One of World of Warcraft’s biggest problems is monotony.
How can Blizzard solve this issue?
We have some ideas…
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Theres no denying the fact thatWarlords of Draenorhasnt played out to be one ofWorld of Warcrafts strongest expansions.
Not all of the received content resonated well with the playerbase, either.
Despite all the negativity,World of Warcraftis still going fairly strong.
What changes am I prattling on about, exactly?
It applies to MMORPGs that are past their prime so to speak.
Lets take leveling inWoW, for example.
Lets say a player started duringThe Burning Crusade.
They may have even leveled a character on the opposite faction.
Seeing unexplored content is pretty awesome, right?
Fast forward to the end ofWrath of the Lich King.
Now that player likely has experienced a larger portion of the overall endgame ofWoW.
They probably dabbled a bit in raids and PvP.
They probably leveled a Death Knight and tried out another combat role, like tanking.
This time, that player probably chain ran dungeons to get that DK to level cap.
No harm in that, right?
Dungeons are pretty awesome.
So, what happened inCataclysm?
If that same player wanted to level fresh alts, they probably skipped as much questing content as possible.
Dungeons for the win.
Its all about that efficiency.
This meant choosing to skip certain annoying dungeons like The Oculus.
Dealing with newer players who didnt understand fight mechanics most likely became frustrating.
Many players began to feel this way aroundCataclysm/lateWotLK, but why, exactly?
One word: monotony.
Theres simply no easy way of getting around that monotony after youve played a game for 4+ years.
Blizzard answered with dungeon nerfs, EXP buffs, major class overhauls, and the heirloom system.
From a business point of view, these changes were the simplest way of easing that frustration.
They might have felt nostalgic and missed the challenge thatTBCdungeons brought.
They might have felt frustrated thatWoWhad changed so much.
But did it, really?
Isnt it the playerbase that has essentially changed?
The answer to that question is a little more complicated than you might think.
The playerbase of an older game has little choice but to change after monotony settles in.
This is due to the fact that, as humans, we naturally aspire to better ourselves.
A factory worker might set goals for himself to become more efficient or make less mistakes.
A professional MOBA player might try a risky move so that shave off a couple precious seconds.
This is why many players have a kneejerk reaction to blame Blizzard for poor behavior issues.
Some folks consider Timewalking to be a success.
Nostalgias a powerful force, but it cant break the chains of monotony completely.
As time passes, we become more efficient in games and become better gamers.
As we become better gamers, our games must structurally change to keep up with us.
This helps the game in more than one way, too.
The more friendships, guilds, and niches there are, the more players keep playingWoW.
Unfortunately, the current method of looking for a new guild inWoWis far clunkier than it should be.
The way in which server transfers are still handled inWoWis extremely cumbersome as well.
InRIFT, players can transfer characters between servers for free, albeit with a time limitation.
Blizzard has a lot of options here.
More merges also need to happen between servers with smaller populations.
Theres also the issue of the most difficult raid difficulty in the game currently: Mythic.
More changes need to happen, especially at the community-transferring level.
These continued structural changes will become even more vital as Blizzard releases additional expansions.
Its also a challenge.
Theres a lot of work to be done to ensure that the raids do more than appeal.
They need to appeal, yet also deliver.
Blizzards work isnt done yetnot by a long shotbut theyre on the right track.
This may help, but more is definitely needed.
BlizzCon 2015 may prove quite informative this year.
Stay tuned for moreLegionand BlizzCon content in the months ahead!
Laura Hardgrave is a staff writer.
