Increasingly Optimistic: BFA seems to be the start of a much-needed reboot

[Metacrias]

I've thought about the long-term future - and viability - of WoW since MoP. It has generally been my opinion - until recently - that the franchise would eventually have to do WoW 2.0, beginning fresh with maybe some way to transfer old WoW accounts to maintain some continuity. The issue as I saw it was the need to attract new players; a lot of us who have been playing for several expansions are getting older and playing less and we know the playerbase is much smaller than it was at its prime. While WoW can't really hope for those numbers of subscribers again (barring substantial expansion into untapped markets), the game needs to attract new players and WoW has become to unfriendly to newcomers - something a 'reboot/sequel' would seemingly achieve.

However, the increasingly effective means of upgrading the games' systems and graphics has made it easier to patch in, and use expansions for more major revamps, the changes needed to keep WoW viable. This makes part of the need for a 'real sequel' moot - we can get totally new systems, entirely new graphics engines, etc. without every destroying the existing WoW realms.

The other major issue has been leveling. Now with 120 levels, beginning a new toon - especially as a new player with little gold and few if any heirlooms, is extremely intimidating (and one free max level isn't that helpful for a new player who will more than likely choose a class that won't end up being best suited for hem). Fortunatetly, it appears Blizzard is very aware of this (and how it also affects alts - with each new expansion, beginning a new alt becomes all the more tedious). Even before BfA we've seen an expansion sized change with the change to leveling. I tend to think this is just the beginning; I think we'll see continuous work on consolidation of leveling, the story, old zones, etc).

I also think BfA is doing right by moving more away from toons being demi-gods to them simply being great warriors again. Moreover, the new subraces appear to be just the beginning of a huge expansion on choices for customization of existing races, the addition of many new sub-races and the easy addition of new races (Vulpera certainly look like they are made to join the alliance with the Sekarath finally giving the Horde a snake-race soon). They also seem more interested in increasing spec/toon customization.

It appears a mild-reboot can occur via an expansion or two and a slew of patches.

[Deleted]

Agreed. with the recent posts agout what graphics we are supposed to be using they can start upgrading many things. Plus what has been datamined today makes me look forward to it immensly.

[Aggrophobic]

Why do you care about visuals when they haven't talked about the actual gameplay at all.
Why does graphics matter if the game is poorly designed?

There are a lot of MMOs out there with much better visuals but thats hardly enough for them to do well.

[Korru]

WoW 2 won't happen anything soon with how the market is right now.

[owbu]

While I dont think that BFA is the start of any of those trends, it might be the first expansion that really benefits from the main gamesystem (world quests, dungeons, raids) being stable enough now, that they can actually focus on making a good expansion, instead of having to reinvent the wheel.

And hopefully, at the end of BFA, their new and imrpoved leveling will have been run through enough iteration, to reach the quality levels of the other systems.

[Zka]

Not sure how 1-120 is indimidating. I guess that's going to be about 4 days played for a new player. Compared to the 10-15 days it was in classic, it's still a very quick experience. Other than this I agree that the game has way too much information to take in for a new player and it's full of players with 10+ years of experience. It's really hard to get to the level of veteran players. I've seen lots of people coming from other games and boy they sucked even after months of training.

[Deleted]

Well we kinda have to have a reboot after all the shit that will happen during the BfA story. We have phasing tech, we have scaling tech, we have new models. All we need now is a coherent story from 1 to the cap and classes that are fun to play.

[Aeula]

I’m seeing indications that they’re making changes to bring Vanilla players back.

For example I’ve heard that some threat reducing enchantments have been datamined. This overall has me worried for the future of the game. The audience for vanilla is very niche at best and the vanilla community has proven to be so toxic that I wouldn’t be wanting those kind of players back anyway as they’re likely to drive off new comers and the existing casual player base.

I was ready to pre order BfA no matter what for the Allied races. Now I’m not even sure if I’ll buy the expansion at all.

[MyndZero]

I don't really think it is. I think if they were serious with going down that route from an appearance standpoint one of two things would happen.

They would squish the level cap at the same time, as you say 120 is intimidating and this fact will only get worse. But if they are going to do this, they should also work out a way to deliver expansions without raising the level cap, but still make it feel the same.

The other way would be, they actually reboot the game. They compeletly overhaul the entire game making massive sweeping changes (perhaps a new combat system, like action combat) and modify the world drastically to accompany these changes and any new story points, while not getting rid of the content they've created over the years. They would just be modifying it heavily (basically like cataclysm did). They wouldn't need to give us all the content back either, we could go back to just azeroth to start off with, but they would have all this content they can continue to modify to help fill the patches / future expansions with any extra new stuff they want to add.

[Kyriexo]

WoW 2 won't happen anything soon with how the market is right now.

