Single best innovation in WoW?

[Galbrei]

One size fits all 20 men mythic raids. Back then I was apprehensive, it did kill my guild at the time when we failed to go from 10 men to 20, but in hindsight I can now see how much better it is to have a unified finish line for cutting edge raiding. I still think it's not being used to it's maximum potential, haven't seen enough mechanics evolving around cool class abilities (the priest mind-control was a common example when they implemented this size) but I do prefer it over what we had before.

[Deleted]

LFD, having to wait hours spamming the discussion channels for a tank and hoping that your healer wouldn't leave in the meantime was painful

[Linri]

i like the transmog thats pretty cool feature
single best is probably the ability to go through an entire continent without having to reload zones upon entering them, its quite seamless in that regard ... unless u are going to another continent, or planet, portals etc

[melodramocracy]

Interesting use of the word innovation for some of these few of these. I'd go with flex raiding.

[ro9ue]

None of these were really innovative when they were introduced to WoW. They were all done before in other games, and most of the time, done better.

WoW's true innovation was being able to take a very niche type of game like EverQuest and condensing it down to something for the masses.

[Deleted]

Transmog, queued Instances (LFD, LFR) as well as the achievement system.

[BuckSparkles]

xmog and toybox.

[LoLcano]

Transmog and LFG tool

[Deleted]

Attunments, so you have to do a quest chain and certain bosses to progress in the content. Which gave a not just a story path to the game but also a "test" to see if you were ready to take on the next content. Not by ilvl , but by skill. Sadly, this is gone

[ldev]

Getting rid of talent trees and having pick one from 3. swtor copied it and rift is dead anyways

[hulkgor]

I wouldn't say any of those is an 'innovation'.

But as far as features implemented on WoW? Transmogs and Mythic+s, vastly ahead of others.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Transmog probably, which is not really an innovation of theirs. They kinda beta tested in D3 after copying from every second other MMO out there.. essentially the best descicison that the project lead at that time signed off on.

Edit: That they aped the LFG tools is probably the best thing with actual impact on gameplay (especially if you aren't in an organised guild). When I play FFXIV every now and then I realize how much of a boon for player retention that tool is.

[Thelxi]

I would say questing. You know having quests all the way up to max level, and then also a ton of quests at max level. At least back in the day WoW was the first MMO as far as I know that had so many quests and almost no grinding to get to max level. I think this was a quality of life upon which much of WoW's initial success hinged.

[Vober]

Honestly, the one thing that keeps me coming back is the transmog system. If they didn't have it in the game I probably wouldn't be playing right now.

[Mendzia]

Dual spec probably.

[Thelxi]

The poll options though are not innovations. The only one I would consider an innovation is mythic+, and I do think it was a great addition to the game. Everything else though had been done many times before Blizzard decided to borrow those ideas.

In regard to the ignorant people saying transmog, imo it took Blizzard a shamefully long time to implement transmog, and we are not even all the way there. Games like Aion had the same exact system years before Blizzard decided it was time to implement some customization. It was immensely frustrating that it took them so long, and we are not even all the way there yet. We still have a few more slots to hide and a few restrictions to lift. And believe me, this will happen, it will just take even more time.

[Craaazyyy]

alot of these werent really innovations.. out of things you named probably m+

and also in vanilla wow didnt have arenas.. so if that counts as innovation then its arenas

[Deleted]

Mythic+ hands down

[thunderdragon2]

i didnt think transmog would be winning....

[Deleted]

Battlegrounds.