I have been playing a lot of Wildstar beta recently, and the more I play it the more I appreciate how good of a game WoW is. That is not to say Wildstar is a bad game, its more just saying how well-crafted WoW is.
WoW's secret formula for success has proven very hard to recreate. Its more than just having lots of content or a new feature, its that 'it' factor that is the hardest thing to get right. WoW just felt right; the animations, the controls, the lighting, the way the world was rendered, the visual and auditory feedback from both mobs and the UI, the art style; all of these things mesh together in a very cohesive way to form a gameplay experience that feels smart, engaging and intuitive. Its damn near impossible to get that right and Blizzard absolutely nailed it. This to me is WoWs greatest asset, its the single biggest edge it has over all its competitors who have never been able to create that same level of engagement, no matter how hard they try.
The rarity of that asset makes it extremely valuable. Despite WoW's age, I firmly believe it could turn its fortunes around and grow once again into a 10+ million sub game with the right tweaks. The foundation is there: the technical brilliance of the world environment and gameplay. That's the hardest part to get right and WoW already has it. Its just building on that to bring the world back to life.
To me what WoW needs is that sense of mystique and wonder in the world. A sense of danger lurking around the corner. Whispers of the ancient forces of good and evil that form the deep and rich lore of Azeroth, but these whispers and forces need to be felt throughout the world, not just told in dialogue or in raids. Suck us into the World of Warcraft, let us feel all the dangers, the ancient histories of horrifying beasts of evil, and the valiant warriors who fought them. Make the world a place where the narrative of this ancient, ongoing battle is told. Make us do more than just play a video game, instead make us witnesses to the grand history of this very real and dangerous world we're in.
My ideas for how to bring back that authenticity to the world:
- Have more hard hitting elite creatures throughout the world. That sense of danger needs to be present.
- Have group quests be more challenging. A group quest for (3) should not be soloable.
- Make classes unique again. Unique buffs and abilities do so much to make the world feel diverse and real.
- Make questing more difficult, requiring some thought and engagement to conquer your foes....
- Hogger. Why do people know this little NPC from Elwynn Forest? Because Hogger was a memorable part of the WoW experience, memorable because he kicked peoples asses. Now Hogger is just another mob and new players wonder what is so special about him. Hogger is a microcosm of WoW: the thrill of overcoming a challenge is much more memorable than the monotony of button spam questing.
The hot button topic is of course LFD/LFR tools, and i'm sure no one will be surprised to hear that I am against them. But let me explain why. To me, when LFR was introduced, it was Blizzard essentially saying "Philosophically, we are now prioritizing convenience over the integrity of our created world." When they decided to make 'multiple versions' of the same raid bosses (LFR, Normal etc), the power and authenticity of those bosses goes out the window. How can I get immersed in the dark, gripping lore of the world, following the story of powerful evil forces and then finally seeing this evil face to face, only to be able to defeat this mighty power with a ragtag group of LFR misfits? And then furthermore he's not even really dead! I fight him again later, this time with a few more hit points.
I know people will probably say "No one cares about lore, get over it," or "Everything respawns anyway, the same boss appearing in LFR and Heroic is no different." To me its all about keeping the authenticity of the world intact. When you start to stray down the path of designing things out of convenience or accessibility, the game has lost its most core, fundamental attribute: Its World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft is not defined by LFR or valor points or CRZ, World of Warcraft is defined by the story of the world we play in. If a game was only about content and not story, we would all be perfectly happy playing checkers and pong forever. What made WoW so gripping was its sense of grandeur; being able to tap into the history of the place, even if it was in subtle ways. When the integrity of the Warcraft story is compromised in the name of 'accessibility', we have lost the very thing that drew us into the game in the first place.
TLDR: The focus needs to return to recreating and maintain the integrity of the world, not designing things out of accessibility and convenience.