My letter to Blizzard, to make WoW good again

[sorosshillcia]

WoW has sucked for 8 years. I stopped playing during MoP. Developers are making some changes for the better, like restricted flying and fixing leveling. To sum things up, this is what needs to be done:

1. Retcon selective Cataclysm changes that destroyed the feeling of the old world, and make Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms time-neutral. Create a progression between the expansions that feels natural and smooth.

EK and Kalimdor are hilariously based around throwaway villains that weren't really even integral to their own expansion: Deathwing and the Twilight Cult, and Garrosh to a lesser extent. To a new player it makes no sense to have this interaction, than jump to parts of the timeline, fighting villians that appeared BEFORE and AFTER cataclysm. I CAN'T EVEN TELL YOU WHAT A FAILURE THIS TYPE OF CURRENT SETUP IS. Retcon Deathwing destroyed areas and bring back Vanilla WoW quests, that are more of a predictor of the type of enemies you meet in later expansions. How does it feel to have the introductory part of the game lockjawed at one of the worst WoW expansions?

The original two continents should feel like a big hubworld where you are introduced to ANY AND ALL enemies and friends you meet in later expansions. Burning Legion, Sylvanas doing evil deeds, Zandalari, Gul-dan, undead Stranglethorn trolls, pre-Bolvar scourge, grellkin, Hozen, Oracle tribe.. Original WoW brought a large variety of characters and enemies to the table on the original continent before Deathwing destroyed shit. Make the quests feel more open-ended in regards to the time they take place. If this means cutting Garrosh and Deathwing from Kalimdor, then do it.

2. Go back to Vanilla/BC class specs, where things DID NOT FEEL FAIR, but were chaotic and fun. Where you had to mess around with versions of spells and your spellbook to do solid damage. Where you had to change spects do defeat a boss and use weird, random spells to kill an elite.

Current WoW class balance is, "GIVE THEM ALL THEY WANT WITH NO PENALTY, THEY CAN BE WHATEVER THEY WANT AND DO ANY AMAZING THING ANY TIME, BUT EVERYONE DOES THE SAME AMOUNT OF DAMAGE AND HAS THE EXACT SAME ABILITIES IN DIFFERENT FLAVORS". This communist bullshit has to stop. Don't get hung up if it feels sloppy, because it should. Things should feel unbalanced and insane, with limited buttons to counter-balance the confusion. Some character's spells should feel worthless, and others should be massively OP. Some players should absolutely SUFFER through slow leveling, and weak armor when playing solo. Then next patch, shake everything up again. Allow Warlocks to one-shot Druids for a few months, then allow druids to do the same to priests. Give the players the tools, and let the elitist jerks figure out how to use them.

3.RETCON parts of the lore that are terrible. Just start retconning shit that doesn't make sense. Change the lore so that it feels right for the game and greater integrity of the lore. Have the characters access Draenor in some way other than 'Garrosh time-travel 2 get 2 Draenor'. You figured out how to do the mental gymnastics to get us there, now find some way that makes more sense. Second;y, bring back ships and simple portals and other shit to get to new continents, instead of long-winded 'emotional' moments like the Broken shore Game of Thrones episode, and the 30 minute interaction with Anduin Wyrnn to get to Twilight Highlands. Cut Draka, cut Illidan getting his head cut off in the Black Temple, Kael-thas getting his head chopped off in Tempest keep. cut all the second and third deaths of major characters, retcon character deaths of figures you want to use in the future, cut thrall's Jesus quest in cataclysm, cut the alternate reality versions of Warlords characters, cut Y'rel crying at liquid-Velen's death, cut the dragons losing their powers, cut the bookend of the Infinite dragonflight that occured in Cata..

Bring some integrity back to the lore by putting rules in place again. Everyone knows the lore is a mess, and most would probably be happy if a mass correction occured, removing all the shitty decisions Chris Metzen made when he was doing coke.

4. The in-game cutscenes take the players out of the game and look weird. WoW was never meant to have this, and it was a huge mistake when they were added in in cataclysm. None of this shit looks cool with WoW's ugly graphics. Gun fights in Pandaria with pixelshit explosions to rival Chinese Unity games make your game look cheap and unthoughtful. Cut all of this fat out. Especially take out every cutscene from the raids, nobody watches them anyway. Especially remove that abortion end-cinematic of Cataclysm.

5. To add on to the last point, take out the more experimental quests that were added from Wotlk on, especially the ones where you turn into other characters and use meters to track your objectives. All quests are boring anyway, does putting some flashing meters and meme references in somehow make them funner? Does using a buggy machine gun to kill 200 undead somehow add something that killing them and collecting their gizzards does not? Questing is a horrible gauntlet to go through to get to the end, and at least when Vanilla used quests, they knew that was true, and the tedious design reflected this.

6. Stop making the characters all-powerful.

Legion has been the most at fault for this mess. Your character is not a major lore character and shouldn't be treated as such. As Shigeru Miyamoto says, "Games are a dialogue between the developer and player". When Blizz gives us these precious lore weapons it feels like the communication is CONDESCENSION AND LIES, because EVERYONE ELSE IS RUNNING AROUND WITH THE SAME FUCKING WEAPONS. Stop giving us special dialogue between our 'special' characters and lore figures. In Vanilla we were supposed to be footsoilder peons in the army of our faction, and that's the type of role that we belong in in an MMO. These moments are okay maybe once in an expansion, but not constantly. BC's Gul'Dan quests were a good example of this type of storytelling.