I can only imagine this statement is coming from someone with a lot of experience in the field. Remember kids, if you have a personal opinion about something that doesn't make you smart/unique.

[Korru]

I can only imagine this statement is coming from someone with a lot of experience in the field. Remember kids, if you have a personal opinion about something that doesn't make you smart/unique.

What ever happened to Blizz's second MMO? Oh wait it was recreated as an arena shooter that is bringing Blizz a bigger crapload of money.

[Jakisuaki]

Agreed. with the recent posts agout what graphics we are supposed to be using they can start upgrading many things. Plus what has been datamined today makes me look forward to it immensly.

What post? You got a link? It sounds interesting

[Lidenbok]

I was ready to pre order BfA no matter what for the Allied races. Now I’m not even sure if I’ll buy the expansion at all.

Oh god, turn down the dramatics . It's one piece of string from the first ever alpha build that vaguely suggests something. It be could anything, for all we know it's a placeholder. If something added in an unfinished, un-mined alpha is enough for you to quit, perhaps you should find something else to throw your money at.

Even if threat management did come back, it's not going to be a copy/paste from Vanilla. I think Blizzard has made it pretty clear they're developing a game for the masses and not the 5% of player base that want superhardcorewildstarmode.

[Deleted]

Agreed. with the recent posts agout what graphics we are supposed to be using they can start upgrading many things. Plus what has been datamined today makes me look forward to it immensly.

Huh? Since when did Blizzard tell us what graphics we are supposed to be using? Stop lying.

[Queen of Hamsters]

The "reboot" already happened with Legion. Not only did they do a 180 from WOD, but they managed to create more hype than I've ever seen for new content to this game, aside from perhaps the announcement of the ICC patch.

WoW2 is never happening.

[Deleted]

Huh? Since when did Blizzard tell us what graphics we are supposed to be using? Stop lying.

They're likely referring to the recent changes in minimum spec which will be required for BFA. DX11 or Metal and also Shader Version 5 and Up I believe. Also 64bit Windows will be a requirement.

So yeah, not lying.

SOURCE: https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...TR-Build-25826

[Linkedblade]

Well we kinda have to have a reboot after all the shit that will happen during the BfA story. We have phasing tech, we have scaling tech, we have new models. All we need now is a coherent story from 1 to the cap and classes that are fun to play.

Yeah, a single current story not the one we have now where you time travel to a different period every 10-20 levels

[Aeula]

Oh god, turn down the dramatics . It's one piece of string from the first ever alpha build that vaguely suggests something. It be could anything, for all we know it's a placeholder. If something added in an unfinished, un-mined alpha is enough for you to quit, perhaps you should find something else to throw your money at.

Even if threat management did come back, it's not going to be a copy/paste from Vanilla. I think Blizzard has made it pretty clear they're developing a game for the masses and not the 5% of player base that want superhardcorewildstarmode.

Threat is just an example.

The whole deal with level scaling shenanigans and how they overtuned timewalking dungeons are making me feel like they’re gearing the game back towards the Vanilla crowd.

Not to mention I didn’t like Legion or WoD and things aren’t improving.

[Soulwind]

People have been saying this for the better part of the last 10 years. There is nothing wrong with the MMO market. The reason all (more or less) MMOs fail is not because of the mythical "over-saturation" bs you keep hearing about, it's simply because they're terrible games.

If a proper MMORPG were to be released with innovative features and depth to it, you can bet your ass it would be a smash-hit.

Blizzard have realised that there's no point in producing $100m games anymore, when they can earn the same with a $5m game. That's the real reason WoW 2 won't happen... ever.

It's a lot simpler than that. Any MMO coming out right now competes with WoW's 10+ years of content. No matter how great the game is, it won't ever be large enough.

If they launched WoW 2 now, it'd have a fraction of what WoW has, it'd be suicidal. Nobody would stop playing the game they have thousands of hours spent in to start all over again in a brand new game that won't have nearly as much to offer for many, many years.

The promise of it someday being comparable to what we have now is not enough.

In order for WoW 2 to happen, WoW 1 must have been completely closed for a few years, and even then it'd have to compete against other new MMOs, all trying to become the next big thing.

The current game still has probably 4-8 years of proper development, after that it could realistically enter a "maintenance mode", in which they'd fix bugs and do some tuning, but not release any more major patches or expansions. And who knows how long would they support the game before closing it. So this hypothetical situation in which they'd be able to develop and release a WoW 2 is more than a decade away still.

[Velerios]

Threat is just an example.

The whole deal with level scaling shenanigans and how they overtuned timewalking dungeons are making me feel like they’re gearing the game back towards the Vanilla crowd.

Not to mention I didn’t like Legion or WoD and things aren’t improving.

If they wanted to please more the vanilla-crowd, they wouldn't shove us a crappy alliance vs horde story down the throat. Alliance vs Horde is more cataclysm-like; and we know how this ended.