In your "dream version of WoW", what kind of content would you play every day?

[Levogames]

MoP challenge modes, Throne of Thunder, Alysrazor soloing, Dragon Soul, Mogu'shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, Siege of Orgrimmar, Terrace of endless Spring and MoP zones questing/dailies.

That was easy.

[durenas]

I have a lot of fond memories with WoW over the years, but I definitely felt myself sliding off during Mists of Pandaria. I stopped playing mid-way through WoD, returned in Legion (albeit later, when Broken Shore was the main hub), and unsubbed about a month after BFA, using a few tokens now and then just to see if I want to return.

A big part of the reason I personally feel so disconnected with WoW, today, I think is due namely to two things. First, the Lore is just... bad. It was never AMAZING or anything, but BFA feels like it really just threw a lot of stuff out.

But the other part is simply that my Guild, who I'd played with almost exclusive since Vanilla, has broken apart. It doesn't help matters that US-Medivh is now a fairly under-populated server (which is crazy, seeing it was one of the original servers, and once home to most World Firsts).

Because of that, I think Raiding has become a lot less inviting. We can blame Blizzard for a lot of things, but the fact is that THE COMMUNITY are a bunch of assholes now, and that can only be blamed on those people. Raiding in pugs sucked all the fun out of the game for me.

So when I think "what could Shadowlands do to make me excited to log in EVERY DAY?", the answer I come up with is... sadly, I'm not really sure.

I definitely love the idea of a Housing system. It would add a LOT to do. But how long would that keep me going? What do I actually want to *DO* in the World of Warcraft? I used to love running all my Transmog-runs, but I've eventually gotten pretty burnt-out on all that shit. I still don't have the Ashes of Al'ar, or the Eye of Sulfuras (which I'd been farming since Vanilla), but I can't even bring myself to run through those short instances anymore.

I will say, I feel like Island Expeditions were a cool *idea*. I've not tried them since basically BFA launch, so maybe they're improved. They were kind of a mess, but I thought it was a really cool change of pace. But really, outside of Raiding with *friends* (or even just genuinely friendly people), I've struggled to find any purpose in WoW. And since the game is basically built around skipping anything that isn't the current Raid, it means there isn't a whole lot of variety.

So I guess, for me PERSONALLY, my feelings would be something like this...

1. Give Players some means of policing themselves. Like, if a PLAYER (not Character) gets booted enough for poor behavior or harassment, they're banned from ANY group content across their entire account. Start with a 24-hour ban, then eventually a week, and perhaps even up to a month. Sure, they may unsub, but I imagine a lot MORE people would still be subscribed, if assholes weren't allowed to run around with zero repercussions.

2. Create a linear Raid progression again, like in Burning Crusade. I miss experiencing that "climb", and it provided a lot of incentive and opportunity to run past raids. Especially since some players would want to gear up Alts, while latecomers or less-skilled players could party up with those players to experience that content.

3. I'd probably remove LFR, or at least delay its implementation significantly. Not because "LFR completely ruined the game" or some nonsense like that. But rather, it creates an artificial sense of accomplishment. I was driven to finish ICC because I wanted to see how Arthas' story concluded. With LFR, you don't have that same drive to party with other players. If LFR didn't show up until like 6+ months until after the raid launched, then only those who TRULY need it would use it. And even then, I would make it on the lower-end of the loot spectrum, so that you're still encouraged to experience ALL of an expansion's raids.

4. I *THINK* this may already exist, but I don't fully understand it if it does. Basically, a way to be a part of multiple "guilds" or "social circles" at the same time. Some way that allows me to more easily connect with other groups of players that are more my speed, or willing to overlook my shortcoming (I'm a pretty garbage player now, I think, despite once having been one of the premier DK's around).

All of those things, I think, would create a more inviting environment for Raiding with other players again. And one final thing...

5. More "Green Fire/Mage Tower" solo challenges would also be good. I wouldn't make them gear dependent, but stuff like that is a fun way to keep me playing. Because I know that even when I'm not getting gear, I'm still improving by becoming a more competent player. Being able to out-gear that content was hugely deflating, especially the Green-Fire chain when it was VERY FIRST implemented. That final boss fight was fucking incredible, and it took me weeks to finally down him. It felt like definitive proof I had truly mastered the class, and stuff like that would definitely keep me playing. Like I said, particularly if your gear didn't matter, it was PURELY based on skill.

What about you guys, though? What would you actually like to log in and *DO* when playing the game?

1. It will be abused. People will report bomb people they don't like, not because they did anything wrong, but because they don't like them, or they're just in the way. Never give a player the ability to ban another player, they WILL abuse it.

