1. Titanforging/Warforging.
Many people whine about it but few manage to explain why it is a problem. Sure, when you get that 425 ilvl Titanforged item you feel awesome but it makes every single other ilvl drop below that cap feel completely unrewarding. Looting an epic item should feel epic, not “oh, this is just the base version. screw my luck”. Remove TF/WF and make items more scarce.
2. Itemization
8.1, 8.1.5 and 8.2 seem to make steps in fixing this problem where getting new items isn’t fun but there is more to it - in the old days items were horribly itemized. But that is precisely why that one item with good stats felt so memorable. A named item with a special effect themed after its previous, now dead, owner will stand out among all the other items with only stats on them. Not every quest, dungeon and raid item has to have perfectly itemized stats, you know? Items should have effects that give special bonuses under certain conditions out there in the world. A Shaman trinket which allows them to cast Frost/Water-based spells while moving when near a river “River’s Flow”. A hunter item with a passive that increases their damage done to targets when facing them from above (standing on a hill/castle wall for example) “Higher Ground”. A druid could deal 20% extra Nature damage while in a forest. A hunter helm item which has the following effect: Upon slaying 10 different types of beasts, all non-elite beasts in the zone become neutral to you. Lasts until death.
3. Class design
You can’t have meaningful progression if you get an ability every 15 levels and sometimes that ability isn’t even remotely interesting. It would be so much more unique and customizable if you get VERSIONS of abilities that you can choose from every level. You would be getting a new ability every level but the maximum number of abilities you have is still limited. This way you won’t have ability bloat but will have near-infinite customization and potential to go wild with cool synergy combos and epic ultimate abilities. Similiar to Diablo 3 but much more expanded.
4. Questing
You can’t have people immersed into your Game/Story if every second quest tries to humorize itself falling flat on its face because not every player’s adventure fantasy equals self-irony and silly puns. You can’t have people immersed into your quests and trials if every quest shows you a yellow dot/arrow showing you exactly where to go. People spend more time looking at their map than at the actual world. What is the point of having a quest description if you are just told where to go. What kind of design is this? Who thought that giving players a landmark they need to find in order to find their goal and then showing the actual goal as a yellow dot on the map would be a fun experience? Even if one would disable the yellow dot/arrow, quests in later expansions don’t give you any directions anymore so that would make it either impossible to find or a blind search, neither of which is fun. Rolo’s Riddle is one of the greatest questchains in this game. Short, barely rewarding, but fun. Why do you think so many people get hyped over secrets such as the Lucid Nightmare? Because they get to actually solve the problem themselves rather than being given the answer on a silver platter. You can’t have people immersed into your battles and conquests if there is no challenge whatsoever. I have so many cool abilities on my action bar that I never get to use in the open world. EVER. Slow? Why would I need that if a mob dies before it reaches me. Stun? Why would I need that if it would be faster to save that GCD and just use a damaging ability to 1-shot the mob. Sap/sleep/polymorph? Why would I need to use that if I can just AoE down all the mops in a pack along with the named Boss mob that they are supposedly guarding. Combustion/Shamanism/Avenging Wrath/Trueshot Aura? Why would I use those if the mob dies in one or two hits anyway? Conjure Food Table? Why would I use these if it would be faster to just walk to the next mob as my health will be fully regenerated by then anyway? Evocation? Why would I use that if my mana never ends even as an Arcane Mage. The world needs to be much much more dangerous. Leveling DOESN’T NEED TO BE A CHORE. It can be a journey. It used to be. But just increasing mobs health and damage wouldn’t be enough. Having to fight a mob for 30 seconds would be incredibly boring. Give them abilities that can be dodged, make abilities that require players to aim properly (aka Skillshots) or plan ahead (abilities that require timing, positioning, smart combination of elements - use lightning on a wet target). THIS is what makes a game immersive. Take a look at games such as Magicka. Enemies should have strenghts and weaknesses. A Fire Elemental should be immune to fire damage. Back in the days you would have frost and arcane spells as a Fire mage. Sure they would deal less damage than your main spec (Fire) but you can deal with this disadvantage. And if you can’t? Well call a friend, it’s an MMORPG for god’s sake. Or just skip the friend and pick a questline better suited for you. You cannot always win. That’s not fun. You can only truly appreciate victory after you’ve experienced defeat.
5. The World
Revamp all old zones the same way that you revamped Arathi Highlands (not like Darkshore - that is just halfassed work) - new textures, new object models, new creature models, new skybox, keep the music (even if you add new tracks, don’t make them repeat themselves on a loop. Have them play only now and then and let people enjoy the nostalgic old tracks. Nostalgy is a powerful emotion. Use it well). New storyline that is all connected. Don’t separate zones like you did in Cataclysm. In the past there used to be quests that led from one zone to another to a third one and then took you back to the first one. Long questchains that span across zones and even continents and connect the world into one. And don’t make each zone a tunnel with only one storyline and path. Give each zone several questlines that can be followed - Stranglethorn Vale has pirates, trolls, naga and ogres. You can follow the pirate storyline into Dustallow Marsh or go after the troll questline in Tanaris/Pandaria/Zandalar, you can choose to chase the naga storyline in Azshara/Stormsong Valley/Vash’jir or you can go after the ogres in Winterspring/Blasted Lands/Deadwind Pass, etc. Elwynn Forest has a Defias questline and a gnoll questline. One could lead to Westfall, the other to Redridge. Wetlands could have a dwarf questline branching into Arathi/Hinterlands and a questline about dragons going into Twilight Highlands. A player will not do ALL questlines. They will choose the one they want to do. They can’t be everywhere at the same time. Will you go to Outland or to Northrend? You go to Outland but other heroes will take care of Northrend. When you are done there you will get a summarized report of the events that happened on the other side so you can keep up with the general story. The story of Azeroth is one and the same for all, but each player chooses which part of it to experience and how to interact with it. There needs to be more lore in the actual quests. Dwarven questlines have always been my favourite because Dwarves like to dig up Titan and other artifacts/ruins and those are directly related to the story of WoW. Questlines in which gnomes and orcs argue about who punched a massive dragon are just… not funny or fun. Not when you are actually trying to save the world. Leveling should not be a filler story/experience. It should be a part of the main story and it should be just as important as max level content. Otherwise people will always try to simply skip it. Once you’ve dealt with the main threat in a zone, it should be phased so that you can’t see it anymore (can always speak with an NPC to phase you back if you want to help a friend). It’s cool to be able to enjoy a nice walk around those beautiful zones, maybe even let players make their own house in the now emptied of threats zones.
I posted this on retail forums but figured it would be nice to hear MMO-Champ's opinion on my vision as well. What kind of additions would you make to my ideas? What problems would you identify in my ideas? I am all yours. Thank you for reading.