Although I used to be quite involved in and interest in World of Warcraft, I gradually grew tired of it, and about a year ago I canceled my account. It wasn’t that I was bored with it. I still wanted to play it, but the game had moved away from me, and no longer offered the experience it once did. When Wrath of the Lich King came out I was so far behind the curve I decided to cancel rather than upgrade. Here are some thoughts on what a game might do to get me back.
I thought I was a fairly serious player, but by the standards of most raiding guilds I was a relatively casual player. My main toon was at maybe 45ish when the Burning Crusade was released, and I didn’t ding 70 on a single toon till just before Lich King dropped. I’ve never gotten a Horde toon to 70. I’ve done very few raids or end-game dungeons. There is a lot of content I’ve never seen. And honestly I have little interest in seeing nerfed content with Level 80+ raiders and a group of folks who use add-ons and wikis to tell exactly how to precisely optimize each dungeon and quest. The game was a lot more fun in the early days before it became mostly an addiction for min-maxing button mashers.
I wish there were a way to instance more of the content so that I could effectively start from the beginning and experience it with others. The current situation is more like a comic book than a novel: e.g. reading Batman today you’re hopping in deep in the middle of the story (a major problem in comics for attracting new readers). Whereas with a novel series like Harry Potter, you start at the beginning and work your way through no matter whether you read it in 1998 or 2010.
I do like WoW’s general sense of world progression and world events, and I don’t want to see that go away. Nor do I want to play on an empty server. However I do wish there were a way for a character starting today to experience Ahn’Qiraj, Naxxaramas and the rest of it.
Here’s a thought: suppose servers had an in-game calendar? A new server could be started with an in game date of November 1, 2004 and run from there? Or maybe not even all servers start this way, but some do? Perhaps the calendar can be compressed a bit so eventually the servers catch up (but not too quickly). Allow characters to transfer backwards or forwards in time by switching servers if (and only if) they’ve reached or haven’t reached certain milestones. For instance, if my mage is still 45 when BC is rolled out to her server, let her move backwards to a v1 server. If a warrior dings 60, has killed Onyxia, and cleared Stratholme, Scholomance, and The Molten Core, let him transfer up to server at the next level.
Don’t allow gold and loot transfer between time periods. Do use the original experience tables. Don’t offer Recruit-a-friend and other bonuses. Blizzard doesn’t need to reproduce every bug from the early days. However the point is to allow the old content to be experienced as new at a leisurely pace by those folks who haven’t seen it yet, not to be raced through on the way to Level 85 by someone leveling their seventeenth alt. Nor should people playing on a new server have to compete with gold-capped alts outfitted in T8+ gear. (On the flip side Blizzard might want to start Level 58+, 68+, and 78+ servers where anyone can roll any class at that level to start off to recruit more players who are bored with the original content.)
While you’re at it, if there’s any way the content can be more effectively randomized (e.g. different maps on different servers; more unpredictable distribution of monsters and loot) do it. Quest Helper and Thottbot have completely eliminated the magic and mystery that Warcraft once held. And I don’t just want to not use these cheats myself. I don’t want to play with people who use them. Today the only real unpredictability and interest the game holds is PvP. World content is just too well known and documented. Even new players are rapidly spoiled.
I’ve tried other games (AOC, Aeon, Warhammer) but none of them came close to matching WoW’s usability, interest level, and depth. I’m considering reactivating my account for Cataclysm and see what the new races are like. Blizzard says they’re reinventing Azeroth and levels 1-60 in this release with new towns, new quests, and more. That could be fun. However if the game just turns into another race to 85, with every tip and trick already spoiled by Quest Helper and Thottbot, and where 90% of the players have already run three toons through in beta, I won’t stay long.
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