2. I too miss the climb, the feeling that your long work in gearing up will be rewarded. The flip side is, if you miss a raid tier, you're kind of fucked. Also, raiding guilds don't like having to do old content to gear up recruits. And you have to do that with the Classic/TBC model, or you won't have recruits. I mean, you could poach from other guilds, but that doesn't really solve the problem. I do think we have swung too far in the other direction with the most recent expansion. There's literally no sense that gear 'matters' outside of the bleeding edge mythic raiding. Catch up gear is too good.

3. LFR is fine, mostly because it is currently completely irrelevant. You don't do LFR for the best gear. You can get 445 gear from world quests, now. There's no reason to do LFR except to experience the story/raid.

4. No idea if this is a thing either.

5. Good news, Shadowlands will have the Maw and Torghast, which is supposed to be a single player thing.

[Axram]

Ban Raider.io
make m+ same as legion m+
give us 5-10 man raid content ( with the current population of wow this should of been done years ago)
remove Titanforge/warforge/ Corruption/ upgrade bonuses from loot
-give us old survival Ranged spec back for hunter-
make DK able to tank and dps in any spec again
give demon hunters a 3rd spec

make world pvp drop equilvent to hc gear depending on your kill streak ( 5 kills = random norm gear drop.. 10 kills - random hc gear.... )

[krouger]

WotLK style raids (2 difficulties, 2 raid sizes)
Legion Dungeons / M+ that rewards gear slightly below raid level, at most.
WotLK reputations
TBC professions
WotLK or MoP class design (probably WotLK)
Legion style WQs (including WQGF) that *only reward cosmetics and catch-up gear*. No infinite currency.

No chores. No artificial time-gating. No arbitrary grinds of any kind except for cosmetics, which I think can be grindy and that's fine.

Basically, if someone wants to raidlog 5 characters and do nothing else... that should be possible. If someone wants to farm old raid content for transmog and mounts, that's fine. If someone wants to grind WQs for rep that rewards cosmetics, that's fine. No one should feel forced to do content they hate for character progression.

this would be perfect BUT ... i think classes were a lot more fun in Cata that was only redeeming quality for that shit show of an expansion

[Rendark]

My dream version of wow is one i can be done with. It's why legion will always be the worst. It made it so you can never be done. I used to farm rep, raid and do pvp from time to time. At some point i would be done with everything i wanted to do for that patch so i would just log on to raid. Legion killed that by adding lootboxes to rep for the mounts and AP made it so you could never just log on to raid or else you would be under powered.

[Razion]

Leveling, via questing through story content. Being able to endlessly be able to kind of start from the beginning and hit the reset whenever I felt like it to start the questing experience all over again on a character while retaining experience and gear but being able to level continuously and having those levels eventually upgrade spells and reward more and more talents. Dungeons and Battlegrounds, as a nice break to questing, are nice to have as an option. Being able to queue randomly into ANY dungeon or ANY random battleground with scaled rewards is ideal. There are so many dungeons or battlegrounds, but they're all broken up by level brackets or sizes or whatever it takes away from the variety you could otherwise have at a given moment.

[shise]

Wow is becoming a job, you HAVE TO log in to keep up with some stupid essences or cloak ranks. I remember when I wanted to log in and I had hours of stuff to do, not because it was forced tho if you wanted to progress through.

It is funny how wow went from hard core, to casual friendly, to a mix of both.

And yes, playing every day more than 2 or 3 hours is hard core, anyone with a life knows that. And that is ok, problem is when you have to use half of your play time to do the grinds if you don´t want to fall behind.

So, I would remove all this nonsense systems. Grind for reputations to access vendors where you can buy/upgrade/you name it items, mounts, enchants or actual USEFUL equipment and professions patterns.

Professions should matter.. a lot. Back in the day you simply had no raid spot if you were not maxed out in 2 profs, at least 1 being useful. Now professions are plain useless for the most part.

Literally, I would make WoW become WoW again, and not this evolution the new businessmen driving it seem to be taking which is going to give them huge profits in the short term.. but that is it, short term. They are burning the game to a point that it will simply die off rather quick and we are seen proof of it all over the company.

[Nelson1337]

I would have used this Old God to a gateway for essentially a new WoW. If Blizzard gave me the reigns over say mid BFA before we knew anything of Shadowlands (though obviously they have been working on it for awhile and probably are just starting the next expact after Shadowlands) I would make it so that after Nzoth escapes he invades Azeroth with full force destroying almsot all of it forcing us into the next expansion. The Emerald Dream. There we would start over from level 1 and work our way to 60 in the alternate version of Azeroth. Making it the first all out leveling expansion and rework the talent system at the same time. There would be alter version of familiar dungeons and even raids. It would be similiar to how Classic was via leveling but obviously more polished.

