.
Wow was an improved version of an existing succesful MMORPG, a genre who was having a very high demand from players.
So the question is, do you by any chance find anywhere any other MMORPG very succesful and with a very high demand from players? ( FFXIV subs close to 500k)
I do but it is not a MMORPG, and it is not called wow 2, but Hearthstone and Heroes of the storm.

[Deleted]

...none of which couldn´t be done in WoW. And vast descriptions like "improved (...) and better (...)" won´t do.

As I said in my post, a lot of it is technically possible. But not practically, because it would either (a) take up too much resources or (b) piss too many people off. If you want to re-invent WoW past a certain point, you need to do it from scratch, without messing with the existing product.

[Ratyrel]

Unsurprisingly those are the answers I expect from a community made up mostly of Mythic raiders (MMO-Champion). I don't care. The point needs to be made, because it's true. Numbers do not lie.

Numbers say nothing, they're numbers. And interpretations lie.

MMOs seem to be over, people play differently now. Starting WoW 2 now with a development time of 5+ years is pointless - after all, what would it change?

• Clean up the lore inconsistencies.
• Clean up the time hopping between expansions.
• Implement a dynamic world from the get-go, where everything scales up and nothing is ever left behind to collect dust.
• Implement modern class systems with more freedom in terms of character building and skill customizations.
• Improved character customization.
• Fewer skills and more action-oriented combat.
• Bigger but fewer zones, with more natural transitions between different environments and climates.
• More impressive raid encounters and dungeons.
• Cities that come to life with better visuals, audio, and so on.
• Dynamic weather patterns and day/night cycles.
• I could go on.

Growing lore is always inconsistent after a while. Organic development is a strength of the franchise and with reboots you just end up losing much of that accumulated meaning.

Action combat and free character customisation on a skill level are complete departures from WoW's core gameplay which revolves around easily accessible, slow but snappy combat and hero archetypes. What makes the resulting game WoW 2? More character customisation is coming in the next expansion.

Everything looking prettier is a given, but WoW does that every expansion. The style of dungeons and raids is a design choice, again intended to provide accessibility, clarity, and player guidance. Also WoW has dynamic weather and day/night cycles, doesn't it?

[mentalass]

I could, easily.

Off the top of my head:

• Clean up the lore inconsistencies.
• Clean up the time hopping between expansions.
• Implement a dynamic world from the get-go, where everything scales up and nothing is ever left behind to collect dust.
• Implement modern class systems with more freedom in terms of character building and skill customizations.
• Improved character customization.
• Fewer skills and more action-oriented combat.
• Bigger but fewer zones, with more natural transitions between different environments and climates.
• More impressive raid encounters and dungeons.
• Cities that come to life with better visuals, audio, and so on.
• Dynamic weather patterns and day/night cycles.
• I could go on.

Now, some of these can technically be achieved in WoW. But they probably never will be, because they are such drastic departures from what we've got. WoW, at this point, is something Blizzard would rather not meddle too much with -- even if a change here and there would make a lot of sense. WoW 2 would open up so many doorways for them.

There's also a lot of value in simply having a Tabula Rasa, where you can start again. For instance, a lot of the writing in WoW is atrocious. Suddenly hiring writers and placing a ton of emphasis on rich and meaningful stories from this point on might seem a bit odd and inconsistent as you play through the game, and the writing suddenly improves. Having a new game would let them focus on such things from the start.

Some more things I would like to see.

• No classes, let players pick a race and design totally what they want to be based on weapons they want to play with and magical schools they want to choose. And as for balancing to hell with it, the real world is not balanced why should a fantasy world, you basically play how you want to play. Obviuslly if you picked a Tauren stealth you will be seriously restricted by your size, that is where your druid form would come in to play.
  
• A level cap that never changes. When new expansion come out just give new gear.
  
• Better profession. Wouldn't it be great to be a spy. Where you enter a city to cause damage, or to assassinate a mob. Or a pirate where you control actual ships. Or even a politician, where there is a parliament that decides things (e.g. What buffs yor faction will have for a week etc..)
  