7. Cut the toybox, cut dress-up shops, battle pets, cut mount pockets, cut heirlooms, cut achievements.

Basically, this shit has turned the game into a Barbie dreamhouse game. It's a true embarrassment how much WoW focuses on dress-up and simple vanity items. Having them in the game is delightful, but basing the UI around how many pretty items you can fit in your pocket is retarded. Limit bagspace, and if a player can't fit 100 mounts in his backpack then tough shit. He swhouldn't even have that much anyway.

Heirlooms, pets and toybox items are superfluous. They add nothing to the game, except for the lizard-like focus on hoarding mass amounts of useless crap.

8. Nuke raid and dungeon finder. Do it now.

9. Hire the composers from Vanilla, and stop making every song so intense. Creating a feeling with an epic score doesn't work in a game thats so dependent on other players. The background tunes should be vague and mystical, like in Vanilla WoW. Music should only be used lightly. Nowadays, every area you walk in is underscored with that stupid Gregorian chanting.

10. No flying in any continent till you pay VAST SUMS OF MONEY and do MONTHS of INSANELY TEDIOUS QUESTS. This is something Blizzard has been 100% right about since Warlords.

To sum things up, the game is not whole. Figure out the story, redo the story that has been butchered to create the groundwork for future expansions and future RTS games. Change all the really bad decisions that have been put into the game and make things flow again. In my opinion, the graphics hole up going from each expansion to the next(even in EK and Kalimdor), but the story is all over the place. This is to be expected after practically 15 years, but some severe fat trimming is due if this game is to continue. At this point, you could do nothing to make the lore more appealing other than to do mass retconning. By the time it's finished, it should feel almost like an alternate history of World of Warcraft- a product you would have made if you hadn't made terrible decisions.

Look back at everything you would have said "I wish we hadn't done that", and go back and remove it or add it in. The time is now to create a good version of your game, as if the old version never existed.

[Deleted]

I have good news for you, most of the things you want are going to be in Blizzard's upcoming new game called "World of Warcraft Classic".

[Toast515]

I almost laughed. Almost.

[Zyky]

WoW has sucked for 8 years. I stopped playing during MoP. Developers are making some changes for the better, like restricted flying and fixing leveling. To sum things up, this is what needs to be done:

Not even going to read past this, your opinion literally means nothing if you stopped playing in MoP and Blizzard wouldn't take you seriously starting any kind of feedback like that. If you have no experience playing the game, and no "watching people play" or "listening to other people talk about the game" does not validate your opinion because you have zero personal experience to launch your feedback with.

[Echocho]

I think there's an upcoming game that you might enjoy called World of Warcraft: Classic.

[Raetary]

ooooor you could just go play classic once its out.

and boom, all the "issues" that arent issues to anyone besides you will be gone.

[sorosshillcia]

I have watched other people play, that's obvious from the rest of my post.

[Deleted]

I think there's an upcoming game that you might enjoy called World of Warcraft: Classic.

This^... 10 chars

[Toast515]

I have watched other people play, that's obvious from the rest of my post.

That is TOTALLY the same experience as playing it yourself.

[Zyky]

I have watched other people play, that's obvious from the rest of my post.

Which as I said, doesn't validate your opinion at all. With zero personal experience your opinion is worthless.

[Usagi Senshi]

I have a better solution: just stay away from this game because its obviously not for you anymore. I also can't really take you seriously anyway when you quit during one of the best expansions ever made for the game. I quit as well but only because I didn't want to raid the same damn raid for 12+ months.

All of your expectations and demands are super unrealistic anyway.

[TheLimonTree]

I have watched other people play, that's obvious from the rest of my post.

I've watched people play dota. Clearly I know exactly what changes are needed to make it balanced.

[xcitng]

Games been bad for you for 8 years*

[Raetary]

I have watched other people play, that's obvious from the rest of my post.

and that validates your opinion how exactly?



you havent played the game since 2012.
5 years ago.
your opinion is as worth as my underpants.

[Super Kami Dende]

WoW has sucked for 8 years.

If you think it has sucked for 8 years, why are you even still caring about the game?

Jesus Christ man, act like a Normal Adult and move on with your life, you sound like a pathetic lonely Guy who can't stop stalking his ex-gf.

[Feuerbart]

Wow is great. I would rate it fantastic with less RNG. But great it is even with this much RNG.

[Deja Thoris]

They won't even use that wall of text as toilet paper.

[Deleted]

You need to get laid mate.

[GKLeatherCraft]

Which as I said, doesn't validate your opinion at all. With zero personal experience your opinion is worthless.

Hit the nail on the head.

But there's no way this guy isn't trolling, No-one can be that mentally handicapped, Right?

[Deleted]

Whilst all your other points are just idiotic ranting, I agree with point 1. The world should be rebooted to a time neutral experience, it would need serious work and I doubt we'll ever see it.