End game would require you to obtain "keys" to dungeons which would help you get geared for the first raid. The story point would we would be gathering our strength as a new hero to eventually return back to the old god infested Azeroth and take them on as a new awakened form. I am sure lore wise this may or may not add up but when does lore matter to Blizzard anyways?

There would be no LFR but the same difficulties of raids that we have currently. I like the norm/heroic/mythic but I think Norm could be tuned down to a littler easier so most casual guilds could beat them but not as brain dead as LFR and still experience the full mechanics to be ready for heroic.

Mythic dungeons I would keep but not for every dungeon only a select few. There would be no way to get gear unless you crafted it got it from a dungeon or raid. No world quests. I would have rep grinds but in a different way. For example usually after we beat an are we arnt anywhere near exalted with these factions yet we do so much for their land. We basically help them with everything and you would think that was enough. Instead I would have end game factions that you barely involve with until you start a quest chain for them that isn't grindy. It would be seeking out certain mobs and doing certain dungeons. Eventually you would unlock dailies at first but they would involve into a scenario thing that would let you kinda do a mini story over some time that ends up with you being exalted. Exalted would allow you the usual pets etc but recipes.

I would make professions huge and in fact I would make dungeons raids and some reps allow you to get super rare resources that let you make your gear. So say you raid for a month and your tier helm wont drop well by then you should have enough resources to make your own or have someone make it for you. Gearing would require you to do end game content but not punish you for luck. Eventually you can get the materials needed to make your gear and be caught up.

I think this would allow for more exploration again. World pvp for valuable nodes and farming dungeons and raids again. I would have world bosses but not weekly someone would appear fora couple days and others would be pretty common.

Basically I would log in to my 60 and see that theres a new quest from the so and so faction that I can do which while I am doing I see eomone needs another dps for so so dungeon and then after that I find out that a super rare boss has spawned in so and so area and their is no sign of the opposite faction so its time to strike. In that time I might have a new piece of pre raid gear maybe some epic gear and some resources. Instead of farming 20 WQ and being nearly geared in one day and hope for a group that can do mythic 20+ .

Also Mythic+ I would keep but it no gear from it isntead just higher chances for rare resources and even recipes and super rare cosemetics and mounts pets etc.

[ceall]

In my dream version of wow, I would be able to log in for raid time (15-30 minutes before invite), get my consumables from the AH for a reasonable price (WoD level of consumable prices) and log off after raid time.

While we're at it, in this dream version there would also be:
-no forced personal loot (or restrictions lifted to always be able to trade away loot)
-dot snapshotting
-cata style shadow priest (pre-orbs as ressource)
-rep tabards
-reps for cosmetics only (if you don't like them, you shouldn't be forced to farm them actively)
-expansion-long legendary quest chain (not acquirable through lfr)
-TIER SETS
-mythic Raiding having an (lower) player count of 15 instead of 20
-lfr as solo tourist mode, awarding heroic dungeon gear at best

[Super Kami Dende]

Rift style zonal invasions should have been how legion invasions were done. With between the zonal events having large portals take the place of rifts. Smaller portals take place of zone points.

They could have had major demon leaders be the end bosses. Maybe KJ in icecrown trying to claim the helm leading a charge against icc.

Mannoroth in Uldum waiting to get at HoO etc

Yeap, when they first brought up the concept of invasions I actually thought they'd be a constant cyclical type of content, because it made no sense for an unlimited population army to take 18hrs of break between every attempt. It should have just cycled between Zones in both the Legion Areas and Azeroth as a whole (whith phasing of course)

It's why BFA felt so dead in outdoor areas as well. You are literally in an all out Faction based War and Skirmishes only happen every so often? Get out.

- - - Updated - - -

WotLK style raids (2 difficulties, 2 raid sizes)
Legion Dungeons / M+ that rewards gear slightly below raid level, at most.
WotLK reputations
TBC professions
WotLK or MoP class design (probably WotLK)
Legion style WQs (including WQGF) that *only reward cosmetics and catch-up gear*. No infinite currency.

No chores. No artificial time-gating. No arbitrary grinds of any kind except for cosmetics, which I think can be grindy and that's fine.

Basically, if someone wants to raidlog 5 characters and do nothing else... that should be possible. If someone wants to farm old raid content for transmog and mounts, that's fine. If someone wants to grind WQs for rep that rewards cosmetics, that's fine. No one should feel forced to do content they hate for character progression.