• No flying. Blizz made the world small with flying mounts, keep to land mounts.
  
• Actually have certain spells only obtainable by doing content out in the world. Maybe you have to visit ancient library's that contain ancient text that sends you on a chain quest.
  
• World PVP in like WG, in every zone that is optional in that if you enter the zone you are automatically flagged.
  
• A tall order this but would add so much immersion, is seasons. Would be amazing if at the start of autumn they reboot servers with falling leaves on trees, come December, they reboot the servers with visable snow fall etc..
  
• having weather actually effecting gameplay. eg. if it is snowing someone that follows a frost school in magic will have small buff. Visibility is cut so in PVP you could be walking into a zerg etc...
  
• Playing housing.
  
• Make the game highly skin based, so that everyone looks unique.
  
• Armor dyes.
  
• Hybrid races. Half Orc etc...
  
• Give titles very everything. If you kill 1000 Murlocks you get 'the Murlock Slayer' title. If you 1000 apples ' the apple picker' it adds more customization.
  
• Raid bosses should be done with 100% raid team, not with Thrall or any other hero, and you characters should feature in the cinematic. Seeing Thrall kill the boss, takes the victory away from the players.

And these are just ideas of the top of my head. I am sure a whole team of game designers could come up with some amazing ideas.

[slev36]

It's never happening. The upfront cost of developing another MMO even if its a sequel/replacement for a current one is insane. Blizzard has also stated they have no plans at this point to ever do a new MMO or a WoW2

[Deleted]

Growing lore is always inconsistent after a while. Organic development is a strength of the franchise and with reboots you just end up losing much of that accumulated meaning.

It doesn't have to be. WoW's lore is a disaster in some regards right now, more notably in the flow of questing from level 1 to 100. You jump through time, which is awful in a persistent world.

Action combat and free character customisation on a skill level are complete departures from WoW's core gameplay which revolves around easily accessible, slow but snappy combat and hero archetypes. What makes the resulting game WoW 2? More character customisation is coming in the next expansion.

That's sort of the point. We need a departure from aspects of the gameplay. Otherwise I suspect the game will keep bleeding subscribers. Action-bars is a thing of the past; players nowadays want more reactionary realtimey combat. Deep customization, few buttons. Right now we have hardly any customization, but plenty of buttons.

Everything looking prettier is a given, but WoW does that every expansion. The style of dungeons and raids is a design choice, again intended to provide accessibility, clarity, and player guidance. Also WoW has dynamic weather and day/night cycles, doesn't it?

There are some things you can't fix in an expansion, like the small size of the world or the weird layout of the zones. This would require a new game to fix.

The dungeons are a choice, but it's a choice which was made 10 years ago. And even then, dungeons today aren't really what they were back then. They're more watered down and less challenging. Dungeons more akin to those of Skyrim would be amazing. Deep caverns where you need torches to see; hidden chambers and buried treasures. Traps!

WoW does have a day and night cycle, and weather. But it has been significantly nerfed in recent years, to the point of hardly being noticeable at all. Some people say it's because it doesn't really appeal to every player to have those effects be very apparent. But a simple on/off toggle should take care of that problem easily. I think it's more to do with the limitations of an ageing engine; if they brush up on models, they need to cut down elsewhere.

[Sorrior]

...none of which couldn´t be done in WoW. And vast descriptions like "improved (...) and better (...)" won´t do.

Alot of things cannot be done though due to technical limits or things to do with the games engine

[iindigo]

I just want to be able to level a new character through an Azeroth without all of the shattering bullshit. It's so depressing to spend 60 levels in a world that's broken, burning, and generally a shadow of its former self.

[nullcakes]

No, what WoW needs is a

* Consistency update
* Engine rework
* Quest update/ cleanup
* Alternate leveling, timewalker leveling
* A new expansion that fixes WoD
* Not new classes, but a sort of "make your own class" or if you're a mage you're not just "Fire" or "arcane" or "frost" but you can make your own builds, or choose a specific path or specialization but still be able to deviate from it
* A bunch of new races/unlockable subraces