See that's all well and good, but People like myself like being able to at any point focus on Character progression outside of raiding. I actually don't mind the AP System since it meant if I felt like it I could grind shit all day and be working towards so power increase.

Everything outside of raiding just rewarding rep or cosmetics would basically lose a large amount of Casual players (which make up the majority of the population). Everyone would have a different opinion on what they feel is forced content they hate for Character progression.

People should be able to raidlog, but in doing so should be at a disadvantage to someone who wants to both raid and do other content.

[Vilendor]

Mythic+ without the timer.

Actually anything without a timer. Im sick of it. The original amani warbear made me hate timers and now it's the main content.

[Marc7]

I'm happy with dungeons/m+, raids (could do with 1 less difficulty but all the difficulties do serve a purpose atm. especially since LFR is not really required anymore), and if visions are any indication of quality Torghast will be dope.

World-content is absolutely dire, and has been for the longest time. I think the assaults we have now are better than world quests, but they are still too static. Someone mentioned Rift's open world invasions and something like that might be very cool. Do something about world-bosses, as they are now they are barely worth mentionin and that really sucks looking at their legacy in the game. World-content is by far the thing that needs most work imho, but I do understand that finding a good balance here is difficult. This needs depth, it needs to be accessible and rewarding to everyone yet it can't feel required in such a way that you feel like you need to sink hours and hours into it weekly to be relevant. Weekly content is much better than daily, and world quests suck even worse than dailies, and there are too many of them.

What the game needs most though, in my opinion (not an uncommon one I think) is deeper class-design and a better rewards-structure for the whole game. Class-design is an obvious one. We need to have classes that are fun to play, easy to jump into, yet have mechanics that provide interesting and rewarding gameplay for more specialized players.

I don't know what the solution to the rewards issue is, though. I understand that titanforging and corruption makes all content feel relevant in that if you want to help someone with a m0 dungeon or something you feel like you might get something out of it, and that is genuinely a good thing. However, as things stand the systems they've tried have just destroyed the reward-loop of the game.

[derpkitteh]

daily new story content that lets me know what my character's up to each day.

solo scenarios like mage tower.

solo storymode raids and dungeons.

[Darththeo]

Dynamic zones. Zones that are different based off maybe the Day or week ... or based off the quests you have completed.

Say take the Garrison idea from WoD and improve in to where you are helping built a settlement over several weeks and you make choices on how it evolves. As you make choices that affect what Dailies/world quests you may get. Allow for different buildings based on races, for example, do you build a Blood Knight Barracks or an Orcish one? Which effect what guards you have.

Garrisons in concept were great ... it was the implementation that failed.

[Sondrelk]

Mythic+ without the timer.

Actually anything without a timer. Im sick of it. The original amani warbear made me hate timers and now it's the main content.

Balancing gear would be a nightmare though. +15s would be average since there is no clear possibility of failure. Dungeons would last hours upon hours as each pull would require hero and whatever tiny DPS increase you could scrounge up.

The only way to keep a modicum of difficulty would be to replace the timer with a hard cap on ressurects.

[Tyron]

- No timed dungeons. Instead dungeons where you need to CC mobs. Rotating affixes could be fun too.
- One difficulty raids with optional nerfs every month to allow less skilled people to progress.

[Caerule]

Eh, personally I'd let people create their own personal phases of the world where they can place structures, doodads and NPCs.

Create your own place with all the things in the game.
Set up adventures and quests for your friends or community.
Maybe even design your own raid bosses.

WoW has tons of assets. If given ability to use them, the community would be able to create infinitely replayable content.

[Soikona]

For me, I would go with current WoW but change a few things:

Make m+ about progression not time/score. The idea of progressing a dungeon similar to a raid sounds fun to me.

Remove RNG on gear such as corruption and WF/TF. I want to feel good about the gear I get, not bad because I need to do the content again on the same character to get the item with what I need. Gem slots I am happy with because at least it’s only a one chance.

Remove AP. I just don’t like this progression system, it feels unrewarding.

I would play WoW all day every day with those changes. Not on my main but I would have geared alts that I can do alt raids with without feeling “I might get something better for my main”.

[Kallisto]

I don't care what "mmos are meant to be". I care about game I want to play. WoW used to be more enjoyable for me and it went downwards since Legion.

But that's like saying your perfect doom would be one without the demons and guns to shoot with. Basically, if you don't like the shooting part of the fps why play fps?

[vsb]

But that's like saying your perfect doom would be one without the demons and guns to shoot with. Basically, if you don't like the shooting part of the fps why play fps?

What should I play? What other MMORPG have engaging raid content with good questing and interesting story? I don't know any other game. WoW did not require griding for raiding before Legion.